Boris FX Silhouette, the Academy and Emmy Award-winning rotoscoping and digital paint software, builds upon its AI-based roto and matting foundation with significant pipeline improvements. The 2026 release delivers precise, production-ready results with updated AI tools that automatically detect, segment, propagate, and refine while artists maintain total creative control.
Silhouette 2026 also introduces new 3D capabilities, including automated 3D head mesh generation and Unwrap/Rewrap nodes; expands painting controls for easier cleanup and beauty work; streamlines downstream VFX pipelines with better Cryptomatte integration; saves time with major performance boosts; and offers automated external control and AI integration via built-in RPC and MCP servers.
“Silhouette 2026 is all about giving artists a faster, more intelligent workflow for roto, paint, and beauty work,” says Marco Paolini, Product Manager and Designer of Silhouette at Boris FX. “The new AI-assisted tools, advanced tracking, integrated 3D workflows, and major paint enhancements help artists solve complex shots more efficiently while staying fully in creative control.”
“Our artists have already been using the latest ML tools to assist them in their roto and paint tasks,” states Adam Walker, Roto Paint Supervisor at Untold Studio. “My favourite by far is the new Point Track ML, getting a more solid track and worrying less about the object being occluded has helped artists speed up their work.”
AI-Driven Matting
Silhouette gives artists access to a smarter AI matting pipeline that dramatically reduces manual effort, enabling faster iteration and high-quality results. Each tool builds on the previous one to create a complete AI-assisted roto, masking, and cleanup workflow.
The 2026 release includes updates to five tools that provide greater time savings with scalable, multi-object workflows that streamline downstream compositing tasks.
- Face ML introduces a new model with Nose and Neck matte options that target facial segmentation more precisely, a new full-face matte option for broader coverage, and improved integration with deeper ML masking and compositing workflows.
- Depth Map ML features a new model that delivers greater detail and improved temporal consistency.
- Mask ML adds a new multi-object workflow with object list management, foreground/background refinement tools, and outputs Cryptomatte data per object.
- Matte Assist ML delivers seamless playback with intermediate frame caching, improved propagation performance across long shots, and multi-object Cryptomatte output.
- Matte Refine ML includes a new Video Matting model that delivers improved temporal consistency along edges compared to earlier versions. Cryptomatte data is now preserved after refinement.
Integrated 3D & Enhanced Tracking
Silhouette’s updated 3D Scene node, powered by Boris FX SynthEyes, provides artists with a true 3D-aware workflow directly in Silhouette. The new features make it easier to handle intricate retouching and digital makeup tasks without painstaking frame-by-frame adjustments.
- Head Track ML uses AI to automatically build and track a full 3D head mesh while preserving facial motion and expressions for stable, face-aware effects. The ML model loads into a user’s graphics card and detects the head in a scene. Once detected, Silhouette creates and tracks a correctly aligned and scaled 3D head mesh.
- Refine Solve helps artists iterate quickly without reprocessing the entire camera solve to make improvements. Users can fix bad frames and smooth problem areas by deleting erratic or unnecessary 3D features, resulting in stable, more accurate 3D solves and faster cleanups.
- Unwrap/Rewrap Nodes enable seamless workflows between 3D and 2D UV space for roto, paint, and beauty work.
- Render Depth Node generates depth maps from Head Track ML meshes to use in beauty work or wider downstream VFX pipelines.
Silhouette’s point tracker, a VFX workflow staple for decades, gets an upgrade with Point Track ML. The new tracker delivers more reliable results with less manual cleanup, helping artists more easily tackle real-world tracking challenges such as motion blur, occlusions, objects going off-screen, and changing reference patterns. Point Track ML includes three accuracy settings to better analyze the track and Viewer Stabilization to validate and lock the track.
Additionally, the Object Tracker automatically detects and creates layers for object classes, such as faces and license plates, which reduces manual setup time, and all tracker types now support occlusion matte input.
Paint Improvements
Silhouette’s powerful paint system adds new creative controls and workflow improvements that deliver quicker, higher-quality cleanups and beauty work pipelines.
- A new Healing Brush enables seamless cleanup and retouching with expanded color sampling from any input.
