What about custom 3D shapes in RED?

First, don't forget that "text" isn't limited to letters - many fonts contain a variety of interesting shapes. The 3 shapes at left are hidden characters from fonts that are on your computer. (I'll let you have fun searching for them, but they're there.) I just mapped some sample files from the RED installation CD to their fronts, but otherwise left the extrusions at their default settings.

Many fonts are in fact nothing but collections of pictures: my corporate logo, for example, is two characters contained within a custom, picture-style font.

And if you enjoy fonts as much as I do, you've already got Fontographer, or something similar to make your own fonts, which can then look like any shape you want.

Second, you don't need to mess with creating your own fonts if you don't want to, because, beginning with RED version 1.1, you can extrude any Adobe Illustrator EPS file you care to create. That's about as easy as it gets.

Alas, RED doesn't yet support the direct importing of native 3D files, although it's a feature I'd like to see. In the meantime, saving 3D animations in Quicktime-compatible formats to import into RED is easy enough.

RED's goal isn't to replace the tools that a 3D artist uses, though - it's to add more 3D features to the video editor's toolbox, some of which aren't available anywhere else.

Yeah? Like what?
One of my favorites is the 3D container. This has been available since BorisFX 4.0, of course, but RED offers a startling variation.

True Z space control has long been one of the holy grails of compositing. Atomic Power's Evolution, for example, offers a Z space plug-in that makes these sort of manipulations very easy, with features like focal length settings to control how blurs are selectively applied, helping emphasize the position of individual elements in space. Videonics takes this a step further by building their entire Effetto Pronto system on the assumption that all compositing is 3D compositing, implemented so thoroughly that it can literally be disorienting to longtime users of 2D apps.

RED, however, allows the layers to not only interact in Z space, but to actually intersect. Here's how easy it is: place your elements in a 3D container, and select the checkbox marked "Respect Z Order." Now, as the layers move forward and back in Z space, they intersect and pass through one another exactly as you define. Note the shadows, too - cool, huh?

Okay, intersecting planes and shadows are very cool. But why the hell would I want to do that?
Good question! The answer to that is like the answer to the question, why do dogs lick themselves? They do it because they can. Once you know that you can make shapes intersect in Z space, you'll find yourself doing it more and more often, because you can.

I don't mean to sound entirely facetious here. Among the goals of effects creators is to create unique looks, and you can definitely do that with Z space containers.
		You can have REAL fun when you start combining containers, since there are many, many things you can do with containers in BorisFX that you can't do easily any other way, if at all. Here's a speedy example of a text container inside a 3D container, so that the roll intersects with a layer that also has a roll animated across it. By placing the Text container with the vertical text inside a 3D container, I could spin it slightly to the left. Then I put all of that inside another 3D container, checked "Respect Z Order," and let that layer cast a shadow across the ball layer. It's incredibly easy to take it from there, to do things that have quite literally never been seen before, and maybe one or two that should never be seen again.

It's worth remembering, too, that everything in a container gets rendered in one pass. That means not only speedier renders, but higher quality renders.

Fine, but I'm getting a headache now. Tell me again what RED is?
Just because you put a question mark on the end of a regular sentence doesn't really make it a question, you know.

Are you gonna answer me or not?
Now THAT's a question. Boris RED is a plug-in for editing applications that offers advanced filtering, compositing and DVE. Using the basic BorisFX interface, it adds support for AE plug-ins, and integrates titling/CG with 3D text and custom EPS extrusions. RED also offers a variety of advanced rendering options, including motion blur and field rendering.

Jeez, was that so hard?
I guess not. Any more questions?

Yeah, a couple. What does this mean for the future of BorisFX and BorisAE?
Those products will continue to exist, developing along their own parallel paths. New versions of each should in fact be out pretty soon. (Note that this statement is pretty much equally true whenver you read it, kind of like your horoscope. The fact is that these guys develop so much, so quickly, that a new product or a new release is virtually always just around the corner.) Artel also offers an entry level product called Boris Factory for around a hundred bucks that will also be continuing to add new features over time.

So if you don't want or need some of the advanced features in RED, don't worry - there are BorisFX products at whatever level is right for you. But because they all share the same basic interface, it's very easy to move on to the next level, too.

All very well, but a lot of this is stuff I already do in After Effects.
No question, After Effects is awesome. (And I mean "no question" both by way of agreement and as an ever so subtle rebuke - once again, not a question.) AE is the compositing application that all other software has to measure up to. But that's what it is: a compositing application. The BorisFX family of products, including RED, is aimed squarely at editors, and that makes for some different approaches.

Let's leave aside for a moment that Boris adds features to AE, such as improved - and speedier rendering - keying and blurs, as well as a variety of 3D shapes and Z space controls. Those are mostly available inside BorisAE, of course, as is Boris's 3D text tool. Others, like the 3D containers, are strictly a BorisFX/RED innovation.

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