Archive republication: This technical review originally appeared in Digital Production 06:2018 and was republished online in May 2021. Features, compatibility, pricing and performance reflect the historical beta version and test hardware used at that time.
This article originally appeared in Digital Production 06:2018.
Mocha Pro was already familiar to visual-effects artists and After Effects users as a powerful planar tracker. Boris FX had added it to its portfolio and, beyond integrating Mocha technology into Continuum filters, delivered substantial improvements to the professional edition. The new version was named Mocha Pro 2019 rather than Mocha 6 because Boris FX planned to adopt annual releases.
The principal improvements concerned mask creation for rotoscoping and the Remove module used to eliminate unwanted objects or people from footage. Remove had previously been painfully slow, particularly when an illumination model such as Linear or Interpolated was enabled to compensate for changing brightness. GPU acceleration had already reached the tracker; in 2019 it was added to Remove as well.
The test sequence required removing a dog that walked across an open-air stage during a traditional Wayang performance. This was a realistic cleanup task. The CPU-only result looked convincing, and the shot was relatively straightforward because the background behind the dog remained static; for more difficult cases, Mocha could also use externally created clean plates.
Without an illumination model, however, the CPU render took three minutes, while GPU processing completed in 37 seconds. With Linear enabled, the CPU needed almost five minutes and the GPU just over one minute. Interpolated processing exceeded ten minutes on the CPU but took only a little more than two minutes with the GPU. The advantage remained close to 5:1 even though the Radeon Pro 580 was not fully utilised, and no visual disadvantage was apparent. Every relevant setting could be animated to accommodate changing light. Because the Lens module did not yet use the GPU, Remove had become faster than lens-distortion processing—an intentional priority for Boris FX.
Workflow improvements also accelerated the creation of accurate shapes for complex forms. Previously, users had to place individual control points manually. The new magnetic tool adjusted a spline interactively to the nearest sufficiently high-contrast contour, behaving somewhat like After Effects’ Roto Brush when the source material suited it.
The same menu included a freehand shape tool, best used with a tablet. Holding Alt switched between magnetic and freehand drawing. Freehand input could generate many control points, but a Detail control reduced them afterward. Rectangles and ellipses could now be drawn quickly for simple tracks or masks. The Surface used to inspect perspective and tracking could be positioned with translation, rotation and zoom.
Mocha’s previous interface could intimidate newcomers. The 2019 release introduced an Essentials workspace showing only the main tools, a Big Picture workspace focused on the viewer, and a Roto workspace containing the most relevant rotoscoping tools. The familiar layout remained available as Classic. High-DPI and Retina displays were finally supported.
The VR feature set had been integrated, although two plug-in versions remained for compatibility. The OFX edition still did not work fully in DaVinci Resolve. Boris FX attributed this to Resolve not providing plug-ins unrestricted access to all frames during rendering. Fusion could reproduce much of Mocha’s functionality, but complex jobs required sizeable node trees of trackers and masks. Mocha was simpler and, depending on the material, could solve some difficult tracks more effectively.
In the beta tested here, Fusion-file export from tracking was not yet fully mature. Rendered masks already worked and could be linked to the appropriate clip in Resolve.
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Existing Mocha users were likely to value the improvements. Artists satisfied with the planar tracking in Resolve or Fusion might hesitate at the price, but the trial version remained worth learning so that Mocha’s capabilities were available for unusually difficult projects.
