Appletell reviews Boinx FxTiles for Final Cut and After Effects

Provides: Video transitions and filters
Manufacturer: Boinx and Noise Industries
System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5.6, Final Cut Pro/Express or Adobe After Effects, ATI or NVIDIA graphics processor (integrated Intel graphics processors not supported)
Review Computer: 2.2GHz 13″ Macbook Pro, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM
Network Feature: No
Processor Compatibility: Universal
Price: $49 (15 day free trial available)
Availability: Out now

Lisa: Okay, I finished editing the gardening sequence.
Homer: Okay, from here we star wipe to a glamour shot of Flanders paying his bills, then we star wipe to Flanders brushing his teeth…
Lisa: Dad, there are other wipes besides star wipes.

Editing is “the invisible art” because the better it is, the less the audience notices it. But there are times when maybe you want to add a lot of energy to a transition, or call attention to an edit for dramatic or comedic reasons. Or maybe you’re trying to recreate a music video from the 80s.

Boinx FxTiles are a set of splashy transitions and video filters that give you just that. Breaking the image down into a set of squares and rectangles, they allow you to shatter, rotate, and flip the image, breaking it up and reassembling it as the next shot. They’re not subtle; more along the lines of adding 200 point type to the head of a chapter.

There are several presets included, but they’re mainly variations on a theme, allowing you to control how many rows and columns you want to break your image down to, and how the transition will be handled (like, say, spinning them on the Y axis, or having them flip around in random order). FxTiles gives you a great degree of control, though, over the details of the transitions; in addition to the rows and columns, most feature controls over which axis, angle, and other aspects of the transition, allowing you to tweak it to whichever degree you need. You can view a video of the various effects in action at the FxTiles website.

I mentioned music videos earlier, and FxTiles is perfect for that sort of work: big, flashy cuts designed to keep the audience dazzled for short periods of time. Or, in small video packages with a lot of excitement, like a sports wrap-up. It has a very 80s feel, back when computer editing was becoming popular and editors were trying to show off the power they had without regard to how it affected the scene.

To be honest, I’m having a hard time deciding how I feel about FxTiles. I mean, it works perfectly, giving you fine, detailed control over some really gaudy effects. Editing has such a subtle effect on the mood of a piece, it’s like doing a magic trick, where making the viewer not look at your left hand is more important than what your right hand is doing. But using these transitions is like shouting “Hey! Hey! Look over here!” I’m seriously conflicted: it does exactly what it’s advertised to do, and does it very well, I just can’t imagine ever using it, except ironically. Or if The Cars get back together.

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