Powering Invisible VFX, with Paul Miller and Marco Paolini, creators of Boris Silhouette | TVAP EP44
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Description
This week it's been a real pleasure to meet Paul Miller and Marco Paolini - Software Developer and Product Manager behind the Oscar winning software, Boris Silhouette. Despite advances in AI, manual rotoscoping and invisible paintouts are still an essential bullwark of the VFX industry and not going away anytime soon. We begin our discussion  with their work on Elastic Reality (used on classic shows like Quantum Leap) and talk about how they have built Silhouette for artists who need to paint 100 stokes a second and export mattes accurate to better than a 16th of a pixel. Recently Silhouette has expanded it's compositing toolset so we discuss their choices around this. Of course machine learning is something cannot avoid discussing, so we look at both its promise and its limitations at the high end. In closing both Paul and Marco give some excellent career advice for anyone entering or advancing in the VFX and Software Development industries. Enjoy! 00:00:00 : Preview 00:01:39 : Introductions 00:02:20 : Founding the team 00:03:55 : Elastic Reality 00:06:51 : Original plan for Silhouette 00:07:43 : The Node Graph 00:10:56 : Marco's Journey from Artist to Software 00:14:01 : The Smallness of the Industry 00:20:05 : What Keeps the Team Busy 00:25:34 : The Scripting Engine 00:28:38 : The Decision to Add More Comp Features 00:31:28 : Performance and Paul's Nightmares 00:35:49 : Silhouette as OFX Plugin 00:41:15 : Limits of Machine Learning 01:06:26 : Retimes 01:17:38 : Paul's Advice for Aspiring Developers 01:20:50 : Learn Python! 01:22:41 : Marco's Advice for Getting into VFX and into Software 01:28:41 : Closing thoughts (chapters powered by [Chaptered.app](https://Chaptered.app)) #Silhouette #Oscars #scitech #VFX #Podcast #rotoscoping #invisiblevfx As always, if you liked this episode, please like, comment, subscribe and share! Listen to all episodes on our website https://www.thevfxartistspodcast.com/ After Hours Entrepreneur: Your Guide to Profitable, 6-Figure YearsQuit your job. Make more money.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Each episode is visually engaging. To not miss out, you can watch all our episodes on our YouTube channel. Subscribe & Watch all episodes on our YouTube Channel Visit our website Thank you for your support! We appreciate you!
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