Autodesk anticipates that Toxik 2008 (Windows and Linux) will be available worldwide fall 2007. North American suggested retail pricing for one Toxik creative seat is US $3,485*.
This puts Toxik at an entry price point below that of Fusion and Nuke. Looks like some great new tools have been added, including extended bicubics. I know I'll be thinking pretty seriously about this in the next few months.
The bad news: No Mac version planned, unknown if it will work well in Boot Camp with the Mac Pro's graphics options.
Re: Great news about Toxik by bones on Aug 6, 2007 at 6:41:39 am
OK, a couple of things here. Firstly, John Mont misread the press release which says "bicubic warping", not extended bicubics, which means no sub-divided warping grid at this time.
As for a Mac version, you need to understand that Toxik is highly optimised for the hardware it runs on. Autodesk and nVidia have worked very closely to squeeze the best performance possible from the software and hardware so you need to ask yourself how likely it is that Apple, who write their own graphics drivers, would be willing to do the same thing to ensure that the Mac experience was as good as Windoze or Linux. Sounds most unlikely to me and you'd have to think Autodesk know how damaging it can be for a product's reputation if it doesn't offer consistent performance over all platforms, as many of us can attest to.
I have played around with Toxik on Windoze in a MacPro and most things worked pretty well, as long as I didn't want to use OpenGL for real-time interaction in the 3D environment. It was a GeForce MacPro so maybe it would have been better with a QuadroFX but somehow I doubt it. I also used it on some 8-core HP workstations at the same place [in Mumbai] and it fairly screams.
Re: Great news about Toxik by Alan Okey on Aug 6, 2007 at 9:34:35 am
[bones]"John Mont misread the press release which says "bicubic warping", not extended bicubics, which means no sub-divided warping grid at this time."
Thanks for the clarification.
[bones]"I also used it on some 8-core HP workstations at the same place [in Mumbai] and it fairly screams.
"
I'm curious about Toxik's use of disk arrays: does Toxik utilize disk-based playback like FFI/Smoke utilizes Stone arrays, or does it use RAM caching akin to Combustion? Or is it neither method?
Re: Great news about Toxik(DEATH of C*) by opteroner on Aug 6, 2007 at 1:52:01 pm
And if what people said about rumors of death of Combustion is right, and if it means that Toxik will replace C*...and so that i have to learn Toxik from zero from beginning, cause i dont know anything about Toxik..except the meant of its name, Toxik (Toxic) is similar to Poison hahaha...
..in fact, i have been learning C* for at least 2 years..what a very short time, and now i'm still learning..there many thing that i dont know, yet...
so i m still hoping that C* not dissapear...but arise with new version and new powerful feature...eg..real/native 3d workspace, 3d particles (like Eyeon Fusion 5), 3d primitive geometry and 3d text..abillity to read FBX and process it..etc!!
Re: Great news about Toxik by bones on Aug 7, 2007 at 12:24:49 am
[Alan Okey]"I'm curious about Toxik's use of disk arrays: does Toxik utilize disk-based playback like FFI/Smoke utilizes Stone arrays, or does it use RAM caching akin to Combustion? Or is it neither method?"
It does both. All image data is cached to disk but, by default, nodes [operators] are processed and their output is cached to RAM. When you run out of RAM, you can press the Intermediate Result [IR] button on the last node in the tree and its output will be cached to disk, freeing up more RAM for new nodes. It is like a really slick "commit to disk", but you don't have to tell it where to put the rendered files or wait for it to process.
[opteroner]"And if what people said about rumors of death of Combustion is right, and if it means that Toxik will replace C*...and so that i have to learn Toxik from zero from beginning, cause i dont know anything about Toxik."
Toxik has a lot of the same tools as Combustion and it didn't really take me long at all to get into the groove with it. But I wouldn't be too worried about the death of Combustion just yet because Toxik is very narrowly focussed on film compositing and it lacks a lot of the tools Combustion has for motion graphics. It will be a while yet before Toxik is in a position to replace Combustion in everyday use so I am confident that Combustion will be around for a while yet [but this is just my personal opinion, I have no inside knowledge of what is planned].
[Jeff Brown]"Is there anything in C* that is _not_ in Toxic? Just curious. One thing I saw missing from the press release was interoperability with 3ds Max, though perhaps that's a "given" from earlier releases."
Plenty. Toxik only has a very basic text tool, designed purely for making slates [it is even called the "Slate" tool]. There is only a very basic timeline because, like Flame, it is a shot-based compositor. There are no particles as yet, no Discreet Keyer [but it does have a more powerful version of the Master Keyer], no equivalent of the Edit operator, nothing like Paint [Toxik's paint is raster-based and nowhere near as full-featured] and no support for AE plug-ins [it has it's own plug-in format and supports OFX]. Toxik is not designed as an end-to-end solution so, in it's current form, it could not replace Combustion on the desktop. i.e. It has limited I/O functionality [no AVI or audio support, for example]. Like Shake, it is focussed on doing one thing very well [film] and I think that, in the longer term, this may give future development of Combustion more focus on filling in the gaps [again, just my personal opinion, not based on insider knowledge].
