Silhouette has always been an incredibly strong tool, in large part due to its dedication to a specific task: roto. This week, version 4 was released which contains major enhancements and additions to the application. The first is what is called “Power Matte”, which uses inner-outer shape algorithms to determine the edges of the object. The company has also reworked its planar tracker tools to improve results to the point that it “compares well with similar technologies offered by competitors”. The MacOS version now offers 64-bit support, which helps keep more images in memory, making it easier to work on longer clips.
We’ll have more coverage at NAB, but in the meantime, click through for the full press release.
Los Angeles, CA (March 29, 2010) – SilhouetteFX, LLC is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 4 of Silhouette, the digital post-production industry’s leading stereo paint and roto solution. Incorporating many improvements and new features including a vastly improved planar tracker, version 4’s aim is to provide a complete matting solution from fast automatic methods to fine-scale hardcore manual means.
New in version 4 is Power Matte, an automatic means of pulling mattes for complex organic objects without the aid of specialized backdrops. To use Power Matte, loose rough shapes are drawn on the foreground and background objects. Power Matte cuts the matte automatically based on these shapes. Silhouette’s tracking tools can even be used to animate the rough shapes, further easing the task of cuttings masks for long sequences. The unpublished research and technology behind Power Matte incorporates the latest developments relating to inner-outer shape masking algorithms.
Silhouette 4 offers four distinct matte extraction modalities. Mattes may be cut with Silhouette’s industry leading rotoscoping tool set, shape driven (hence tracker-enabled) raster paint tools, chroma-based keying tools and now with Power Matte. Given that all of these tools are stereoscopic 3D enabled, Silhouette v4 is a powerful tool to meet the challenges of today’s most advanced filmmakers.
Version 4 features a completely rewritten planar tracker. The company believes its new planar tracker compares well with similar technologies offered by competitors. Taken in combination with Silhouette’s undisputed lead in other areas, the new planar tracker reduces the range of cases where any other product need be employed.
Also in Silhouette v4 is a comprehensive scripting model and command-line interface (CLI). The CLI allows facilities with headless render-farms to more effectively use Silhouette. The scripting model exposes a great deal of Silhouette’s internals for Python-based scripting enabling facilities to build infrastructure and capabilities customized to their unique needs.
A number of new features have been added to Silhouette’s paint arsenal. Version 4 adds clone source grading allowing clone sources to be dynamically color matched to their destinations. A new horizontal or vertical split display mode aids in setting the clone source grading. Pairs of clone sources can now be defined and drawn from simultaneously. Each clone source has its own independent grading and transformation capability.
Version 4 onward for MacOS is now available as a 64 bit version to take full advantage of RAM for longer sequences.
Other enhancements and fixes are too numerous to list in this format.
Silhouette v4 has a price of $995 per node locked license. A floating license server and 3 licenses is available for $3,495. Additional floating licenses are available for $1,295. Version 3 licenses may be upgraded for $295. The company’s web site is located at: www.silhouettefx.com.
I loved this product through V2 although customer support was always extremely weak. I took a pass on V3, based on both bland reviews as well as the great alternatives that weren’t as available before. I may have to upgrade to V4 although I am guessing that the owners of this company probably still treat customers as a necessary annoyance.
I’m going to have to disagree with you about the customer support. We’ve had lots of e-mail contact with the Silhouette guys and they always reply promtly and many of the changes listed in v4 have been becasue of our feedback.
I’ll have to agree. I’ve gotten feature requests added *the same day* during beta periods, and routinely get scripting help or other support requests handled on the weekends and even late at night. And I don’t recall hearing any “bland reviews” when v3 came out. Yeah maybe the tracker was sub-par compared to Mocha but the manual editing tools blow Mocha away. And now with v4 I really have no complaints.
RipTorn: completely agreed. When Mocha came out, we switched and never really looked back.
I don’t know what kind of shots you typically work on, but I’ve never been able to get a 100% perfect track in Mocha, and when I have to hand edit there just isn’t a comparison between the two. In fact, after playing with the updated tracker in v4, I haven’t found much of a need to switch to Mocha at all.
I haven’t used Silhouette since they put in the planar tracker. I think Mocha came out before Silhouette v3. We took a look at it, liked it, and caught a great price on it during one of their end-of-the-year sales. Silhouette rolled paint into the roto app and then raised the price, so we figured “why bother if Mocha works great.” I use it for roto and tracking support with Flame and Smoke, and have been very happy. If the new Silhouette planar tracker is better than Mocha’s, I should probably check it out.
Some questions: Can Silhouette export corner pins like Mocha can? Also, does their new Power Matte feature work worth a damn on real world footage? I’ve tried tools like that before (I’m looking at you, Furnace), and it’s always ended up that I should’ve done full roto to begin with.
Big user of both, and (only my opinion) I think they both have their place in my toolbox, but definitely completely different uses. I almost feel like it’s unfair to compare them side by side.
Mocha has come a long way since the old Monet/Mokey v1 and 2 days. I swore off using it the planar tracker back then because it was slow, the interface was clunky and it all took too much effort to get a good track. Those days are gone – I’ve taught someone the finer points of the latest Mocha release in 5 minutes (and the “guide” docs fill in the rest) and many times it latches onto objects without much tinkering and gives good first pass results. Quick planar tracks is about where my relationship with mocha ends – I don’t find it’s roto tools very useful except for extremely mundane things.
