newbie should I buy shake
by Ron
on
Dec 16, 2005 at 7:17:45 am
Do shake users like shake . I have a great deal to get shake 4.0 . I undstand it is a lot harder to learn but I am on combustion 3 on a mac and thinking of adding shake because combustion 4 on mac is long time waiting. please let me know .
Re: newbie should I buy shake by Jim Kanter on Dec 16, 2005 at 2:25:07 pm
Depends on what you are doing, what you need to do, and how much of a good deal it really is.
1. Stay away from "borrowed," "unoriginal," "backup copies," cracks, warez, NFRs and the like. Make sure that it is a commercial version registerable to you.
2. If you are doing mostly motion graphics then Shake may not be for you.
3. If you are doing a lot of compositing and high resolution work then consider it.
4. If you are not sure, download the demo (or get Marco's book published by Peachpit -- the demo's on the included disk) and try it out.
5. If you are going to get Shake go ahead and get version 4.
Jim Kanter,
Digital Film Institute
www.dfilminst.com
Re: newbie should I buy shake by Lars Bunch on Dec 16, 2005 at 3:24:31 pm
Hi,
After Effects and (I assume) Combustion are ANIMATION programs that can do a range of simple compositing tasks. Shake is a COMPOSITING program that can do simple animation tasks. While practically any feature can be animated in Shake, the animation that you can do is optimzed for the sorts of things one might need while composting. Creating motion graphics like title sequences and what not, while possible, are more difficult in Shake than in Combustion.
I use Shake and After Effects and one is not a replacement for the other. The tools are as different from one another as are Photoshop and Illustrator. In the end they are both used to create visual effects, but with very different work flows and with a different kind of end result in mind.
For example, I am currently working on two projects; one a compositing job in Shake, the other, an animation job in After Effects. The shots in the Shake job are things like rotoscopeing, adding set extensions created in a 3D program, making animals shot on a blue screen appear to attack actors, adding gunshot flares, creating holographic floating computer monitors etc... In the After Effects job, I am creating animated text to be overlayed onto footage, creating fluid moves on still images, animating a series of logos etc. While both of these jobs could be done in one program or the other, I find that Shake lends itself well to one sort of job and After Effects to another.
As for Shake being harder to learn, it depends upon how you like to work. I didn't much like Combustion's interface and had difficulty figuring it out when I played with it, but I took to Shake immediately. Its node based structure makes sense for the way I think.
Shake is the better tool for creating a composite that appears to be a seamless shot. When I work in After Effects, I am usually creating a shot that the viewer will know is an effect (Animated text, graphic elements etc.) whereas when I'm working in Shake I am usually doing set extensions or adding 3D generated elements that need to look as if they were shot in the original take.
Obviously the only way to really know is to play with the program. Each user brings their own creativity and methods of working to the tool. You may discover that you can create more interesting motion graphics with Shake than in Combustion. But I suspect if you use Shake, you will end up using both tools for their separate features rather than switching to a new tool to the exclusion of the old one.
Anyway, don't think of Shake as a replacement to Combustion, but rather as a new and different tool. (Actually if all you want is Combustion 4.0, it might be easier and not much more expensive to buy a Windows box and a new copy of Combustion for Windows.)
Re: newbie should I buy shake by CharlieX2 on Dec 16, 2005 at 6:12:58 pm
Combustion is a totally decent compositing program...good for everyday work. I know several VFX shops around that use windows based C* to do some 2K compositing instead of their Inferno's. Plus it's Paint node, and ability to make and animate motion-type graphics is great to have right on hand. And I totally prefer it's keyframe system and graphing over Shake.
Shake is hard core compositing. Super fast, powerful, and rock solid.... but sometimes you have to scratch your head to figure out something that would be an easy click in Combustion.
