Boris Continuum Complete AVX 8.2.0 supports the following Avid host applications:
Macintosh:
Avid Media Composer 6, 6.5, and 7 running Macintosh OS™ X 10.7 and 10.8.
Avid Symphony 6, 6.5, and 7 running Macintosh OS™ X 10.7 and 10.8.
Windows:
Avid Media Composer Media Composer 6, 6.5, and 7 running Windows Professional OS™ 7x64.
Avid Symphony 6, 6.5, and 7 running Windows Professional OS™ 7x64.
Avid NewsCutter 10, 10.5, and 11 running Windows Professional OS™ 7x64.
What's new in BCC 8 AVX (Summary of major changes since BCC7):
• Support for 64bit Avid Media Composer, Avid Symphony, and Avid NewsCutter hosts.
• 8 New filters: Film Glow, Flicker Fixer, Lens Flare 3D, Organic Strands, Particle Emitter 3D, Stage Light, Videoscope, and Wild Cards.
• Improved support for Avid Real Time (Green Dot/RT) filters allowing most filters to operate with the Avid RT preview pipeline.
• Addition of the Integrated Beat Reactor to many filters.
• New/Revised Filter Categories.
Video intro to BCC AVX 8.2.0:
Senior product manager Dirk de Jong prepared this video introduction to the new real-time effect preview capabilities in BCC AVX 8.2.0 - a great way to get a quick overview of these feature enhancements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9r26ZyB1xE&hd=
Green Dot Real-time Preview Effects and Updated Effect Lists in BCC AVX 8.2.0:
The most significant new change in the BCC AVX 8.2 update for Avid Media Composer is that it now offers many more green dot effects then in the previous version. This means that many more of the effects are capable of real-time preview.
The BCC AVX green dot effects offer a useful real-time draft preview for judging the appearance and animation of unrendered effects. They will generally give much smoother results with the Avid timeline set to draft mode or high performance mode (green/yellow or yellow icon). The real-time preview will drop frames if necessary to maintain the overall timing of the playback. Factors such as how processor intensive the effect is, the resolution and data rate of the media, and the disk drive and processor speed of the system, can all affect the smoothness of the real-time preview playback.
Along with having many more effects capable of real-time preview, there are some changes to how the effects appear in the Avid Effects Palette. In previous versions of BCC AVX the letters "RT" were included on the end of the effect names for green dot effects. Now that a significant majority of effects are green dot effects, the "RT" on those effect names has been removed. In cases where both a green dot and a blue dot version of an effect have been maintained the blue dot version now has "MT" on the end of the name. This "MT" indicates that it includes the BCC integrated Motion Tracker which is not a feature that can be supported in the green dot versions. In other cases if an effect had a core feature which could not work in a green dot version those effects have remained as blue dot only effects (for example this is true for many effects in the Time category).
Also an attempt has been made in the 8.2 AVX update to clean up some clutter in how the effects appears in the Avid effect palette. In some cases where it used to be necessary to maintain a green dot and a blue dot version of the same effect now we are able to offer just the green dot version. The effects in the 2-Input category no longer offer any unique functionality since Media Composer 6 or higher allows for applying more kinds of effects as single track transitions.
None of these changes will result in missing effects when opening older BCC/Avid sequences using BCC AVX 8.2, but in some cases an effect applied in an older sequence might appear with "OBS" on the end of the effect name which indicates that it uses an effect which now resides in the BCC Obsolete category. Why would an effect be "obsolete" ? There are a few possible reasons. There could now be a green dot version with all the same functionality, or it could be from the 2-Input category whose effects have been moved to the Obsolete category, or maybe it's just an effect that has been superseded by an improved version. If an effect is found in BCC Obsolete that means we suggest seeking an alternate BCC effect when creating a new effect, but that including the lesser effect is necessary to maintain compatibility with older sequences that use it.
