Boris Red 3GL

Review of previous version of Boris Red (ver 2.1)

Boris FX released Boris RED 3GL in April 2003 at NAB.

Product Description

Boris Red is the only solution for editors who require broadcast-quality features for titling, effects compositing, and 3D directly inside their nonlinear editing system. Red 3GL’s seamless integration is unsurpassed — editors, effects artists and compositors experience the performance, workflow and breadth of features to meet the demanding requirements of cutting-edge production. Save time and money by using one interface, in one system. Get the results you need, where and when you need them. Boris Red integrates advanced 2D and 3D compositing, industry-leading software DVE technology, robust 3D creation and animation, native vector titling, motion tracking, vector paint, rotoscoping, and Adobe Illustrator file animation and extrusion and more, all in a single plug-in application. Red 3GL is a powerful new version that gives you more creative options so you can enjoy your work more than ever. You get instant gratification, seeing the results of your work immediately. 

RED 3GL New Feature Highlights

OpenGL Hardware Acceleration
Expanded 3D Effects Environment
2D and 3D Charts
Advanced Title Animation
Direct Placement and Editing of Titles on a Video Image
Over 40 New Filters
Optical Flow Technology
Instant Effects
Workflow Enhancements
Faster Renders
New Hardware and Software Integration

Features:

Boris Red 3GL is the first integrated 3D compositing, titling, and effects application to implement OpenGL for delivering unparalleled performance at an affordable price to over twenty nonlinear editing applications. With over forty dynamic new filters, enhanced tools, and innovative technologies, Red 3GL offers an expanded compositing and effects environment to maximize your creative potential.

OpenGL Hardware Acceleration 

Boris Red 3GL is the first time that OpenGL has ever been offered inside nearly two dozen nonlinear editing systems. Users with modern OpenGL cards should expect to see animations such as multiple 3D objects with materials and texture maps as well as animated lights and cameras, pan and zoom of oversize images, multiple upstream filters, and vector and 3D title animation play back instantly –– in many cases faster than real time. No delays adjusting sliders in the Controls window, no delays when scrubbing in the Timeline window and no delays when interacting with objects in the Composite window. These are just a few of the benefits that OpenGL provides.

Expanded 3D Effects Environment 

Boris Red 3GL with its broad feature set, increased performance, and OpenGL goes beyond fast effects creation. It offers the ability to integrate video compositing and 3D animation to maximize creative potential, providing the right tools for editors in the right place: their NLEs. Red combines the power of software, platform, and 3rd party hardware to deliver maximum plug-in performance inside an NLE. In addition to textures and materials for 3D extrusions, Boris Red 3GL also offers bump maps with a variety of presets (including rock and steel plate), all customizable and animatable.

2D and 3D Animated Charts 

Now you can tap into Boris Red’s powerful vector graphics to instantly create pie, bar, line and area charts using data generated from spreadsheets or input directly using a simple Chart Editor. Video editors and expert graphic artists can create professional animated charts rather than trying to squeeze broadcast-quality results out of a multimedia business application.

Vector elements can be combined with Red’s pixel-based graphics to create powerful presentations using imported vector or bitmap still images with corporate logos, procedural natural textures with wood grain and veined marble or even video to create compelling charts, in just a few clicks. 

Just one more click lets you extrude charts. Compelling custom animations are only another few clicks away or use one of many preset animations. In all, over 100 settings are available to let you create dynamic animated charts virtually instantly. 

Advanced Title Animation 

Red 3GL delivers significantly enhanced 2D and 3D title animation, one of Boris Red’s strongest features. Now, “Type On” provides instant animation of multiple parameters across words and lines in addition to individual letters or groups of letters. 

Red 3GL offers a full range of controls over jittering scale, position, hue, angle and more. New controls have also been added for the generation and animation of values such as timecode including drop-frame, date, time, and random characters. While other applications offer some of these features, only Boris Red offers them all for both 2D and 3D text.

Direct placement and Editing of Titles on the Video Image 

Just click the Composite window with the new Text tool and start typing, that’s all there is to it. The Text window is still available when you need it, but that may not be very often. Many formatting functions are now available in the Controls window. Styles can be applied directly from the Style Palette to the text onscreen, without passing through the Text window.

Once created, text elements may be accurately positioned using a baseline snap-to-grid function, with sensitivity set in the Preferences. Snap position is now set according to text block justification – left justified text snaps along the left side, and so on. 

