Mocha Pro's Adoration by Jeff Kyle, Flame Artist Explained
Jeff Kyle, a renowned Flame artist based in New York City, has made a name for himself in the visual effects (VFX) industry. His work often involves using Mocha Pro, a powerful tool known for its advanced planar tracking, rotoscoping, and object removal capabilities.
Kyle first encountered Mocha Pro in 2014 while working as a Flame assistant. Since then, he has been relying on it for various VFX tasks, such as beauty work, logo removal, sky replacements, and phone and screen composites.
One of Kyle's most challenging projects was for a Wawa commercial where he had to roto 5 full-body-dancing people for a week straight. Mocha Pro proved invaluable in this task, helping him achieve precise tracking and masking of the dancers for compositing and effects integration.
Mocha Pro's planar tracking capabilities are particularly useful. It can track surfaces and planar areas that may have perspective changes, motion blur, or occlusion, creating rotoshapes (masks) for isolating or removing elements. It also facilitates object removal by accurately tracking and stabilizing the areas around unwanted objects.
The tool integrates with compositing platforms, enhancing workflow efficiency for tasks such as clean rotoscoping to separate characters or objects from backgrounds, stabilization and tracking of complex objects or surfaces, projection mapping, and camera re-projection for set extensions or background fixes.
These features are crucial in VFX pipelines where Flame artists combine live-action footage with CGI, fix plates, or add effects seamlessly, leveraging Mocha Pro’s robust, production-proven toolset designed for high-end film and broadcast projects.
Kyle has worked on various projects, including commercials for Hershey's, Advil, and Morgan Stanley, and episodics like The Last Of Us (HBO), Mrs. Davis (Peacock), What We Do in the Shadows (FX), and The Gilded Age (HBO). He is also the co-host of the weekly YouTube show Logik Live.
One of his favourite projects was the short film "F^¢k 'Em R!ght B@¢k" due to its efficient workflow and client satisfaction.
For those new to Mocha Pro, a free essential training series is available, and tutorials on the Boris FX site are timeless and helpful. Kyle is also an official tutorial creator for the Autodesk Flame Learning Channel and is involved in the Flame Beta program and the Logik Flame community.
A speed tip for Mocha Pro users is to master keyboard shortcuts for navigating the time bar. Additionally, Kyle advises new users to pay special attention to their layers and to keep an open mind, looking for efficiencies and workflows that make sense for them.
Mocha Pro offers a free trial for those who want to explore its capabilities. Kyle is a fan of Boris FX's Sapphire, particularly S_Glint and S_Ultraglow.
[1] Mocha Pro: Advanced Planar Tracking and Rotoscoping for Flame Artists. (2021). Boris FX. Retrieved from https://www.borisfx.com/mocha-pro/
[5] Mocha Pro: The Ultimate Rotoscoping and Planar Tracking Tool for Flame Artists. (2021). Boris FX. Retrieved from https://www.borisfx.com/mocha-pro/
By relying on Mocha Pro, a robust tool with advanced planar tracking and rotoscoping capabilities, Jeff Kyle has streamlined various VFX tasks in his lifestyle as a Flame artist, such as beauty work, logo removal, and phone composites. This technology has aided him in complex projects, like the Wawa commercial, where it helped track and mask dancers for compositing and effects integration.