BCC AVX 8.2.0 – What's New:
• 8.2.0 contains numerous performance, quality, and stability improvements and is recommended for all users.
• Major improvements were made to the BCC support for Avid Real-Time (Green Dot / RT) filters allowing most BCC filters to now support an RT version and to allow a significant simplification of the effect lists. See the section above on Green Dot Real-time Preview Effects filters in Avid for more comprehensive overview of these changes. Summary of technical details:
-RT (green dot) filters can now render in 16bit, be applied to title mattes, and be applied in multi-effect stacks with preserved intermediate alpha.
-Most filters in AVX now have RT versions except those that require access to frames at alternate times which is not supported with Avid's RT rendering pipeline.
-Creating RT versions of the effects was handled in three ways depending on the previous state of the filter. Some filters which had no RT version previously have simply been converted into RT. Some filters which previously had both RT and non-RT versions have had the the non-RT versions moved into the obsolete directory since there is no longer a reason to use them. Some filters now have a non-RT "MT" version which provides access to the motion tracker which is not compatible with RT mode since it requires accessing frames at alternate times.
• To simplify the effect lists the Two Input Effect category and the Transition Effects category have been moved into the Obsolete directory since in recent editions of Media Composer you can apply the normal version of an effect to a two input transition and thus these separate Two Input versions are not required.
• Any effects in the obsolete directory now contain the suffix "OBS" in their name. They will still work fine when opening saved projects that reference them but they are not recommended for use when applying new filter instances since a better counterpart now exists in the main filter categories.
• Substantial performance improvements were made to Lens Flare 3D.
• Major upgrade to Stage Light yielding improved render quality and faster performance. Note that due to the many improvements in the rendering details you may notice some differences in the final render when opening projects created prior to this release.
• Major upgrade to Depth of Field rendering in the new particle filters offering improved render quality and substantial performance improvements.
• OpenGL transfer speed improvements in all of our OpenGL accelerated filters.
• Numerous performance improvements were made to our core rendering pipeline to optimize render times across the full filter set.
• Fixed problems with some images in Pan and Zoom (Mac only) where images sometimes appeared to have artificially low resolution.
• In Pan and Zoom the Video Safe Colors option now scales to the range 16-235 instead of just doing a hard clamp to safe levels.
• Numerous stability improvements in the 3D Objects filters.
• Fixed sporadic instability with BCC Deinterlace
• Fixed problem on Retina Display systems where the left side parameters in Text Window, such as Font, Size, etc. did not work for Extruded Text & Type On Text filters.
• Particle Emitter 3D has two new blend modes (Lighten and Screen) in addition to the previous Normal and Add modes for inter-particle compositing.
• Fixed several problems with the parameter View modes where options such as View Animated or View Edited would not always show the correct list of parameters.
• Fixed problem where Halftone looked very different at reduced resolution when using pre/post blur options.
• Fixed incorrect offset amounts when using the motion tracker Offset controls when applied to the Pixel Chooser Oval or Rectangle shapes. Previous projects which corrected for these incorrect offset amounts may need their offset parameters re-tweaked.
• Fixed longstanding problem with slight flickering along the edges in all BCC filters that used large blur amounts such as Pyramid Blur, Gaussian Blur, Film Glow.
• Fix problem with Lens Flare 3d where the Edge map results change when viewed at reduced resolution.
• Fixed the behavior of the Motion Tracker Auto-Man parameter in many filters.
• Fixed problems in 3D Objects filters with gaps in shapes jumping between filled and unfilled states while animating shape geometries.
• Fixed problems in BCC Prism when selecting Reflect for outside pattern.
• The Motion Tracker has been removed from all BCC transition filters to improve usability.
• The valid range for the Shadow slider in Page Turn has been expanded to allow for more visually prominent shadows.
• Fixed incorrect positioning in Rays when rendering in 16 bit.
• Fixed problems in Noise Reduction with the Cb noise reduction control being non-functional.
