Review: Boris Final Effects Complete 5
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Publisher: Boris FX Trial Version: Click Here Review Date: September 1 , 2008 Reprinted with permission from MicroFilmmaker Magazine Final Score: 9.0 |
What you need to know.
When you first install Final Effects Complete 5 for Adobe After Effects (FEC5), you will notice that it appears to duplicate a lot of the plug-ins that come for free with Adobe After Effects CS3 Pro. I say “appears,” because when you actually dig into the package you’ll discover that FEC5 provides value that is significant over what comes with AE.
While FEC5 has some uses for filmmaking, its largest benefits are going to come for those projects that probably help you make money with your production studio so you CAN make your films. If you’re making money doing industrial training videos, mission videos, event and wedding videography, music videos, or freelance advertising, then you need to consider when it’s time to go HD and when you will need the 16-bit color that FEC5 supports, which the effects that come with AE don’t.
Not all plug-ins are created equal. FEC5 comes with about 800 presets. These presets enable you to get an effect setup “in the ballpark” if not exactly what you want, almost instantly. For production uses, those 800 presets are probably worth as much or more than the effects themselves.
The subtitle on the box for FEC5 should say “16-bit HD Effects with 800 presets”.
In this review I’m also going to show you examples and point out applications in filmmaking for uses of FEC5 effects that you might not have considered.
An overview of FEC5
Final Effects Complete 5 is a library of plug-ins from BorisFX that are mainly aimed at motion graphics. I don't use motion graphics much in filmmaking. It's quite useful for industrial training video, for some kinds of documentary, for wedding and event videography, music videos, and for advertising. For narrative storytelling, effects that produce unrealistic and artistic looks have limited uses. Most of my motion graphics work for filmmaking is in opening sequences or in ending titles.
I tested the plug-ins under AE CS3 on a Mac.
As I alluded to earlier, the first thing I noticed about Final Effects Complete 5 (FEC5) from BorisFX is that many of the plug-ins looked very, very familiar. Looking around I found that I had tone plug-ins named "FEC MR. Mercury" and another named "CC MR. Mercury". I also noticed two versions each of "Repetile, Kaleida, and Blobbylize". What in the world was going on here?
Apparently, as part of an acquisition, BorisFx inherited a library of plug-ns originally developed by CyCore FX (CC). CyCore was apparently permitted to recreate the effects, which they then sold to Adobe, and are now included as the "CC" effects in AE Pro since version 7.
At this point, you are probably asking the same question I asked: "Why would I pay for something I already have?"
The answer to that question is not evident on the surface. It's only after really digging into the package that you can start to understand the benefits of FEC5 over the CC effects that ship with AE CS3. The CC versions work with 8-bit color only, and the FEC versions support 16-bit color. The FEC versions have more advanced controls and options. Many of the FEC plugins work with FEC's PixelChooser, a color-selection utility that limits the range of effects. And many of the FEC plug-ins work with FEC Motion Tracker to animate the effects. But the real story is in the FEC plug-in presets. As mentioned earlier, FEC5 comes with about 800 presets that you access by pressing the "L" load button in the effects control after the effect is applied. These presets enable you to get looks and effects that come close to what you’re looking for in seconds; work that would take you hours of experimentation to accomplish without presets.
And not all of the effects are strictly for motion graphics. The top image is the original. The bottom is the Light Tornado effect with the Bright Zoom preset. I could use that in a chase scene in an action film to add energy to the shot.
I’ve put together a number of samples for this article that will give you a sense of the range of effects available in FEC5, and some of their uses.
The FEC5 library doesn't entirely overlap AE CS3 effects. Some effects seem to duplicate existing native AE effects, although often with better controls. Some effects overlap the CC effects. And some effects (31 of them, by my count) are unique to FEC5.
Here is a table where I've attempted to sort the FEC5 effects. The green ones in the first column seem to duplicate effects that are already native in AE. The red ones in the middle are the effects that are included in AE as CC 8-bit effects. And the black ones in the third column are effects unique to FEC5.
| AE FEC5 effects in this column seem to duplicate effects that are already native in AE |
CyCore FEC5 effects in this column are included in AE as CC 8-bit effects |
BorisFX Effects in this column are unique to FEC5 |
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| Blur & Sharpen | Blur, Channel Blur, Directional Blur, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask | Vector Blur | Chroma Luma Blur, Soften, Spin Blur, Spiral Blur, Zoom Blur |
| Color Correction | Brightness-Contrast, Color Balance HSL, Color Balance RGB, Gamma-Pedestal-Gain, Replace Color, Tint, | Color Offset, Toner, Threshold, Threshold RGB | Invert |
| Distort | Spherize, Twirl, Water Waves | Bend It, Bender, Bulge, Flo Motion, Griddler, Lens, Power Pin, Ripple Pulse, Slant, Slant Matte, Smear, Split, Split 2, Tiler | EZ Lazy Waves, EZ Ripples |
| Edges | Power Ramp | Burn Edges, Gradient Blur, Sparkle Edges, Spot Blur, Spot Feather, Spot Frame, Spot Tatter, Spot Turbulence, Wiggle Edges | |
| Image | Noise | Simple Wire Removal | Alpha Map, Channel Noise, Composite, Median, MinMax |
| Light | Light Burst, Light Rays, Light Sweep, Spotlight | Light Blast, Light Tornado, Light Whirl | |
| Particle | Ball Action, Bubbles, Drizzle, Hair, Mr. Mercury, Particle Systems II, Particle World, Pixel Polly, Rain, Snow, Star Burst | ||
| Perspective | Sphere, Cylinder | Page Turn | Advanced 3D, Simple Shadow, Super Shadow |
| Stylize | Burn Film, Emboss, Fractal, Glass, Glow | Mr. Smoothie, Repetile, Glue Gun, Kaleida, Blobbylize, | 3D Relief, Lens Star, Scatterize, Video Fragment |
| Time | Force Motion Blur, Time Blend, Time Blend FX, Wide Time | ||
| Transitions | Glass Wipe, Grid Wipe, Image Wipe, Jaws, Light Wipe, Radial Scale Wipe, Scale Wipe, Twister | Blur Dissolve, Griddler Wipe, Lens Wipe, Rain Wipe, Slant Wipe, Spherize Wipe |
UL: Original. UR: Toner w/ Crisp Cranberry preset. LR: Toner with w/ preset. LL: Toner w/ Forest Green preset.
Rapid, high quality, preset tones. Certainly changes the mood of the scene.
UL: Tornado Light with Bright Zoom preset. UR: Gamma-Pedestal w/ BlueBlacks preset to turn the blacks to blue. LR: Rain, a particle effect, with the Torrential preset. LR: Rain and Gamma-Pedestal together with presets.
Fixing the weather
I created this shot as a pickup for Crosswater Entertainment’s “Cowboy Funeral”, directed by Len Anderson (now in post). At the last minute we caught a farm in a real rainstorm. It will be interesting to see which shot makes it into the movie.