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Review - Boris Continuum Complete 7 for AE

Everyone, whether you are a professional in the field of editing/vfx or just starting out, has heard of Boris FX.  In a way, their plug-ins have defined effects work for editors for years.  Anyone who purchases Media Composer gets a copy of BCC (always the previous years version), and anyone working in Final Cut Pro know’s the very familiar Boris 3D Title (an interface common across all of their text based effects).  They have taken great strides to get their products in the hands of users.  But, as we know, that isn’t always a good thing.  Let’s see if BCC7 is worth adding to your shiny new copy of After Effects CS5.

WHAT YOU GET AND HOW IT WORKS

This one is a little tricky, as it’s tough to figure out where to start.  Previous to version seven, BCC’s filter line up was already stacked to the rafters with excellent plug-ins.  We were already blown away in version 6 with the inclusion of 3D Objects (Extruded EPS, Extruded Spline, Extruded Text, Layer Deformer and Type on Text).  Believe it or not, there were a total of fifteen new plug-ins in version six, but the 3D ones overshadowed everything.  Previously you had to go to a different third-party plug-in company to get 3D text in After Effects.  Not anymore.  But, where do you go from there?  Well, how about adding another tool that AE artists desparately needed, but again, had to go to another third party plug-in company to get.  Say hello to Beat Reactor.  A simple to use, yet extremely powerful tool (I don’t call it a plug-in, as it is more of a tool) to sync your animations to sound.  Now, I can go on for quite a while and talk about why I think Beat Reactor is great, but as the expression goes, the proof is in the pudding, so here’s a tutorial I did on Beat Reactor, and you can see exactly what I mean..

Follow up Beat Reactor with 3-Way Color Grade, an excellent primary and secondary color correction tool that combined with the integrated masking tool (I love the Egg-Shape mask tool), the BCC Motion Tracker and the new Compare feature (see your footage before and after the effect has been applied) make this a go-to effect for me for any color correction work I need to do in After Effects.  Rounding out the new plug-ins are Noise Reduction, Lens Blur/Shape/Transition, Particle Array 3D, Pin Art 3D, Warp, Morph and Video Morph.  In total, eleven new effects, but many of the previous ones have seen additions to them, such as having the “Compare” feature, Motion Tracker, Pixel Chooser and even Beat Reactor integrated right into the effect themselves.  What was old is new again!  Now, I review a lot of plug-in packages (and I mean a lot), and I think I have just about every plug-in out there, and there are few plug-ins that I find myself going back to over and over again like the BCC7 Suite of effects.  If you haven’t tried BCC7 (or any version of BCC for that matter), head over to their website, and download the free fourteen day trial.  You won’t regret it.

PROS

- Real Extruded 3D text and EPS extrusion right in your NLE/compositing program

- 3-Way Color Grade, Beat Reactor and Noise Reduction lead the “New Filters” charge

- The best of the best are Continuum Units

- Presets, Presets, Presets

- New “Compare” feature

- With BCC7, you probably don’t need to buy any more plug-ins.

- Support for 32 and 64 bit versions of AE (back to version seven of AE)

- New Support for Sony Vegas

CONS

- Not all new effects are included in all bundles

To be perfectly honest, It’s very rare for me to work on an intermediate to advance After Effects or NLE compositing project without using one or more BCC plug-in in the mix.  If you don’t have BCC7, you and your clients are missing out.  BCC7 will probably be at the top of my 2010 top 10 list, and gets my highest recommendation.

Kevin P McAuliffe is a Senior Editor at MIJO, in Toronto, Canada.  As always, you can send him an .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or follow him on Twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/kpmcauliffe .

FTC Disclosure: I have not been offered any consideration or compensation from Boris FX for the review/editorial of this product(s).

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