• Fixed non-random behavior in Film Damage where alternating patterns of dirt and hair seemed to progress diagonally across the screen over time.
• Fixed sporadic instability in Multi Shadow.
• Fixed problems with the Lens Flare 3D obscuration feature not fully obscuring the light.
• Fixed dark fringes around some soft particle edges in the new particle filters.
• Fixed incorrect results in BCC Radial Wipe and MultiStretch Wipe when radius is set to large values.
• Fixed problems where some disabled (hidden) controls were incorrectly enabled (unhidden) in response to changes in other controls.
• Preset loading was improved so that loading presets which don't reference all parameters will now reset any unreferenced parameters to default values. This resolves occasional unexpected parameter values (depending on the order in which presets were loaded) when sharing some presets between hosts or when loading some older presets in newer versions of the plugins.
• Fixed problem where some filters such as blurs would composite over black instead of over the background track when using the Geometrics controls in pre-apply mode.
• Fixed problem where compositing over a background track could show faint ghosting of the background track even in regions where the top track should have been 100% opaque.
• Fixed incorrect smoothing amount in the various texture generator filters and in Bump Map when using the Bump Smoothness parameter.
• Fixed problem when using the Smoke generator in Stage Light where the luminosity would appear to increase over the first portion of the effect irrespective of the random seed.
• Fixed artifacts in regions of 0 alpha when Smooth Tone is applied to alpha clips.
• Fix sudden jump in animation at some settings with Lens Transition in 16bit projects
• Fixed Scramble parameter in Posterize which was causing unexpectedly flickering colors
• Fixed the Draw Trigger area rendering when using the Lens Flare 3D Flare Trigger.
• Fixed problem with jerky motion in Pan and Zoom when panning while the scale A and Scale B params were nearly but not exactly identical.
• Fixed problem in Lens Flare 3D where using the Scale by Distance option caused the lens flare to increase size when project resolution was reduced.
• Fixed problem in Stage Light where setting the light model parameter to off failed to disable the light.
• Fixed problem where the Lens Flare 3D Orb custom layer shape failed to give the expected result.
• Fixed problem in LED where the results shift scale unexpectedly when dropping resolution.
• Fixed the the glow radius in Film Glow in interlaced projects so the results in green/green or final render now accurately match the results in yellow/yellow or yellow/green preview modes. Note this fix may cause changes to the apparent glow radius in previously created interlaced projects and the radius may need to be reduced slightly to achieve the same look in the newer software.
• The minimum motion tracker resolution was changed to Half instead of Full so it is available in default yellow/green preview mode.
• 3D Objects filters now behave as if Antialiasing is disabled when in one of the avid draft modes (yellow/yellow or yellow/green). This allows for more interactive draft mode previews. This draft mode option can be disabled if desired with the Follow Avid Draft Mode checkbox in the render group.
• The 5 new OGL particle filters now behave as if Antialiasing is disabled when in one of the avid draft modes (yellow/yellow or yellow/green). This allows for more interactive draft mode previews. This draft mode option can be disabled if desired with the Follow Avid Draft Mode checkbox in the render group.
• The Title Matte parameter group was added to Wire Remover and Caustics.
• Fixed problem where selecting None as the background when using the Apply to Title Matte option would cause the filter result to composite over the original matte shape rather than over a solid black background as would be expected for the None option
• Extended the range of the Target parameter in Stage Light.
• Improved help files for Noise Map 2 and Turbulence.
• Fixed several problems in 3D Objects filters where gaps in text or spline shapes would jump between filled and unfilled states as the shape geometry was animated.
• The maximum value for the Spawn Particles rate in Particle Emitter 3D was increased to allow for a larger range of behaviors.
• Added contextual param disabling/enabling in the BCC Turbulence Modulation Group
• Fixed problems in Damaged TV with lines not rendering off-screen.
• Fixed incorrect shape geometries in some Lens Flare 3D shapes in projects with non-square pixel aspect ratios.
