LONDON, UK - March 2003
Curious Software is delighted to announce the worldwide launch
of Curious gFx at NAB 2003.
GFx is a powerful integrated paint, rotoscoping and compositing
system for video, HDTV and film. As the latest addition to Curious'
product range it is designed specifically to meet the exacting
needs of television and film production. gFx combines a sophisticated
rich feature set with the intuitive ease-of-use familiar to
users of Curious products.
Gareth Griffith, a co-founder of Curious Software, says: "The
release of gFx is the next major step in our development of
a fully integrated content creation platform dedicated to television
and film. It uses the same template based philosophy which has
proved so popular in Curious World Maps, and extends our commitment
to allow our customers to create better dynamic content on desktop
computers - more quickly with less training and absolute consistency
of design and quality."
Graphics professionals and visual effects artists in all fields
will find that gFx provides an enormous boost in efficiency,
and offers countless possibilities for producing ever more striking
and engaging content.
For television broadcasters, gFx is the perfect
companion to Curious World Maps. Entirely integrated into version
4.0 of World Maps, gFx fits seamlessly into the workflow of
current Curious World Maps users allowing them to make full
use of their Windows or Mac platform for the efficient and creative
production of all types of news graphic in a single graphics
environment - at standard definition or HD.
The user interface is designed for fast operation with moving
content - including integrated support of real-time video input
and output. Everything - paint, rotoscoping, animation and compositing
- is entirely integrated, allowing fast creation of anything
from content source elements through to multi-layered effects.
Users can 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 comprehensive toolset of paint brushes, text,
shape, cutout and masking tools, rotoscoping, keying and over
100 image filters, color correctors and effects, all in an intuitive
multi-layered compositing and animation framework.
gFx also 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. Work never needs
to be repeated just because the source material changes. Even
with the most complex multi-layered effects, users can have
a new piece with new content ready for air in minutes.
The same rich feature set is a valuable addition to any video
post-production graphics suite. Not only does it provide
an extremely powerful platform for production of motion graphics
and visual effects, but gFx's extremely sophisticated rotoscoping
tools let the user move the manually intensive work off expensive
dedicated systems and onto a standard desktop machine - and
do a better job! Roto-matting, wire removal, retouching and
composite tests can all be accomplished more efficiently, and
often at much higher quality.
gFx also offers a wide range of tools designed specifically
to meet the precise demands of the film visual effects
market - focused on painting, rotoscoping, wire and rig removal
and image processing - all supporting full 16 bit per component
image depth.
Roto-mattes are created using highly sophisticated multi-layered
shape based rotoscoping (using polygon, Bezier or B-Splines)
with individual keyframing control over every point of every
shape. Motion blur can be applied automatically, or edge blurs
can be added selectively for every point under the control of
the operator. The shape creation tools are complemented by the
ability to paint mattes directly, and by a large number of matte
extraction methods based on image content.
Painting and retouch functionality includes a comprehensive
range of built in brushes, and a powerful brush editor for creating
user-defined brushes. Working at resolutions of up to 6k, artists
can create multi-layered matte paintings or image sequences,
blend in computer generated or real-life elements, apply filters,
color corrections and procedural effects - all in a clear and
intuitive user interface where the picture always takes centre
stage.
For wire and rig removal, gFx offers sub-pixel merge and clone
brushes allowing elements to 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.
gFx is available in a number of configurations designed to
meet the users precise requirements.
Key Features
