By Brady Betzel

Back in May, I reviewed Boris FX’s Continuum 2020.5 and Sapphire 2020. Both have some exceptional tools and sparkles to add to your videos. Now I’m going to tackle Mocha Pro 2020 and 2020.5 as well as the Silhouette 2020 and 2020.5. For an added bonus, I’ll touch on the new Silhouette Paint Plugin as well.

First let’s talk pricing: the Mocha Pro 2020.5 stand-alone + multi-host option runs $1,495 for a new license; multi-host (Adobe, Avid, and OFX) runs $995; and the individual apps run about $695 per app. There are a bunch of options for bundles, which you can put together on the BorisFX website.

Silhouette 2020.5 costs $1,795 for a new license of the stand-alone app, and Silhouette Paint is available as a subscription-only pricing option for an annual price of $195 for Adobe, $395 for OFX or multi-host for $595. And if you buy the stand-alone Silhouette option, the Silhouette Paint plugin is included.

So what is the difference between Mocha and Silhouette? In a nutshell, Mocha is a planar tracker at heart that happens to be very good at helping with rotoscope work, object removal and more. Silhouette is like Mocha’s sibling: a paint, rotoscope and compositing application that has Mocha planar tracking built in. Prior to the Silhouette 2020 release, Mocha integration required an extra fee, but Mocha is now built in at no additional cost.

Let’s break Mocha Pro 2020 (and 2020.5) and Silhouette 2020 (and 2020.5) down individually.

Mocha Pro
Mocha Pro does planar tracking, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a texture tracker. Typically, when tracking points, you are tracking a single pixel or group of pixels inside of a user-defined search area. With a planar tracker like Mocha Pro, you are tracking contrast and texture over time, which works particularly well on objects that have flat surfaces with texture — think of a stucco wall or a billboard.

In a practical sense, I use Mocha for blurring license plates and address numbers. These blurs may have perspective shifts or people walking in front of them that I need to cut out (aka rotoscoping), and Mocha makes these jobs easy. I also use Mocha in conjunction with Continuum and Sapphire when using plugins like BCC Remover, BCC Corner Pin Studio and more. Mocha Pro can lock a track to an object better than most other trackers available.

So why would you need Mocha Pro versus Mocha built into After Effects, Continuum and Sapphire? Mocha Pro offers much more than the standard Mocha or Mocha AE, including GPU-accelerated tracking, GPU-accelerated object removal, in-depth masking with edge-snapping (a huge help), stabilization, camera lens calibration, 3D Camera Solver, stereo 360/VR support and much more.

In versions 2020 and 2020.5, there are even more updates that separate the versions. Mocha Pro 2020 has brought the new Mega Plate module, which helps build a literal “clean plate” from your video footage. So if you need to perform a set extension, sky replacement or other VFX technique but need a clean plate of the scene, Mocha Pro’s Mega Plate will stitch one together from video footage automatically.

Another very helpful update is the Area Brush. The Area Brush helps when making a rough garbage matte around an object and works by painting over the surface you want a matte around and clicking “Quick Mask.” At first I was skeptical, but now I use it 60% of the time. Using automatic edge snapping with the Alt+s shortcut in conjunction with Area Brush will take the rough garbage matte and help tighten it to the points with the greatest contrast. Edge snapping can save you many minutes when fine-tuning a track or roto. In the Mocha Pro 2020.5 update, the Area Brush can now fill gaps for you so you don’t have to fill in the entire shape by hand — the Mocha robots will do that for you. Instead of having to paint the entire object, you can paint just around the outside and click Fill Gaps to fill in the rest of the object you are masking.

In Mocha Pro 2020.5, there are some under-the-hood updates that are immense time-savers. The top update, in my opinion, is the boost in render and playback speed. Boris FX says it improved the motion blur render speed by up to four times, but I think the whole app feels four times faster. The perspective tracking seems to lock on better, especially with very long and narrow shots. It’s much snappier and easier to play back.