• Removed the Spot+Shadows lighting option from 3D Objects.
• Fixed instability when conforming/promoting AVX1.5 effects on 64bit Mac AVX hosts.
• Fixed a sporadic memory leak in Pan and Zoom on Macintosh systems.
• Fixed Composite Choker problem where the Blur didn't apply correctly when using both Chokers.
• Fixed incorrect aspect ratio adjustments in Cylinder when applied in non-square projects.
• Fixed occasional unexpected repeat frames in Optical Flow leading to a unexpected stutter in the animation.
• Fixed problem with the Beat Reactor being doubly applied to Lens Flare 3D leading to params being modified by twice the amount they should be.
• Fixed problem with the Beat Reactor failing to apply in Glare and Damaged TV.
• Fixed rendering in BCC Prism when selecting Reflect for outside pattern.
• Fixed problem where the default animation was backwards in the uncommon scenario where an RT versions of a Transition filter was applied as an effect (as opposed to as single track transitions). Fixed a similar issue where the default animation was backwards when a non-RT "effect" version of a transition filters that didn't appear in the transitions category and didn't have "TR" in the name was applied as a single track transition.
• Numerous additional bug fixes.
BCC AVX 8.x Compatility Notes :
While in general your previously saved projects should render identically in the newer version, bug fixes and quality improvements can sometimes change the look of older projects. While every effort is made to ensure project compatibility, the following notable areas may see some change to the look of previously saved projects.
• The Film Damage fix in v8.2 for occasional non-random patterns of dirt and hair required changes to the random number generators used in this filter. While the overall look and feel of the results should remain the same, the specific random pattern of the elements may have changed.
• Due to fixes in random number generator pattern differences between mac and win projects, you may see differences between random patterns in saved BCC7 projects when opened in BCC8. The overall “look” will remain the same but the details of the random patterns may shift in some filters. Going forward you should now observe identical patterns of randomization when exchanging projects between Mac and Win hosts.
• Numerous quality improvements and bug fixes were made to new particle filters (Particle Emitter, Particle Array 3D, Pin Art 3D, Organic Strands, and Wild Cards) which may result in appearance changes in some saved projects.
• Stage Light has undergone major upgrades to its render quality which may result in appearance changes in some saved projects.
• Fixes to the way the Motion Tracker Offset is applied to Oval or Rectangle Pixel Chooser shapes may require manually re-tweaking the Offset parameters in saved projects.
• The Motion Tracker has been removed from all BCC transitions for improved clarity and usability. In the unlikely event that a transition was used with the Motion Tracker in a saved project, the motion path will need to be reconfigured manually.
• When taking an AVX project that uses BCC 3D Objects created on 32bit mac hosts (MC5.5 or earlier), and opening that project in MC6 or higher (Mac or Windows) Texture Files or Bump Files referenced in the 3D Objects' materials may not be found by the plugins and will need to be manually reset to get the effect to appear as expected. (In this case a warning is displayed.)
• Several render quality improvements were made to Film Glow, particularly when applied to content with an alpha channel. As a result of these improvements, Film Glow projects saved in 8.0.0 may render somewhat differently when opened in 8.0.1 or higher.
• The fix in interlaced Film Glow projects to make glow radius consistent between lower resolution preview modes and full resolution previews or final renders can require reducing the glow radius in previously created projects to restore the previous look.
• Improvements shape geometries in some Lens Flare 3D elements in projects with non-square pixel aspect ratios may cause some flare element to render with different horizontal stretch amounts in non-square projects.
• In previously saved projects, RT versions of Transition filters applied as effects (as opposed to as single track transitions) animated backwards by default. Also in previously saved projects non-RT "effect" versions of transition filters that didn't appear in the transitions category and didn't have "TR" in the name would also apply backwards when applied as single track transitions. These issues were fixed in BCC AVX 8.2.0, but if projects used these filters in this way in the past (not a common scenario) then the animation may need to be manually reversed to restore the previous behavior.
