Silhouette 2022 - 6/6/22
FEATURES
Sapphire, Mocha Pro, Particle Illusion & Continuum
Sapphire, Mocha Pro, Particle Illusion and select Continuum BCC+ filters are now included in Silhouette.
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Sapphire
Over 270 effects and thousands of presets seamlessly integrate into Silhouette’s resolution independent node-based compositor. Sapphire features the industry’s favorite lighting effects, lens flares, glows, blurs and useful processing filters for film and television visual effects work. -
Mocha Pro
Launch the Mocha Pro interface from within Silhouette to access the Academy-award winning planar tracking interface. Mocha Pro brings PowerMesh organic mesh tracking, object removal, AdjustTrack and more advanced tracking features to Silhouette users. Mocha’s new Data port enables seamless workflows for passing tracking, shapes and mesh data from Mocha Pro to Silhouette. -
Particle Illusion
Create realistic particle animations with Particle Illusion’s 3D emitters, fluid dynamics, and massive preset library. Add useful environmental elements such as dust, smoke, fire, explosions or explore curated graphics such as HUDs and sci-fi elements. Available for Mac and Windows. -
Continuum BCC+ Filters
The following Continuum BCC+ filters are now included with Silhouette: Beauty Studio, Blur, Channel Blur, Channel Blur YUV, Directional Blur, Film Glow, Light Leaks, Magic Sharp, Prism, Radial Blur, Smear Blur and Video Glitch.
Inpaint
Inpainting is a technique which fills a section of an image. This is useful for removal of unwanted objects such as wires, markers or blemishes. Integrated Roto tools create shapes and multiple algorithms are available to automatically fill-in the specified regions with information surrounding them. To create a seamless result, the detail (texture) from another part of the image or other image can optionally be composited over the inpainted area using the Detail controls. All of the tools from Silhouette’s Roto node are integrated within the Inpaint node.
PowerMesh Warp
PowerMesh enables a powerful sub-planar tracking process that tracks warped surfaces and organic objects. Mesh tracking takes place in the Mocha Pro node and when connected to the PowerMesh Warp > Data input, images are either warped or unwarped based on the generated mesh.
DOD - Surface
A Layer input and selector are now available in the DOD node. When selected, the input Layer > Surface size is used to define the DOD. A margin can also be added to the boundary of the surface.
GStreamer Rendering
Currently, Silhouette imports movie file formats using GStreamer, a versatile media handling library for reading various codecs and footage containers. Now, rendering to movie file formats is also supported.
Mocha Pro
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Data Output
Mocha Pro’s Data output passes shape, layer and mesh data through to other nodes with Data inputs. -
DOD
Use the selected Mocha Pro Layer > Surface to set the DOD dimensions. -
PowerMesh Warp
Warp or unwarp images based on the selected Mocha Pro mesh. -
Transform
Select the Mocha Pro layer as a source for stabilization, match moving or inserts. -
Node Actions
The Mocha Pro > Actions menu creates Silhouette Roto and Tracker nodes from the Mocha Pro project without having to go into the Mocha UI.-
Copy Data
Copies all Mocha shapes, layers, and PowerMesh data which can then be pasted into nodes that accept layers and shapes. -
Create Roto Node
Creates a Roto node from all Mocha shapes, layers and PowerMesh data. -
Create Tracker Node
Creates a Tracker node from all Mocha shapes, layers and PowerMesh data.
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Point Control Parameter Tracking
Point control parameters can now be match moved. To achieve this, a Data input port was added to all nodes with point control parameters. Match moving happens when a node with tracking data is plugged into the node’s Data input and either a point tracker or tracked layer is selected in the Transform pop-up menu to the right of the point control.
Roto
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Jump To Midpoint Between Keyframes
Alt-Z jumps to the midpoint of the current frame and the previous shape keyframe while Alt-X jumps to the midpoint of the current frame and the next shape keyframe. -
Select All Open Shape Start or End Points
The Reshape context menu now has Select Start Points and Select End Points options which automatically select all open shape start or end points. The selected points can then be edited simultaneously, for instance, for feathering the ends of open shapes to a point when rotoing hair. -
Surface
You can check the accuracy of a planar track by turning on the Viewer > Surface icon and setting the inner corners of the Surface to match the perspective of the tracked plane. The following tasks can be achieved using a Surface:-
Create Corner Trackers from Layer Surface: When using Create Corner Trackers from Layer Surface, point trackers are created from the Surface corner points.