Some other updates include the new Gmask Tracer data export for Autodesk Flame users. Boris FX has also removed reliance on the QuickTime library, so you no longer need QuickTime installed to use different footage codecs. In fact, you can actually work with more formats now, like AVCHD and MXF, thanks to the new Gstreamer engine. Finally, you can work with color-managed media directly inside of the stand-alone Mocha Pro app or plugin using the OpenColorIO integration, which I mentioned in my Boris FX 2020 review.

I really wanted to get my head wrapped around all the new features in the Mocha Pro 2020 and 2020.5 update, but what really caught my eye was the Mega Plates. If you’ve used the automatic Object Removal module, you know how magical Mocha Pro is. If not, go take a look on YouTube. It is unreal. So, naturally, I had the same expectations for Mega Plates. Some were met and some were not.

Working on Avid Symphony with the Mocha Pro plugin went smoother than I thought it would. I didn’t crash and Mocha Pro was snappy and rendered surprisingly fast. I even added text to my Mega Clean plate result inside of Adobe Photoshop, brought it back into Symphony, applied the Continuum Pan and Zoom effect, and created an entirely new (and much steadier pan) with the text from Photoshop.

To make the Mega Plate, you need to track the entire image (bump up your “Min % Pixels Used” and most likely uncheck Perspective, Shear, Rotation and Scale, keeping just Translation, if possible) by drawing an X-spline or Shape around the entire shot, also accounting for the pan or tilt that will happen. Using the Uber key, you can readjust your bounding box to encompass the entire move. Once it has been tracked, open the “Mega Plates” tab, park on an easy-to-remember frame number, hit the render icon (the cog wheel between the tracking arrows) and — boom — your Mega Clean Plate will appear. r.

A while ago, I shot some shaky UHD footage on a Sony a7 III and transcoded it into a 1080p project. I was eager to see how Mocha Pro would handle it. Well, Mocha Pro tracked it fine, but the clean plate had some edges that needed to be smoothed out. It definitely wasn’t perfect like some of the Boris FX demos show, but that’s not just Mocha Pro — lighting shifts need to be smoothed out by hand in an app like Photoshop with tools like Dodge and Burn.

The ability to make a clean plate itself is amazing (and fast). To render out a quick PNG from Mocha Pro: File > Export Rendered Clip > PNG (or whatever file type you want to work with) > Enter the frame number you chose earlier (this is why you should pick an easy one to remember, like 100) > Export. Then open in Photoshop and do your work. Save the new image back out, and use something like BCC Title Studio or BCC Pan and Zoom to use the full resolution of the image for your work.

From the 1920×1080 video I was working with, Mocha Pro’s Mega Clean Plates feature was able to create an image that is 4992×844. And while it does need a little cleanup in Photoshop, the result from Mocha Pro’s Mega Clean Plates is remarkable. I threw a hand-held shot at it, and it essentially spit out something usable. I can see how Mega Clean Plates can really change your compositing game inside of Symphony or any other NLE in a few minutes. Text compositing, crew or clone removals or a recreation of a Map pan or tilt from a video shot — Mocha Pro Clean Plates has the same magic that Object Removal has. In fact, the clean plates you create can be used with Object Removal.

Mocha Pro is high on my list of all-time best plugins. The tracking is amazing, and it doesn’t require learning a whole new paradigm to get it working right. After a few lessons and trial and error, you will be using the Insert, Remove, Mega Plate and Lens modules constantly. But now that Silhouette is part of the Boris FX ecosystem, Mocha Pro

Silhouette
Silhouette is a somewhat new addition to the Boris FX library of plugins and apps. Silhouette is a nodal-based paint (including clones), roto, beauty tools and compositing app. If you’ve ever used Fusion or Nuke, then you will be comfortable in the nodal-based interface. If you’ve never used a node-based compositor before, you are in for a treat. At first it can be a little disconcerting, but once you understand the flexibility of the input/output connections, your brain will expand.

