The future looks very good for Boris FX

We take a look at some of the major new features in the forthcoming Boris FX update

I stopped by the Boris FX booth at NAB 2019 and got a nice overview of some of the new features coming in the next release. Some were still a bit buggy since they were still in beta, some of which were tied to the Resolve release cycle.

Boris is looking into taking advantage of the new correction layers in Resolve 16, but since that's in beta there's no way to estimate when Boris' effects will be able work in the edit page.

Particle Illusion is getting some nice updates, one big one being the ability to use custom sprites. Another more fun one is forces and collision objects, both of which will be trackable using the built in Mocha Pro engine, so it will be possible to place a collision object on an actor and track it with that actor. The same will be true for forces as well.

The Boris Title Studio will be able to import models created in Maxon's 3D software Cinema4D, using an OpenGL renderer. The material options in Title Studio even include vertex shaders so that it can deform and even shatter the geometry, allowing for quite a bit of creative freedom.

While it's no replacement for a high end production renderer like Maxon's or any of the options like Redshift or Arnold, it's integrated and pretty much realtime as long as your GPU is powerful enough.

Sapphire now has a Pixel Sort effect, with which Boris was demonstrating some interesting grunge and video glitch effects with. As with most Sapphire effects, it's very flexible. Be prepared to lose some time having fun with it.

Lens flare designer

A new lens flare designer may not sound all that exciting, until you account for how often lens flares appear in films, and how many are designed using Sapphire. One of the benefits in the update is to make available more presets, and one is to make designing lens flares easier.

The Whiplash transition takes the Sapphire Swish Pan and adds options for smoothing or bouncing the stop to add an organic feel to a simulated whip pan.

It's also getting some GPU love, at least for GPUs that support CUDA.

Mocha Pro now has an Essentials interface which is designed to be simple, both to provide an easier entry into using Mocha and also to provide a more task-specific interface to make simple tracking tasks faster.

Mocha's new magnetic splines and snapping are however the big chart topping features; the magnetic spline makes complex masks far easier to draw than before, and the snapping feature facilitates rapidly cleaning up tracking glitches.

These updates promise to make rotoscoping a lot easier.

And like everything else these days, ever more of its functionality is GPU accelerated; this time Boris has added object removal to that list.

OFX

For Resolve users, the improved OFX implementation in Resolve 16 is enabling better integration for the Boris effects suite. Sapphire plugins like the Effect Builder will have a second port enabled so that the Builder can include a background clip, and the Transition Builder will be available in the Edit page. There are currently some problems with the Boris suite in Resolve because Resolve is in beta, so Boris is working with Blackmagic Design as well as keeping track of problem reports and feedback from users to keep improving its Resolve integration.

If you've been debating the Boris FX suite, these updates might be enough to win you over.