Friday, June 25th, 2021 Posted by Jim Thacker

Continuum 2021.5 ships


Originally posted on 29 October 2020. Scroll down for news of Continuum 2021.5.

Boris FX has released Continuum 2021, an update to its suite of effects plugins for compositing and editing apps that it describes as its “largest release ever”.

The update adds over 80 plugins for mimicking the look of real-world film stocks, optical filters and gobos, based on sister product Digital Film Tools, plus over 1,000 preset looks.

In addition, formerly 2D-only particle system Particle Illusion can now emit particles in 3D, and gets new options for adding turbulence to particle systems or generating connections between particles.

New options to mimic the look of vintage film stocks and camera gear based on Digital Film Tools
By far the biggest change in Continuum 2021 is the addition of The Cinematographer’s Toolkit: a collection of over 80 effects derived from Digital Film Tools, which Boris FX acquired last year.

They include effects mimicking the look of specific physical film stocks, optical filters and gobos, and matching the colour grading of movies from Gone with the Wind to Back to the Future.

There is also a range of new tools for applying lens and lighting effects, sharpening or defocusing footage, and applying looks like X-ray or infrared footage. You can find a complete list here.

All of the effects are HDR-compilant, are GPU-accelerated – via OpenCL, so they should work on any manufacturer’s hardware – and can be customised via a new FX Editor interface.

In addition, Continuum 2021 includes over 1,000 new preset effects that can be dragged onto footage.

Particle Illusion can now emit particles in 3D
Particle Illusion, Continuum’s formerly 2D particle effects system, also gets a significant update: not least, the option to emit particles in 3D.

Existing 2D particle systems can be converted to 3D with a single click, and there are new presets for 3D camera movements, including orbiting or panning around the particles.

Other key changes include the option to apply turbulence to particle systems, adding animated random variation to particle size and position based on a noise map.

The software can also generate lines linking particles together, or to their emitter or birth location.

In addition, particles can now be made to break into sub-particles on striking a deflector object, or to pick up random bounce patterns, to create more natural scattering effects.

Updates to Primatte Studio and Title Studio
Chroma keyer Primatte Studio gets a new built-in Edge Cleaner tool, intended to smooth rough edges in keyed footage without degrading clean edges.

It uses temporal correlation to minimise flicker when used on noisy or compressed footage, and is also available as a separate plugin for Adobe host software only.

Titling tool Title Studio gets new procedural noise generators for adding texture or bump map variation to 3D text; and new multi-texture options for combining multiple texture sources into a single hybrid texture.

You can find a list of smaller changes via the link at the foot of the story.



Updated 24 June 2021: Boris FX has released Continuum 2021.5.

The update extends Particle Illusion’s 3D capabilities, adding new 3D emitter shapes, forces and deflectors.

Particle Illusion also gets a new Node View, making it possible to view both the node tree for a particle effect and the parameter values for each node, shown at the start of the video above.

In addition, when used in After Effects, Particle Illusion emitters can now follow live text and mask layers, or be attached to native lights and 3D layers.

The update also adds nine new GPU-accelerated filters, shown in this video, and 200 new effects presets.

Pricing and system requirements
Continuum 2021.5 is compatible with a range of compositing and editing software, including After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and Nuke, running on Windows 8+ or macOS 10.14+.

It is priced according to host application, with new licences now costing from $695 to $1,995. Subscriptions now cost from $195/year to $695/year. It is also possible to buy individual Continuum Units.


Read an overview of the new features in Continuum 2021.5 on Boris FX’s website

Read an overview of the new features in Continuum 2021 on Boris FX’s website