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DOD: When the Data output of a node with a layer surface is plugged into the DOD > Data input and the layer is selected, the DOD is automatically set to the bounding box of the surface.
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Transform Node > Insert: Use the Layer > Surface corner points to set the insert corner-pin.
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Tracker Creation From Layer Surface
With the Point Tracker tab selected, right-clicking opens the Tracker pop-up menu and there are two new items:
- Create Corner Trackers from Layer Surface
- Creates four trackers around the four corners of the layer surface.
- Create Tracker from Surface Center
- Creates one tracker in the center of the surface.
Transform > Insert Mode
The Transform > Mode > Insert feature uses the selected Layer > Surface corner points to set the insert corner-pin.
Native Mac M1 Support
Optics now runs as a native, Mac M1 application.
OpenColorIO v2
Upgraded from v1, OpenColorIO v2 is a major update and contains a number of new features including:
- A more accurate GPU renderer and faster CPU renderer
- More accurate ACES transforms and support for the Academy Common LUT Format (CLF)
- New mathematical operator types and inversion support for all operators (including 3d-LUTs)
- Better support for display color spaces and ICC monitor profiles
- New color space properties such as categories to support a better user experience
Alpha Channel Processing
Applicable filters, for instance lens flares, glows and blurs, can now affect the alpha channel.
Scripting
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Import/Export Objects
Added the ability to import/export .sfxnodes files. Trees > Save/Load Nodes can be built on top of the following:- fx.exportObjects(path, objects)
- fx.importObjects(path)
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Paint Preset Menu Scriptable
Scripts now register menu actions with the PaintPresets root. -
Shape Feather and Open Spline Info
In previous versions of Silhouette, you could change shape points/weights, but not feather or open spline info. The same syntax is used as before, but now is context sensitive depending on whether you pass the additional per-point tuple values.
User Interface
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Additional Viewers > OCIO Controls
Additional viewers now have their own OCIO controls. Previously, they were shared with the main viewer. -
Color Picker Live Changes
When using a color picker, color changes update live in the Viewer. -
Enhanced On-Screen Controls
The on-screen controls have been enhanced in a number of Silhouette nodes, most noticeably in gradient based effects. -
Pixel Color Status
The pixel color status was previously only available in Paint. Now, it updates all the time. Pressing the ’ key locks the values and displays them to the left of the live values. Pressing " clears the locked values. -
Preview
The Viewer > Preview includes a variety of display options when an alpha channel is present such as: RGB Straight, Over Black, Over Gray, Over White, and Over Checkerboard. -
Tab Key Node Search/Add
Press the Tab key in the Trees window to open a search window, type the name of a node and press Enter to add it to the tree. With a selected node, the new node automatically connects to it. Without a node selection, the new node appears at the cursor location. You can also press the Tab key in the Nodes window to enter search mode. -
Two-Axis Dragging
2D control point fields now have an icon, located to the left of Reset, that acts as a two-axis dragger. Instead of dragging the X or Y parameters, you can click-drag on the icon and the control point will move with respect to the mouse/tablet offset.
CHANGES
Manual Mode
When Manual mode is engaged, opening a project or switching sessions does not force a render. This is useful to open up a project that may be crashing.
Preferences
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Paint > Clone > Reset Frame Number With Transform
A Paint > Clone > Reset Frame Number With Transform preference was added and defaults to off.
User Interface
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Data Ports Renamed
All Transform/Objects node inputs/outputs were renamed to Data. -
Removed View and Update Labels From Viewer
The View and Update labels were removed from the Viewer. -
Viewer > Gain Control Range
The Viewer > Gain control range was expanded from -3/3 to -5/5 and you can now type in values up to -10/10.
BUG FIXES
GPU Selection
Silhouette didn’t always choose the best GPU when multiple GPU’s were present.
