Continuum, the storied flagship visual effects plugin from Boris FX, expands its AI-driven capabilities with its 2024.5 release. The collection, which delivers the post-production software industry’s most comprehensive toolkit, now includes four powerful ML-based effects.
“With this release, Boris FX doubles down on its ML strategy first introduced with the 2024 releases last year,” states Boris Yamnitsky, president and founder of Boris FX. “We’re excited to build upon Continuum’s AI technology with two new internally developed machine learning tools and significant improvement on the existing denoising models.”
“Artists tasked with slow (or fast) motion time warps on action sequences or sports promos will effortlessly create smooth crystal clear motion with Continuum’s new BCC+ Retimer ML effect,” continues Yamnitsky. “Additionally, unscripted series, newscasts, and documentary editors will save hours of work thanks to BCC+ Witness Protection ML. This innovative tool instantly finds multiple faces in a shot and makes hiding a person’s identity as easy as one click.
Machine Learning Tools
BCC+ Retimer ML produces unrivaled image quality on time warps with state-of-the-art ML models. The internal ML tech delivers smooth motion without the pesky artifacts traditionally associated with time-based effects. It also includes options to ramp up or slow down speed changes.
BCC+ Witness Protection ML automatically identifies and isolates human faces in a scene. The useful AI-powered tool features four ways to hide an identity: Blur, Mosaic, Brightness/Contrast, and Tint. Users can mix options to create a custom obscured look.
Continuum’s first ML-powered tool — BCC+ Denoiser ML — gets a boost with newly trained models that result in 2x faster render performances and more types of footage covered.
Creative Effects
Continuum 2024.5 also strengthens its massive plugin collection with eight new effects, updates to its fast 2D/3D particle generator, faster playback in the FX Editor, and a host-side compare option when applying BCC+ effects. View full product page.
BCC+ Color Link allows motion graphics artists, compositors, and editors to add stunning grades to clips by applying color from one layer and linking it to another. Users can choose 32-bit dynamic or static frame-by-frame color sampling. It also includes multiple blend modes and built-in glow and color correction tools.
The Key & Blend category adds BCC+ Edge Cleaner, BCC+ Light Wrap, BCC+ Linear Luma Key, and BCC+ Spill Remover to help make green screen clean-up easier. The Stylize category adds BCC+ Mosaic, the Transitions category adds BCC+ Mosaic Dissolve and BCC+ Polar joins the Warp category.
Particle Illusion gives users greater artistic control with new position path presets, the ability to replace an emitter after creating a complex animation, and a parameter search function.
Pricing & Availability
Continuum is available as a plugin with monthly/annual subscriptions, upgrade & support plans, and permanent licenses. Host application support includes Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, Foundry Nuke, Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve, and VEGAS Pro. See pricing.
Continuum customers on active subscriptions or upgrade & support plans receive the 2024.5 product release as a complimentary update.
