June 20
Boris Gives Away Fire Filter for AE

by David Nagel
Executive Producer

Boris FX, a developer of plugins for effects and editing software on the Macintosh, is offering its Fire filter free of charge through June 30. One of the Continuum Natural Filters, Fire is a procedural fire creation filter with smoke and alpha detection. It works with Adobe After Effects 4.0 and later.

Boris Continuum is a collection of 23 compositing and effects filters that include natural effects processing, 2D Compositing, 3D Composting and Time manipulation. The Continuum package includes the following features:

• New Z space filter creates multi-layered composites in true 3D space. Z Space allows users to animate and intersect layers.
• Increased speed and functionality with expanded stock filters. Continuum expands stock filters by adding unique functionality and improved speed. Filters like Advanced Composite now include new Apply Modes and Velocity Remapper, which can create smooth animations of the frame rate and accelerate frame blending. Blending frames is now up to two to three times faster than other velocity filters, according to Boris.
• Natural Effects. New natural effects include Snow, Rain, Star fields, Comet and Fire, which can be formed into the shape of an alpha channel. Also developed for Boris Continuum is a complete state-of-the-art particle generator.
• Advanced 3D text. Reflection maps are included for making metallic or glassy-looking text, complete with kerning, leading and multi-line support.
• Time dimension filters. New filters allow for reordering, sequencing frames, and creating motion changes or temporal blurs.

The entire package will be available July 25 for $395. There will also be a version available for After Effects 3.x for $199. To download the Fire filter, go to the Boris FX Web site at http://www.borisfx.com.