That’s when I fire up Silhouette. It’s a roto powerhouse, nothing even close. The roto tools in pretty much every other app (compositing apps included) are almost laughable compared to silhouette.
seems like if you are wanting to compare the two, the only reason you’d do so is for tracking. If you’re a power user on both, you know they’re actually pretty close as far as features and real world performance. I can’t speak for everyone, just myself, but I’ve been lucky enough to usually have access to both on most jobs. So my usual tracking workflow and “priority” is –
1) is there a camera from a dedicated camera department, or can I get a good quick track in Boujou or 3dEqualizer. if so – I always go this route because it’s WAY better than anything silhouette or mocha could ever attempt to do.
2) if I don’t have access to that, then if I just need a quick thing and am in silhouette anyway (for roto or paint), silhouette’s point tracker is fine. it’s better than nuke and after effects, maybe on par with shake, maybe not as good as Flame. But good enough for government work, to quote Brian Van’t Hul.
3) if I have multiple objects that are somewhat planar or if I think mocha could get them, I pop open mocha. It’s just a few clicks and off to the races, and usually it does a pretty good job of latching on to clear objects in a scene.
4) if mocha fails, then I go to silhouette’s planar tracker. You have to know what you’re doing – it’s a lot more manual and has better manual controls than mocha. You actually have to spend a few minutes to read the documentation. But once you unlock the keys to it all, you find out it’s actually really good at handling occlusion and some of the other gotchas that will usually kill a mocha track.
some tips on planar tracking in silhouette –
1) don’t draw a rotoshape around the object like you’d roto it… draw one like you’d TRACK it. they are two very different things.
2) track it once through and then track it a 2nd time. the 1st track just generates “good” points, 2nd track uses them as guides and will firm up your track quite a bit.
3) set your prefs carefully. If you don’t have many tracking points detected within your guide shape, set your prefs to a lower minimum. etc.
things like that.
the good news is silhouette and mocha both export to most of the comp apps. I like the way silhouette’s planar tracker exports better than mocha’s – silhouette exports a perspective cornerpin, not a literal cornerpin (does that answer your question, brian?). As in your tracking data will still be 0,0 on your reference frame and it will just move your layer from there as opposed to actually applying a cornerpin on your layer like mocha will. I find I usually have to mess with mocha tracks quite a bit on the comp side to hammer them into place.
you can also import mocha data into Silhouette.
In my exp, silhouette’s support has always been great. They were extremely helpful when we were doing one of the early stereo features.
again, they are different tools, but if i were stranded on an island and could pick only one – Silhouette.
could you please tell me more about how to get track data from boujou into Silhouette – I am coming at this from years of matchmove experience and trying to save our roto team loads of grief – thanks!!
Wow, that was a really great post, J. Thanks very much! We’re up-to-date on Mocha, but never upgraded our Silhouette seats past v2, which is why I was curious about the new bells and whistles. When I first saw Mocha, I thought “Planar tracking and roto, eh? Who cares?” I forced myself to use it on a few lighter jobs, and quickly became excited about how easy it was to roto someone’s hand when they were pouring some cereal box or bottle of beer around. I could bang out a great roto of a complicated shape doing a complicated move (rotating, slight perspective changing hand/fingers) by either rough-planar tracking the hand or by hooking it to the planar track of the box. 3 keyframes on top of my tracking data and I’m golden, unlike anything I’d ever gotten out of point tracking. Mocha has literally shaved weeks of work off my last year.
I remember Silhouette’s mask manipulation tools being a little better than Mocha’s are now, and being a bunch more stable overall. You hit the nail on the head with your guess that I was interested in the new tracker. Sounds like it’s time to try the demo!
Glad I got this party started. Now I am interested in V4. I dunno what to say about the customer support feedback. Maybe our different experiences have to do with studio size, jobs we are working or or even the degree of interest in the questions we ask. Or maybe I am operating on 4 year old knowledge that isn’t true anymore.
Did Brian’s Power Matte question get answered. I sure want to know about real world experience with Power Matte.
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Power Matte is just another voodoo keyer, in the same vein as photoshop’s “extract” tool or the inner/outer keyer in AE.
I’ve tried it on a couple things since v4 came out and yep, it does something alright! it takes some finessing to get something halfway usable – on a couple shots it got me absolutely nowhere quick and on a couple others it got us maybe 50-60% on our way to a good key. It generally gives you pretty tasty edges, but it’s very touchy. Don’t quote me just yet – I still feel like I’m learning it. Every time I try it I do something and I’m like “oh, that made it way better” so in many ways the jury is still out.
The bad news is it’s not a magic bullet. It seems prone to flicker and become unstable if your footage changes a lot, and it’s a slow render at full rez. (work with it at 1:2 or 1:3 before you let the render rip at full).
The good news is if you can get something halfway usable out of it, you definitely get there quick (it works with really loose roto so you know in a couple of minutes) and if it gets you a decent matte, you can refine it further in a comp app, or heck, you’re in silhouette already, just pop open the roto node and clean it up.
It’s just another arrow in the quiver, another tool in the toolbox, whatever. If I need to pull a key that just downright shouldn’t be something keyable, i’d go down the usual avenues of weird voodoo channel key concoctions, maybe give primatte a try (or the 3d keyer in Flame if that’s on hand), and sure, I’d give power matte a whack. why not. I hate to roto!
silhouette’s demo is a 2 week free license. if you’re wondering, why not dig up a “weird” key shot from a couple projects ago and run it through?
Power Matte – DFT.