I got around to reading your blog. Good post. For whatever reason I get the creeping feeling that Smoke is kind of over the hill despite the re-write. Smoke or what used to be Fire and Flame were fantastic when they came out 17 years ago or so as they did many things that were impossible in comparison to linear tape based gear. I've been a Smoke user for a few years now and it seems basically it was a great system when you didn't have all of the other things that are available now. But with so many things available I'm scratching my head as to why I would reach for Smoke as opposed to something else.
And as many complaints as I hear about round-tripping, I have to wonder if moving projects between apps is just a reality that's not going anywhere any time soon. It really just seems that some tools shine in certain areas and as much as a pain as it may be people will continue to reach for the application that does whatever task the best. That's the way I think at least.
I guess if I didn't have all of the other stuff I have like Adobe, Avid, Nuke and 3dsMax Smoke might make a lot of sense but since I do....
Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist - FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro
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