Over 40 New Filters – Now Over 110 in All

Boris filters have long been known for combining ease of use, power, and exceptionally high-quality rendering to meet the most rigorous standards of film and broadcast clients. Many new filters will premiere in Boris Red 3GL for the first time including Dust and Scratches, DeNoise, Fast Blur, Glow Edges, Match Grain, DeGrain, Light Wrap, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, Spiral Blur, and Wire Removal. 

Boris Red 3GL also takes advantage of filters from Boris Continuum Complete such as Colorize, Cartooner, Emboss, Film Damage, Film Grain, Glow, Jitter, Light Zoom, Multi Shadow, Posterize Time, and Time Displacement. Most filters include the patented PixelChooser for dynamic masking and matte creation, as well as customizable presets to reduce learning curves and increase productivity.

Optical Flow Technology 

The Optical Flow filter uses a pixel-by-pixel time warp to create as many in-between frames as necessary for exceptionally smooth motion. This is in contrast to most other time filters that use frame blending to fill the gaps created when slowing footage down. Rather than the stuttering that those methods produce, Optical Flow can create output whose smoothness rivals overcranked film, even when starting with consumer-grade DV footage. Boris Red 3GL represents the first time that Optical Flow has been available inside many NLEs.

Instant Effects 

Boris Red 3GL reduces the learning curve for building effects to virtually zero with over 1,500 of the industry’s largest and most diverse collection of customizable preset effects. See animated previews of every effect in the Library Browser, now quickly accessed via a button on the Boris Red timeline. Preset effects can be customized and combined with other effects. You can add your own presets to the Library at any time. Numerous new presets take advantage of every aspect of the new features found in Boris Red 3GL. You can use new features right away, while gaining expertise to build your own. 

Enhanced Workflow 

Red 3GL introduces customizable keyboard shortcuts, saved custom workspaces, History Palette, and a Filter Palette with custom filter sets created by the new Plugin Filter Manager. Start by assigning the keyboard shortcuts for the functions you use most frequently. Use the Filter Palette to find the filters you need in just a few keystrokes. The Plug-in Filter Manager offers the unique ability to create custom sets of plug-in filters that can load and unload instantly, without waiting for the application to relaunch. The History Palette offers an easy way to step back through as many Undos as you need, offering easy access to the entire creative process.

Boris Red 3GL also contains a number of new features for advanced control of custom effects creation. Make your own choices for the render order of three-dimensional coordinates. Automatically generate new keyframe sequences for quickly customized randomized effects. Explore new interpolations for animation values like Bounce and Swing.

Slide tracks freely in the Timeline window, together with or separately from nested sub-tracks. Parameter values can be scrubbed and extensive enhancements have been made to mouse wheel support for both Macintosh and Windows. In addition to a variety of controls for faster effects set-up and navigation, the entire interface has been made more responsive.

Faster Renders 

Boris Red 3GL offers a a wide variety of render optimizations in virtually every area of the product. The time savings will be more dramatic on complex effects, but can be see in effects using 3D extrusions, procedural textures, large images or frame sizes, a wide variety of filters, and composites that combine static and animated elements. Depending on the specific effect, renders may be improved by an average of 30%.

New Hardware and Software Integration 

Boris Red 3GL greatly expands the range of compatible hardware to provide video preview of effects and titles to broadcast monitors, including the native FireWire connections built into many new computers. For the first time in Boris Red 3GL, video-out capabilities are also available in the standalone Boris Red Engine. Anyone with supported video hardware built into their computers, included with their NLEs, or provided through third parties, can view their work in Boris Red immediately on television monitors.

Red 3GL introduces support for Sony Digital Pictures Vegas (formerly Sonic Foundry Vegas Video), and adds support for the latest NLE releases from such companies as Adobe, Apple, Avid, in-sync and others. As always, Red continues to work with the latest industry-leading NLEs.

For editors who prefer to build effects outside their NLEs, Red 3GL now offers the option to import NLE sequences using Media 100’s Sequence Import plug-in or Automatic Duck Pro Import for Avid and Final Cut Pro. Nobody has ever offered the range of integration and workflow found in Boris Red. 

Red 3GL System Requirements

Apple Macintosh OS X 10.2.6 or higher.
Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP
512MB system memory required, 1GB or more recommended
750MB of free hard drive space for a full installation
Supported graphics card with 32MB VRAM required, 128MB or more recommended

Review of Boris Red 3GL coming soon

Boris Red Home Page

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