By Ned Soltz

If you could only purchase one comprehensive set of plug-ins for your NLE, the answer is simple: Boris Continuum Complete. Currently at a well-seasoned version 6, BorisFx offers Continuum Complete for AE (After Effects and Premiere), FxPlug (Apple Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Express), AVX (including Media Composer 3.5, Newscutter, Symphony and a version specific to Avid DS 10 or greater) and Sparks (Flint, Flame, Inferno and Smoke). Sparks remains at version 5 for the moment. The ability to support such a wide range of NLE and motion graphics/compositing packages is in itself a tribute to Boris. The fact that the performance and quality is consistent across all of these diverse hosts is nothing less than miraculous.
 
Boris Continuum Complete is a collection of over 200 filters in categories including 3D objects, Colors and Blurs, Effects, Keys and Mattes, Time, Distortion/Perspective, Generators, Lights, Shaders, Wipe Transitions and OpenGL. While the filter collection remains consistent across the various supported platforms, the filters are naturally subject to whatever features or limitations the host application offers.
 
For example, Fx Plug architecture offers fewer options for on-screen controls than do AE versions. The AVX version offers integration with After Effects, allowing the transfer of BCC keyframes created in After Effects to be transferred to the Avid timeline. Also, the AVX version now supports Avid’s new AVX 2 HUD UI along with the new advanced keyframing. The Fx Plug version allows real time previews through the fx plug architecture, while the AE version supports After Effect’s lighting and camera systems. The AE version lacks the preset browser found within the FxPlug version. FxPlug also allows filters to be combined in what is called a BCS filter, to be discussed below.
 
I’ll concentrate primarily on the AE and Fx Plug versions.
 
BCC is a massive package which at first could present a rather daunting learning curve. Not only does BCC provide useful and easily-accessed help files launched within your application, the Borisfx.com site offers training clips and tutorials which are frequently updated and announced to registered users. A wealth of third party training material is also available and even a number of training centers offer BCC instruction, a tribute to how widespread BCC is within the industry.
 
But BCC still can be used easily without considerable study of documentation or tutorials. Apply a filter to a clip as you would apply any filter in your respective application. Bring up its controls. Note that Boris provides a number of pre-set effects. You can even create your own look and save that as a future preset. Of course, parameters can be keyframed. For many users, that might be sufficient.
 
I strongly advise working through the tutorials and watching the videos. BCC offers so many options for visual creativity that I would hope that users take advantage of every feature that you can.
 
Moving beyond just the basics of applying a filter, note that many filters integrate a motion tracker and pixel chooser. Pixel chooser allows you, in a filter which supports it, to apply your effects to a specific portion of the image while the motion tracker will very accurately track an element to which you will apply the effect. In this case, I've applied a "witness protection blur" to the face of a rather famous piece of statuary at Rockefeller Center:

The motion tracker technology is borrowed from the same technology as Boris Red, one of the pioneer apps in the technology of motion tracking. In fact, a strong advantage of using BCC FxPlug is the ability to track within Final Cut Pro as well as a more accurate motion tracker than that found in Apple Motion. The control panel offers some suggestion of this:

Detailing all 200+ filters would pose an obviously impossible task. So I will just highlight a few of my favorite effects and features.
 
I’ll start with a new feature in the FxPlug version (so obviously Mac only and Final Cut Studio specific). A new category of filters is created called BCS filters. These filters leverage FxPlug’s ability to create filter units to perform multiple operations. The BCS Chromakey Studio filter combines key, matte choker and light wrap into one “filter.” Granted, you could achieve this applying three different filters, but it is so much more convenient to apply what appears to be one filter with multiple parameters. I have tended to use these much more within Final Cut Pro than within Motion. Motion versions up to Motion 3 have shown me less than dependable stability so I much prefer to work either in FCP or in AE for motion graphics. As of this writing, I have not completed sufficient testing in the newly-released Motion 4 component of Final Cut Studio to render any opinion whatsoever.
 
But speaking of keying, the keying capabilities of BCC are second to none. Regardless of the host application, I have found that the BCC Linear Color Key and BCC Chroma Key filters provide consistently fast and accurate results. I tend to use the Linear Color Key actually more than the Chroma Key filter, finding that it handles variations of color in poorly-lit keys with greater accuracy. This is the Chroma control GUI:

My favorite, though, of the entire BCC package, is the Motion Key. This filter allows removal of a moving object in the frame. We’re not just talking wire removal here; Motion Key can remove entire objects. Now certain specific criteria still need to be met. There needs to be sufficient differentiation between the moving foreground object and the background. And since this is strictly linear and has no ability to mask out any crossing foreground objects, you need to recognize the limitations. Moving background? No problem. The Optical Flow parameters within the filter is able to analyze pixels in prior and subsequent frames to determine exactly how to replace the background.
 
New to BCC 6 in AE, FxPlug and AVX versions are a whole series of 3D objects filters. Extruded EPS does require reading the documentation to understand how to bring in an EPS such as one created in Illustrator and apply 3D extrusions. The documentation warns in AE, and reading it is the only way to find out to avoid creating strange results, is to leave the layer a 2D layer and not to change it to a 3D layer.
 
Included in these new 3D objects are two new text filters — extruded text and type on text:

While I think that extruded text is often an over-used effect, BCC 6 does give you that creative option. You’re not required to share my tastes. But what is notable here is that text either imported as EPS or typed within the filter will remain vector based rather than bitmapped. No jaggies. And as in a dedicated 3D package, it is possible to apply lighting and material attributes to any object in any 3D objects filter. There is no other plug-in package that has such a feature.
 
While not new to version 6, the Optical Flow filters get a boost in version 6. Boris has been a leader in optical flow technology to allow very accurate temporal remapping and frame interpolation. This same technology underlies the Optical Stabilization filters.
 
For many users, the $995 price tag may be steep, particularly if you will only be using a specific category of effect. Boris regcognizes this and offers in AE and FxPlug versions only what is called Continuum Units. There are 12 units currently available at a price of $399 per unit. These include 3D, Chroma Key, Cartoon Look (seen below), Film Look, Glitters, Lens Flairs, Light Rays, Motion Key, Optical Stabilizer, Pan/Zoom, and Uprez. Motion Tracker package was just released at a price of $199.

The creative options that BCC offers are unlimited. Users can purchase the total package or the Continuum Units confident that they will be stable and will work as represented. There is no package like this on the market and — I repeat — if you only could buy one plug-in package, Boris Continuum Complete is the one.