Boris FX announced a pair of acquisitions, bringing SilhouetteFX and Digital Film Tools into the fold alongside its Sapphire, Continuum, and Mocha Pro offerings.
Silhouette won a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year for its work in roto and paint software, which incorporates a licensed version of Mocha’s planar-tracking technology. Digital Film Tools is well known for its broad array of VFX software including tools for simulating camera optics, film stocks, and grain, color-correction, masking and image matting, generating light-ray effects, and more.
The move shows that Boris FX remains in expansion mode, following its acquisition of Mocha developer Imagineer Systems in 2014 and its purchase of GenArts in 2016.
Paul Miller (left) and Marco Paolini of SilhouetteFX accept their Academy Award for Technical Achievement.
AMPAS
Silhouette’s founders, Marco Paolini, Paul Miller and Peter Moyer, will remain with the company under the Boris FX umbrella, working in partnership with the Mocha team to develop new products. The existing Silhouette and Digital Film Tools plug-ins will continue to be developed and sold by Boris FX, the company said, with Silhouette adopting a schedule of annual releases and offering new subscription options.
“Silhouette fits perfectly into our product line with superior paint and advanced roto tools that highly complement Mocha’s core strength in planar tracking and object removal,” said Boris FX CEO and Founder Boris Yamnitsky in a prepared statement. “Rotoscoping, paint, digital makeup, and stereo conversion are some of the most time-consuming labor-intensive aspects of feature film post-production. Sharing technology and tools across all our products will make Silhouette even stronger as the leader in these tasks.”
Silhouette 2020, scheduled to ship next month, will be demonstrated by Boris FX at IBC in Hall 7, Stand A65 of the RAI convention center in Amsterdam.
