Boris FX releases Continuum 2024.5
Originally posted on 27 November 2023, and updated for Continuum 2024.5.
Boris FX has begun its 2024 updates to its set of effects plugins for compositing and editing software, adding new AI-based tools.
Continuum 2024.0 features AI video denoising and upresing.
Continuum 2024.5 adds AI retiming and face detection.
New AI-based tools for denoising and upresing video
Continuum becomes Boris FX’s latest product to get new AI-based features, in the shape of new machine-learning-based video deonoising and up-resing tools.
BCC+ DeNoise ML, available for multiple host apps, removes low-light and compression artefacts.
BCC+ UpRes ML, currently only available for After Effects, upscales footage while preserving fine detail, with the option to zoom in to specific parts of the source clip.
Particle Illusion: generate sprites for particle systems from text prompts
Particle Illusion, Continuum’s particle effects system, also gets new AI capabilities, with the option to generate sprites to use with particle emitters from text prompts.
The functionality uses Stable Diffusion creator Stability AI‘s AI model.
Other new features in Particle Illusion include the option for particle lines to be true 3D objects, and new options for controlling inheritance of velocity.
Workflow improvements include a new Scale Project feature to upscale particle systems uniformly, and a UI Scale Factor to resize interface elements more easily.
New BCC+ Audio Visualizer effect generates visuals from audio sources
Other new features in Continuum 2024.0 itself include BCC+ Audio Visualizer, a new effect for generating patterns of lines, dots or circles matching an audio source.
The BCC+ Super LED effect added in Continuum 2023.5 gets a Fade Map to control the effect.
Updated 21 June 2024: Boris FX has released Continuum 2024.5.
The update adds two more AI-based tools, for video retiming and face detection.
BCC+ Retimer ML is an animatable retiming effect that produces smoother time warps with fewer artefacts than are “traditionally associated with time-based effects”.
It provides an alternative Continuum’s existing optical flow retiming.
BCC+ Witness Protection ML automatically detects human faces in footage, with options to obscure their identity with blur, mosaic, brightness/contrast or tint effects.
In addition, the BCC+ Denoise ML effect introduced in Continuum 2024.0 has been updated with a new AI model that promises “2x faster render performance”.
New color matching and chroma keying tools, and updates to Particle Illusion
Continuum 2024.5 also adds eight new effects, including grading tool BCC+ Color Link.
It enables users to color-match shots, linking color values from one clip to another, and supports full 32-bit float color processing, and over 20 blending modes.
The other new effects include a new polar warp, and spill removal, edge cleanup and light wrap tools for chroma keying.
Particle Illusion gets the option to translate, scale or rotate position paths, and the option to swap in new particle emitters while retaining position animations.
There are also a number of workflow improvements, including parameter search.
Since Continuum 2024.0, Boris FX has introduced separate pricing for Final Cut Pro users, with the FCP edition costing $295 for a perpetual license or $195/year.
Pricing and system requirements
Continuum 2024 is compatible with a range of compositing and editing software, including After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and Nuke, on Windows 10+ or macOS 10.15+.
It is priced according to host application, with new licences costing from $295 to $1,995. Subscriptions cost from $195/year to $695/year.
Read an overview of the new features in Continuum on Boris FX’s website
Read a full list of new features in Continuum 2024.5 in the release notes (Adobe edition)
Read a full list of new features in Continuum 2024.0 in the release notes (Adobe edition)
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