A lot of the interoperability with Maya is done through scripting so it is possible to do most of it with 3DS Max or XSI or anything else. Where it gets a little better with Maya is that it is moving over to Python, which Toxik already employs extensively, which makes the inter-operability easier and stronger. There is no support for RPF but Toxik2008 will support multi-channel EXR files.
[jamination]"Perhaps someone could shed some light on what it does that constitutes its price point. It would seem for a bit more you got a lot more with fusion?"
Right now that may be true, although there is a lot more to getting work done than a list of features. Look how long it has taken Eyeon to get a stable version of Fusion 5 out. In the same time Toxik's toolset has tripled and we've had two revision's of it's GUI/workflow. You should also check out how Toxik and Maya will interact - it is light-years ahead of anything currently out there.
Maybe Fusion looks like a better bet right now but I reckon anyone who chose it would be kicking themselves in a year or two. I've been involved in a lot of beta programmes over the years but nothing like Toxik's. The developers are incredibly responsive to user input and what they are building is basically a tool that artists want to use.
Re: Great news about Toxik by bones on Aug 8, 2007 at 5:13:17 am
You do understand that to get real-time performance from a disk cache at HD res, you need a fibre-channel card and a racked RAID with 10 disks or so, don't you? I don't see much use for it with Combustion, except at SD, which would mean a lot of work for a short-term return, wouldn't it?
As for the host.ini, I am an artist and I don't think I have ever so much as looked at that file.
Re: Great news about Toxik by Greg Folley on Aug 13, 2007 at 7:23:51 am
In Combustion if you want to 'Cache to Disk' it is called Commit to Disk. Right click on any node or layer to Commit it to Disk. Performance varies according to your system. It does speed up rendering downstream if that node/layer no longer needs to be tweaked.
Re: Great news about Toxik by Serious Lee on Aug 6, 2007 at 2:56:51 pm
>>As for a Mac version, you need to understand that Toxik is highly optimised for the hardware it runs on.
Exactly the reason why Combustion is so unstable, and perhaps Toxic as the prices comes down to earth and more people begin using it. . That is the completely WRONG approach to take for products for mass consumption.
The proper way to do that is to write the application so that IF the user employs the very fastest compatible hardware it will run at optimal speed. If not, it will still run dependably(as no AD product does)
NONE of this software needs to do anything in real time save for playback. Sure , the faster the better but I am of the mind that I would rather have a dependable app than one that screams but never allows you to get your work actually finished because it crashes like a drunken actress.
Re: Great news about Toxik by Jeff Brown on Aug 6, 2007 at 1:53:56 pm
Question from a "nonToxic" Combustion user:
Is there anything in C* that is _not_ in Toxic? Just curious. One thing I saw missing from the press release was interoperability with 3ds Max, though perhaps that's a "given" from earlier releases.
The price point is a bit high for the desktop; but C* was worth the premium over AE when i used both (saved me time on jobs), so i'm just hoping for upgrade pricing... and a demo version in the fall.
Re: Great news about Toxik by DavePotts on Aug 6, 2007 at 4:25:18 pm
Jeff,
Unless I've just completely missed it, there's nothing in the Toxik promo materials about paint, text, or an integrated particle system. There's also the money spent on AE plugs that work in C, but probably won't in Toxik.
Dave Potts
Broadcast Communications
University of North Carolina @ Charlotte
Re: Great news about Toxik by Dean DeCarlo on Aug 6, 2007 at 5:12:40 pm
There is raster based paint and probably some basic text tools but I haven't seen anything about particles. It's interesting but I still think it will be a few releases before Toxik can do what Combustion can do now. I'm also hoping that all those posts about a definite V5 release of Combustion prove to be true! If that doesn't happen then investing more money in Autodesk software seems foolish. I'm sick of this will they / won't they kill C* worrying. The After Effects / Nuke / Fusion forums aren't riddled with those kinds of posts!!
Re: Great news about Toxik by Matthew Beall on Aug 6, 2007 at 7:09:01 pm
One reason I can see sticking with the Autodesk line would be that Toxic is in the same family of programs, so you should be fairly familiar with the UI and workflow. I watched all the videos about it, and I have to admit it looks very nice. But I don't see paint and titles, or any integrated 3rd party plugins (particles, Flex) not to mention support for AE plugins. Even without those options, Toxic seems geared too much toward a collaborative workflow, which I have no need for. I am a one man shop, and usually am either handed footage or generate my own from MAX or C*. On top of that, I had hoped for more muscle in Toxic, but in the videos I watched I didn't see much more interativity/rendering/caching than I can do now in c* (could be because they were capturing video at the same time).
C* is such a great application and I have been using it from the beginning. If the next version only cut rendering times in half, I would be a very happy camper and could probably get several more years out of it..
Re: Great news about Toxik by shin kurokawa on Aug 6, 2007 at 6:09:37 pm
Toxik uses OFX plugin API, not AE.
Obviously this doesn't mean that
there will/will not be a bridge
one day / someday / never-ever,
so for the time being assume
you'll be purchasing OFX plugins
for Toxik.
:)
-Shin
Re: Great news about Toxik by theo on Aug 6, 2007 at 11:41:22 pm
I hear in the pub that eventually combustion will be built into toxic, but i think AE pluging wont work, but you'll probably get Furnice, Sapphire, Speedsix, which is probably all you need, but probably be more expensive.
T
"carlsberg probably the best lager in the world"