BCC AVX 8.2.0 - Known Issues and Limitations:
Known issues that are specific to Mac OS:
• When using the 3D Objects category of effects on Mac OS, enabling the "Transparent Object" checkbox will result in the object becoming fully transparent (so this feature is not useful on Mac).
• BCC Extruded Text and BCC Type On Text use a custom window for text entry and currently some changes that can be made through text window controls are not reflected in the preview within the text window (although they will be apparent in the effect when previewed/rendered back in the host). The following text attributes do not preview within the text window:
- Justification (when Word Wrap is not enabled)
- Top Down Text
- Right to Left Reading
- Negative Line Leading
- Italics (for fonts that don't include an italic typeface)
- Superscript and Subscript
• Tabs and Rulers are missing from the text entry window on Mac in Extruded Text and Type On Text which then means the Center and Right Justification buttons do not work.
Known issues that are specific to Windows OS:
• BCC Pan and Zoom supports 16 bit TIFF files on windows now, but it does not properly preserve alpha if the TIFF files contain embedded alpha channels. TIFF files containing alpha should be converted to 8 bit before being loaded into Pan and Zoom.
Known issues that apply to both Mac OS and Windows OS:
• In Media Composer 6.5 and higher you may find the alpha channel failing to propagate from the first effect to the second effect in a stacked multi-filter start/end setup. This only happens when the first effect is an 8 bit effect and when you are rendering in 16bit. We are working with Avid to resolve this issue. As a temporary workaround you can render in 8bit instead of 16bit or render in Media Composer 6.0 which does not show the problem.
• When using a host image layer as the particle type in Particle Emitter 3D, the particles can appear squished/stretched in projects with non-square pixel aspect ratios.
• The Beat Reactor audio graph becomes less accurate as the Frequency Resolution is increased to high values. As a temporary workaround use low values near the default setting of 32.
• In filters with more than one Motion Tracker point (e.g. BCC Witness Protection), saving/loading the motion tracker data only works for the first tracker point.
• BCC LED shows occasional mis-colored dots on Quadro FX 3500 cards.
• When stacked BCC filters including a 3D Objects filter are applied to a track over the top of another track containing a 3D Objects filter, occasional flicker can be seen in final render if all tracks are rendered together. As a temporary workaround, render the bottom track first and then render the top track as a separate step.
• The Beat Reactor propagation options generate unexpected results in Organic Strands. Use non-propagation modes which work as expected as a temporary workaround.
• Glyph fonts such as IMG Extreme or HolidayPi BT will sometimes render incorrectly or cause unexpected behavior in Extruded Text or Type On Text.
• When stacking multiple effects on a track and then rearranging the order of those effects, parameter errors may occur such as button parameters functioning as simple checkboxes instead of true buttons. We are working with Avid to resolve this issue.
• Effect stacks will occasionally display an error stating "Connect failed to connect" when preview at less than full resolution. This error does not affect final render and can be worked around by switching to full green/green preview resolution. We are working with Avid to resolve this issue.
• Using Depth of Field in Particle Emitter 3D with Cylinder particle shapes can cause clipping of the cylinder in some scenarios.
• In BCC Particle Emitter 3D, changing the Blend Mode in the Spawn group can unexpectedly affect the main particle compositing.
• As part of the new Motion Tracker workflow, if you change the tracker search width, target width, color space, or accuracy after an initial tracking pass, you must now reset the tracker data with the reset button in the tracker banner before starting a second tracker pass. (This extra step is not necessary if the tracker point picker location has changed.)
• In Type on Text the Line Leading in the text entry preview window does not accurately match up with the leading in the rendered result, and the leading may need to be adjusted to generate the desired final render.
• In BCC LED the elements may become partially transparent when using the Tint option.