What is really important, though, are the new features in the Silhouette 2020 and 2020.5 updates and the all-new Silhouette Paint plugin for Adobe and OFX apps. First request for Boris FX: I wish this plugin was made available for Avid Media Composer. One of the best tools around is the Avid Paint Tool. The Avid Paint Tool is a Swiss Army knife for Avid editors: It blurs, clones, paints, sharpens and more. The only thing missing is Mocha’s tracking. If Boris FX could add Media Composer to the Silhouette Paint plugin compatibility list, I think a lot of editors would be happy. And for those wondering how it compares, Silhouette Paint is like the Avid Paint tool but on steroids.

The Silhouette 2020 stand-alone app has some big improvements, including magnetic splines with the always exciting edge snapping, RotoOverlay previews, weighted keyframe creation, dodge brush, burn brush, detail brush, and Mocha integration for no extra fee. In the Silhouette 2020.5 update, Boris FX has added node favorites, hold nodes for freeze-frame work, Onion Skinning view and more.

While Silhouette is an incredible piece of software, Boris FX has listened to its customers’ requests for a simpler (and cheaper) version and has created a plugin version called Silhouette Paint. Silhouette Paint is compatible with Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects 2020, Nuke, Blackmagic Resolve, Fusion, Flame and Vegas Pro. Silhouette Paint does not contain the full Silhouette tool set, but it does contain 32-bit color, HDR paint tools with AutoPaint recording system, paint tools and Mocha tracking.

I had never used Silhouette before, so I was excited and a little intimidated to be honest. I really like to stay within one application if possible, mainly for speed reasons, and Silhouette Paint can help me stay in one ecosystem. So I decided to focus on the Silhouette Paint plugin for this review. I dove right in and followed along with some of the great BorisFX tutorials available. I would specifically tell anyone starting out to watch the five “Getting Started” videos with Ben Brownlee.

I decided to use the OFX version of Silhouette Paint in Resolve. I use Resolve a lot, and I’m not particularly adept at using Fusion like I am After Effects; I wanted to see if Silhouette Paint would do the trick and keep me inside of one single app and out of Fusion. For those thinking, but Fusion does all this, I know that Fusion can do similar things, but Fusion seems to take 10 nodes to do something that should take one, in my opinion.

I opened up Silhouette Paint inside of Resolve 16.2, and even after watching lots of tutorials, I found myself a little lost. I had to watch the tutorials, over and over until I finally got comfortable. But once I got comfortable I found myself wanting to take Silhouette Paint way beyond what it was intended to do. The main reason why Silhouette Paint is so fast is that it is raster based. I found myself wanting to adjust paint strokes after I painted them, but that can only be found in vector based paint tools. The vector based paint tools are often slower and a little trickier to get working. Once I got the hang of Silhouette Paint, and understood what it was built for, I was off and running. Within two minutes I had tracked and cloned the garage windows using the built in point trackers, but with way more control over the clone than in standard cloning apps or plugins.

Summing Up
In the end, Boris FX has always been the leader in third-party plugins for Media Composer with Continuum and Sapphire. More recently Mocha Pro has become my other favorite plugin, and now Silhouette Paint is coming in round out the VFX/editing toolbox.

Mocha Pro 2020.5 has upped the game in planar tracking with its huge under-the-hood improvements to motion blur rendering speed, planar tracking over long angles, and general snappiness inside the plugin and app. Silhouette 2020.5 and Silhouette Paint have really piqued my interest with their in-depth cloning and paint tools. And the best part is that Mocha is included in each of Boris FX’s products as a tracking option.

But if you want the special Remove Module or the new (and awesome) Mega Plates creator, you will want to invest in Mocha Pro. With the role of editor widening to include VFX work, there is no plugin set worth more than Boris FX’s Continuum, Sapphire, Mocha Pro and Silhouette. I use Continuum and Mocha multiple times a day when blurring faces or license plates and removing camera people. On the conservative side, I can say they both save me hours of time, and time is money. Continuum, Sapphire, Mocha Pro and Silhouette will pay for themselves and make you money in just a few jobs.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and The Shop. He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.