- Brush controls support blend modes and pressure-sensitive sizes, giving artists more precise results. Blur, Clone, and Drag brushes also introduce more natural and flexible behavior.
- An enhanced clone workflow adds continuous mode and auto-grade locking, which allows artists to achieve better paint in far fewer clicks.
- Resize Paint is a new resolution-independent workflow that allows digital artists to create strokes in a lower-resolution session and then accurately rebuild them on higher-res media.
Silhouette 2026 also includes newly updated VFX and compositing nodes — Mocha Pro 2026, Sapphire 2026, and Particle Illusion 2026 — delivering a more dynamic, integrated finishing system within Silhouette.
Streamlined Pipelines
The 2026 release offers artists and VFX studios stronger integrations and multiple daily production efficiencies, providing greater flexibility, faster responsiveness, better search and organization options, and new automation and AI integration.
Cryptomatte and data pipeline enhancements include passing filtered Cryptomatte data as alpha through all nodes via the Obey Matte input, which allows artists to use objects and layers directly as matte sources. A new Cryptomatte Mixer node helps streamline selection and matting workflows by combining multiple Cryptomatte streams into a single output. ML/AI tools support multi-object outputs alongside improved viewer-based selection tools, making complicated scene isolation and matte management faster and more resource-efficient.
Performance and playback are quicker and smoother with new ML node caching (Mask ML, Matte Assist ML, Face ML, and Matte Refine ML) and predictive playback through pre-fetching and batched render jobs. Playback controls offer greater optimization with adjustable job queue size, preload frames, and threading settings.
Day-to-day workflows speed up with an advanced node search that supports category, intent, and datatype filtering, a new Favorites node, and an improved naming system. A new context-sensitive heads-up display (HUD) enables faster interaction, and a new Safe Mode troubleshooting workflow makes it easier to diagnose issues and maintain stability in demanding production environments.
A powerful new JSON/RPC server allows studios with demanding pipelines to drive Silhouette remotely. Studios can execute Python code, run script files, and control the application via JSON/RPC. A MCP server allows direct calls from AI assistants, which can inspect projects, build node trees, edit shapes and keyframes, and render frames. The Python Package Manager oversees third-party Python packages inside a directory in Silhouette and is isolated from the system Python.
Pricing
Silhouette is a standalone application and/or plugin with subscription, upgrade & support, and permanent license options. Subscriptions start at $545/year or $103/month. View pricing
Plugin host application support includes Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere, Foundry Nuke, Blackmagic Resolve and Fusion, and Autodesk Flame. Silhouette is available on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Customers with active Silhouette or Boris FX Suite subscriptions or a Silhouette upgrade & support plan receive the 2026.5 product release as a complimentary update. Learn more about Silhouette.
Assets
- Silhouette 2026 Branding Toolkit (logos & images)
- Silhouette 2026: What’s New (video)
- Silhouette 2026: Redefine Beauty Retouch with Head Track ML (video)
- Silhouette 2026: Point Tracking Gets Smarter (video)
- Silhouette 2026: Track Objects Fast with ML (video)
- Silhouette 2026: Smart Tricks for Smoother 3D Tracks (video)
- Silhouette 2026: Decrypt Crytomattes (video)
About Boris FX
Boris FX creates award-winning video editing, visual effects, motion graphics, audio, and photography plugins used by over one million broadcast, streaming, and feature film professionals worldwide.
The product family includes Sapphire, the high-end visual effects and motion graphics plugin suite; Continuum, the most complete plugin collection for editors and content creators; Mocha Pro, unparalleled planar motion tracking and masking; Silhouette, advanced paint and rotoscoping tools; SynthEyes, cutting-edge 3D camera solving; Vegas Pro, creative video editing software; Sequoia, a high-end post-production, mastering, and broadcast DAW; Samplitude, music production for audio professionals; CrumplePop, AI-driven audio plugins; Sound Forge, specialized editing, restoration, and mastering tools; Acid Pro, loop-based music software; Music Studio, a beginner-friendly recording, editing, and mixing DAW; and Optics, cinematic effects for photographers and digital artists.
The company’s success lies in its ability to tightly integrate and leverage technologies through strong partnerships with Adobe, Autodesk, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Apple Final Cut Pro, Foundry Nuke, and other leading software developers. Founded in 1995.