• In BCC Glare the location of the individual glare elements can change when previewing at less than full resolution so to guarantee results match between preview and final render this effect should be viewed at full resolution while being configured.
• In BCC Glare the location of the individual glare elements can change when previewing at less than full resolution so to guarantee results match between preview and final render this effect should be viewed at full resolution while being configured.
• When using a video track to define a texture in the 3D Objects filters, the scaling of that texture can vary incorrectly when changing resolutions so effects that use layers as textures should be set up in full resolution (green/green).
• Lens Flare 3D and Particle Emitter 3D can sometimes show a bad frame the very first time they are applied during a session. Forcing a refresh will eliminate the bad frame and renders will be normal thereafter.
Copying Presets from Earlier Versions of BCC AVX:
To use presets created in earlier versions of BCC AVX, you need to copy the older presets from their previous preset location to the new BCC AVX 8 preset folder location. The folder name for presets made in previous versions of BCC AVX did not contain the suffix “8,” although the path was the same. Filter presets are located in individual effect folders inside the BCC Presets 8 folder.
Applying BCC Effects as Transitions:
BCC provides two methods to use effects as transitions (as opposed to the filters in the standard BCC Transitions category which are already customized to function as transitions). The first method is to apply the effect directly to the transition between two clips. The second method is to overlap two clips and apply a BCC effect to one or both layers depending on the desired result. Each method offers advantages. Applying directly to a transition offers the convenience of an Avid transition. For example, trimming and duration changes are easily made and you only have to render a single effect. However, to create a wider range of transition effects, you can use the second method: overlap two clips and apply a filter to each layer. This method provides greater control over parameters.
Applying BCC Effects to Titles and Mattes:
To apply a BCC effect to a title or to an imported matte, drag the effect onto the title. If you Option /Alt-drag to the effect, the effect is applied to the title as well as to any tracks beneath the title in the timeline. For example, to apply a Pyramid Blur to a title, drag the BCC Pyramid Blur effect onto the title. To apply a Pyramid Blur to a title and the background video, Option-drag the BCC Pyramid Blur effect to the title.
Applying Multiple Filters to Avid Titles and Mattes:
BCC AVX allows you to apply two or more effects to an Avid title or matte without affecting the background. For example, you could apply a BCC Emboss to a title and then blur it. The Title Matte parameter group’s Multi-Filter controls can also be used to apply multiple effects to existing keys, such as chroma keys, without applying them to the entire image.
Working with Presets and Effect Templates:
After you apply and adjust a BCC AVX filter, you can save the parameter settings by pressing the Preset menu and choosing Save. A dialog box allows you to name and save the file. Presets are only compatible with the filter in which they were created. For example, if you attempt to load a Cartooner preset into a Blur filter, the preset is ignored. However, you can also save PixelChooser parameters as presets. Boris Continuum Complete AVX includes a selection of preset effects for each filter. These presets are an excellent way to learn the capabilities of a filter.
Resetting Effects:
The Preset menu allows you to save filter settings independently of the media or project. You can return to the Boris Continuum Complete default settings or to a custom default that you create yourself.
Loading Preset Effects:
To load a previously saved filter settings file, you must first apply the same filter to your media. A list of existing presets also appears in the menu.
Saving Effects as Presets:
You can save favorite filter settings as presets and apply them to multiple projects.
Saving Effect Templates in a Bin:
You can save parameter settings in a bin as an Effect template, just as you save other Avid effects. Effect templates allow you to save effect parameters and use them again to create or modify other effects. Effect templates save parameters set at multiple keyframes.
Applying Effect Templates from a Bin:
To apply all the values from the template, drag the Effect template from the bin to either the Timeline or the Effect Preview monitor in the Effect Editor window.
Saving BCC AVX Effects as Custom Transitions:
You can now save custom transitions to the Avid Quick Transition menu for easy access. This means that custom BCC AVX transitions appear in the Quick Transitions dialog box.