Phenomenon RANT

Yeah, I think Apple needs to make an announcement soon! I'm getting worried that they'll never recover their market share once everyone goes Nuke or Toxic. If they make it a Motion on steroids, they'll loose their entire current Shake market guaranteed. Motion is okay for some quick particle renders for throwing in a FCP project, it has some neat features like the Audio behaviors and such. But it's really a motion graphics app, hence the name - it's not called Composite.

I'd like for Phenomenon to utilize all 8 cores and 20 GB of RAM in my system, not just when rendering via QMaster (which keeps breaking and is useless on my system), but utilizing the full power in the program for RT effects, with GPU access too, and maybe even leveraging Nvidia's newly acquired Physx tech for use in particles, collsion, etc. I'll be very disappointed if they don't also update FCP when Snow Leopard comes out next year to a 64 bit version to use more RAM and more than 25% utilization which it seems to top out now on my octo core. I've recently gotten back into AE since CS3 was released, and man Adobe puts Apple to shame; CS3 is BLAZING on my octo-core and uses ALL 20GB, not running out of RAM like FCP which hits it's limit at 3.5 GB. Oh, while I'm at it, I should mention that Apple really needs to fix the QT gamma issues that are hindering FCP - this is a MAJOR problem when delivering digital files to clients who all use AVID.

Shake is great, I'm using it on a very heavy FX scene, but I gave up on trying to use Quicktime files of any codec since 10 bit is broken and ProRes is wonky in Shake. But it's aging and needs new features and a better interface (with scroll bars that react to the scroll wheel please).

I'd like for Phenomenon to be able to interface with PC render farms (FCP support would be great too!). We're setting up a large Deadline based render farm at work to handle rendering for 3DSMax, Maya, AE, Fusion, Particle Illusion, and it even supports Quicktime! But it offers Shake PC support, not Mac, and no Final Cut, Motion, etc. It does support Nuke and Toxik.

Apple, please throw us a bone. When Shake was EOL, didn't Apple mention that they're working on a new compositing system based on Shake tech w/ the whole Shake team devoted to it? I mean, it's not just user speculation, conjecture and rumors, correct? So just give put out a press release already to hang onto the rest of us Shake users who are now at the point of seriously considering Nuke and Toxik.