Curious Software is launching its gFX range of software for Mac OS X at this week’s NAB2003. gFx is an integrated paint, rotoscoping and compositing system that’s available in a variety of configurations for those in the video, HDTV, and film industries.
The user interface offers integrated support of real-time video input and output. All the features — paint, rotoscoping, animation, and compositing — are also integrated and linked via the interface. You can, for instance, paint directly in the composite stack, even on transformed layers, or work off-line to build up a library of content elements.
gFx offers a toolset of paint brushes, text, shape, cutout, and masking tools, rotoscoping, keying. There are over 100 image filters, color correctors, and effects in a multi-layered compositing and animation framework. The gFX software also offers a range of tools designed specifically for the film visual effects market, all supporting full 16-bit per component image depth.
Roto-mattes are created using multi-layered, shape-based rotoscoping (using polygon, Bezier. or B-Splines) with individual keyframing control over every point of each shape. Motion blur can be applied automatically, or edge blurs can be added selectively for every point under the control of the operator. The ability to paint mattes directly and a variety of matte extraction methods based on image content are designed to complement the shape creation tools.
Painting and retouch functionality includes a range of built-in brushes, as well as a brush editor for creating user-defined brushes. Artists can work at resolutions of up to 6k and create multi-layered matte paintings or image sequences, blend in computer generated or real-life elements, and apply filters, color corrections, and procedural effects.
For wire and rig removal, gFx offers sub-pixel merge and clone brushes that let elements be copied and blended within the same image, or from any location in any image in a different sequence (or the same sequence). The source image can also be freely scaled and rotated.
For television broadcasters, gFx is designed to serve as a companion to Curious World Maps, software for producing maps and graphics for news, traffic reports, travel programs, and documentaries. gFX integrates into version 4.0 of World Maps.
In fact, gFx extends the template technology pioneered in Curious World Maps. Once a graphic sequence has been designed, the content can be changed at the press of a button, and all animation, image effects and composites are retained.
Curious Software is also developing gFx Pro, a configuration of the gFX system that will offer professional video painting, rotoscoping, matte creation, and animation to the workflow of Apple’s Final Cut Pro.
Pricing for gFX and gFX Pro hasn’t yet been announced.