Nodes
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Color Correct > Color Wheel Crash
Double-clicking in the center of the Color Wheel or in the Brightness bar caused Silhouette to crash. -
Lens Flare > Flare Editor
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Some Image Colorspaces Displayed Incorrectly
Some image colorspaces displayed incorrectly in the Flare Editor. When necessary, the images are now converted from linear to sRGB. -
Flare Editor Didn’t Open on Mac or Linux
The Flare Editor did not open on Mac or Linux.
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Math Composite
The Difference blend mode did not work as expected. -
Pin Warp and Sapphire Nodes Changed DOD
When compositing a smaller image over a larger background and a Pin Warp or Sapphire node was placed after the smaller image, the Composite DOD was clipped to the smaller image. -
Sapphire And Swap Channel
If Swap Channels was used before a Sapphire node, the alpha was ignored and opaque alpha was used instead. -
zMatte Composite Output Clipped Highlights On Linux
On Linux, zMatte’s Composite output clipped highlights.
Paint
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Paint > Average Color Selection With Pen
Right-click-drag to average the colors within the selection did not work with a pen/tablet.
Straight Line Overlay Not Visible With ROI Enabled
When the ROI controls were enabled, the straight line overlay was not visible when using Alt-click-click in Paint.
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Paint > Clone > Interactive Issue
When using QWE with Clone > Interactive enabled, the Interactive overlay was removed, but the Interactive button was still enabled. -
Clone Offset Not Matching Onion Skin - Linux
The clone offset did not match the onion skin view when using corner-pin and an image that was smaller than the session size. -
Cloning From Other View And Stereo Offset
Cloning from the other view did not use the Stereo Offset.
Plug-in
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After Effects MFR Error Message
After Effects MFR (Multi-Frame Rendering) error no longer appears. -
Source Bit Depth Display Wrong
Sources always displayed as 8 bit on the thumbnail information even when it was 16 or 32 bit.
PNG
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Corrupt Edges When Rendering 16 Bit PNG
When rendering a shape with blur or motion blur to the PNG file format in a 16 bit float session, the shape edges were corrupt. -
Grayscale PNG Would Not Load/Render
Grayscale PNG’s would not load or render.
Roto
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Adjusting A Shape In One View Affected Other View
When editing a shape in the Left or Right View with the Edit In Both Views icon enabled, the shape in the other view was also mistakenly edited. -
Extract/Combine Shape Had No Effect
Extract Shape and Combine Shape had no effect. -
Magnetic Reshape and Edit in Both Views
When Edit in Both Views was enabled while viewing the LR view, editing with Magnetic Reshape only affected the view the points were edited in instead of both views.
Tracking
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Exporter Issues
Exported layers to Nuke trackers, when reloaded in Silhouette, only displayed the top right track. Exported layers to Simple format, when reloaded in Silhouette, displayed two sets of corner-pin tracks. -
Extra Keyframe When Tracking Backwards
When tracking backwards with the Planar or Mocha tracker using a work range in the center of the sequence, for instance frame 60 to 30, a keyframe was created on frame 29. -
Off-Screen Trackers Caused Crash When Selected
When selected, off-screen point trackers would, in some cases, crash Silhouette. -
Tracking One Frame Displayed Progress Window
Tracking one frame would pop up the progress window.
User Interface
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DOD Magnifier Corruption
The Magnifier window was corrupted when used outside of the DOD. -
Lock Project Crash
Silhouette crashed when the project was locked and a node was added to the Trees window. You can no longer add nodes to the Trees window when the project is locked. -
Numeric Keypad Did Not Work
The Numeric Keypad did not work when using Num-Lock with numbered keyboard shortcuts. -
OCIO
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OCIO Colorspace Default Config
The Color Management > OCIO Configuration preference, when changed, now sets the default config displayed in the OCIO Colorspace node after a restart. -
OCIO Colorspace Node With Aces Config
In the OCIO Colorspace node after loading the Aces Config, the pop-up menu size was so small that you could not tell what was being selected. You had to jump to another node and back before the pop-up menu would resize. The pop-up menu now automatically changes size when a new config file is selected.
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