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When started, Silhouette opens a new, unsaved project. A project contains footage and sessions while a session is a workspace where you composite, rotoscope and paint.

It is recommended that the project is saved before work commences.

The Save Project dialog box opens.

When the new project is saved, a folder is generated using the name of the project and contains the project file, paint data, autosave, and backups.

The Silhouette user interface opens once the project is created and is stored within the host application’s project data. However, some nodes (Paint and Stability) store sidecar files with the project data, and using these nodes will prompt saving the project file to a folder in the same fashion as the standalone.

Before you can start using Silhouette, media (footage) has to be imported. The Silhouette plug-in automatically imports the media (footage) selected in the host application and appears in the Sources window. Although the plug-in is limited to three sources on the host side, you can import an unlimited amount of media directly in Silhouette.

Silhouette supports both image and movie file formats.

Movie file formats are supported through GStreamer which is a versatile media handling library for reading various codecs and footage containers.

The File Browser opens.

The old clip is replaced with the new clip.

You can virtualize media paths in order to improve asset sharing between users, asset management and render servers by specifying the file path with a SFX_MEDIA environment variable.

Please note that in the Object window > File field, the beginning of the source’s path is now sfx://.

Sessions are where you composite, rotoscope or paint and are required before you can start working in Silhouette. Think of sessions as sub-projects where there can be multiple sessions within the project.

When the project is created in the Silhouette plug-in, a session is automatically created based on the project type, but additional sessions can also be added.

Templates are presets for automatically adding nodes to the session and selecting a workspace.

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The clip settings are automatically imported into the session settings.

You can choose from the following templates:

The source node is automatically connected to Roto and Output nodes. The Output node determines the file format, file name, disk storage location, and channels to be rendered. In addition, the Streamlined workspace is selected. Optimized for Roto and Paint projects, the Streamlined workspace reduces the size of the Trees window to make room for the Object List and Paint History immediately below.

Once you have created a session, you can change its settings at any time by using one of the two methods listed below.

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In either case, the session window opens and you can change the settings. When the Edit Session window opens, make the desired changes.

You can shift a Source node in time. This is useful for lining up frames that are numbered differently.

Once active, the Source node’s parameters appear in the Node parameters.

The start frame for the node is adjusted by the Time Shift value.

Enhance playback performance using the RAM cache, caching to a local disk or the Cache node.

Once the sequence is played through once, it will then play in real-time.

Source frames can also be automatically cached in a background thread. The amount of preloaded frames is controlled by a Cache > Preload Frames preference with the default value being 10 frames.

There are number of ways to increase the amount of frames that can be played back in real time.

Caches the result of all upstream nodes to disk, alleviates the need to reprocess that section of the Tree and loads as fast as a source file.

Media from a slow network drive is automatically copied to a fast local drive once you specify the source and storage locations in the Cache > Local Cache preferences. Then, when you load a sequence from the slow network drive, the source node will see that it’s in the source path and copy it to the fast storage path. The next time the media is requested from the network drive, it will read it from the local cache instead.

Silhouette uses the OpenColorIO standard originally developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks for its color management. You can load custom color configuration files and custom LUTs, apply colorspace conversions, as well as use other controls for fine tuning.

Silhouette automatically tries to determine the colorspace based on the data in the file and other information from the header.

When using Cineon/DPX images with the Color Management > Cineon/DPX Working Space preference set to Linear, the input colorspace should be set to Linear. When the preference is set to Log, the Cineon colorspace should be used.

Use View Transform to set the transform that occurs between the input scene’s colorspace and the display colorspace.

You can select a custom OpenColorIO (.ocio) configuration file by choosing it in the Color Management > OCIO Configuration preference.

For more information on OpenColorIO, including the OCIO file format, please visit http://opencolorio.org/.

If only one component is selected, it is displayed in gray scale. The horizontal white bar above the RGBA buttons quickly toggles the display of the image back to full color mode.

Hitting the Alpha button or A key once superimposes the alpha channel over the image. Pressing a second time displays the alpha channel over black. Hitting again shows only the color image.

Shift-A activates RGBA mode which does the following: Toggles the View to Output, superimposes the alpha channel over the image and deactivates the Overlay. Pressing Shift-A again returns the Viewer to its previous state.

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Rotating the Viewer can facilitate rotoscoping and painting.

Once Rotate is enabled, the Adjust Rotation editing control (hand icon) becomes available.

Once the angle has been set, you will need to disable Adjust Rotation to use the node’s tools.

Open additional Viewers that can be set to any node or view.

A new viewer opens as a floating window.

The new Viewer has the following controls: Node, View, Update Mode, Stereo View, OCIO, Preview, Channels, and Zoom controls. The remainder of the controls are shared with the main Viewer.

ROI (Region of Interest) crops the image in the Viewer to a user defined size and can be animated. This is especially useful when you only need to work within a smaller region of a larger image as it will use less memory and process faster. If expanded, the ROI will display overscan pixels which can then be manipulated.

The ROI can be made smaller than the session size to speed up processing and save memory. This is especially useful when working with larger images.

This hides the ROI controls, but it is still active.

If the source’s DOD (Domain of Definition) is larger than the session, the ROI can expand to reveal overscan pixels which can then be manipulated.

The ROI will automatically be set to match the size of the source’s DOD and will reveal any overscan pixels.

Silhouette can perform editing tasks such as cutting, joining, moving, copying, replacing, trimming, retiming and repeating clips in the Sequence Editor. The sequence can then be used as an element in the Trees window.

A sequence is comprised of multiple clips edited together.

A sequence object is created in the Sources window and the Sequence Editor appears.

If you select one or more clips in the Sources window before pressing the New Sequence icon, the clips are assembled in selection order using in and out points, if they are set, into a new sequence.

The sequence can now be used as an element in the Trees window just like any other source.

Clips in the Sources window can have in and out points which are used when creating a sequence. In and out points are also useful within the sequence to define a region to be moved, copied, replaced or deleted.

The clip is loaded into the Viewer and Mark IN and Mark OUT icons appear.

When setting in and out points for a clip, the clip takes over the Viewer. To return the Viewer to a sequence or a node, double-click the sequence in the Sources window or a node in the Trees window.

The highlighted selection can be moved, copied, replaced or deleted.

The selection is moved.

The selection is copied.

The destination clip or marked region is replaced.

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The selection is deleted.

Modification of the speed and direction of selected clips is possible in the Sequence Editor.

The Segment Speed field controls the speed of selected clips and displays as a percentage. A value of 50 slows down by 50%, a value of 100 does nothing, and a value of 200 is twice as fast.

The order of the frames is reversed.

The clip is repeated three times.

The clip is repeated three times using the selected direction.

The frame is frozen for the specified period.

To use the alpha channel created by Silhouette in Resolve, a specific workflow is required.

Alpha channels created in Silhouette will now be available for use in Resolve.

When using optional sources that are a different size than Silhouette’s primary input, you will need to add Reformat nodes to the optional sources.