Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Ron Lindeboom on Apr 21, 2008 at 3:47:19 pm
No, there wasn't a word. But the long awaited Final Cut Server finally took its bow before a smaller public than NAB promoters would have liked.
I don't think that with Apple bowing out of NAB that they would use NAB for introducing two things. I suspect that if the Phenomenon project is back on track after the rumored team departure issues, etc., that they are more likely to use something like SIGGRAPH for this introduction -- if there is indeed to be such a thing in the future.
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Andrew Shanks on Apr 22, 2008 at 9:39:08 pm
It was only ever rumored (middle of 2006) that Apple would make an announcement at NAB this year in regards to the shake replacement. Since then most of the team that had come across to apple from Nothing Real (the original makers of Shake) have moved off to join the Nuke team at the Foundry (this includes Ron Brinkman, guru to compositors everywhere, and a good guy to have on your team for ideas when designing fx software thats for sure).
Nuke at the moment has the buzz and seems to be picking up a number of ex-shake artists, but the price is still prohibitive for freelancers (the maintainance fee pushes it way above Fusion for example) and even facilities are sitting on the fence at the moment. Shake is still the mainstay in most large post houses, a number of them having bought the code and have developed their own upgrades with stable support for higher resolutions (4k), their own 3d multiplane solutions (less buggy) and normals based relighting for 3d renders.
Shake's code is old, it did need a complete reworking (much like what 3d applications tend to do from time to time when the codebase is creaking under the strain, e.g. Alias Power animator to maya, Softimage to xsi, 3d studio to max). I was enthusiastic when I first heard they were effectively laying the old shake to rest to work on a new application to take over from shake (as I'd heard things like 3d had been a pain to impliment due to the base code, so a fresh start, even if it meant no upgrades for a couple of years, seemed fair), and the knocking the price down low on shake made me think that surely it was so they could get lots more artists/students trained in the interface so that when their new application came out, it would still have similar feel to shake for people to dive straight in.
My optimism is not so strong anymore, first with so many original shake developers leaving, then I heard whisperings that apple does have something up its sleeve, but from what i've heard its not going to be the hardcore straight forward compositing platform we hoped would be the evolution of shake (more like a motion/shake mix leaning on some realtime gpu, ...which would make sense as I'm guessing its the same guys who developed motion that are working on this, ....ugh, anyone else here hate motion?).
Anywayz, enough ranting from me, shake is still a great application even if it isn't being developed anymore (heck, people are still using the last windows version, 2.5, for work on films, and thats 6 years old, so 4.1 still has a bit of life in it yet). We probably will see something at Siggraph or Macworld later in the year, ...but I do feel if Apple don't let people in on their shake replacement soon (even glimpses just to fuel interest, ...like what softimage has been doing with their new moondust technology planned for xsi) a lot of compositors will jump ship to fusion or nuke.
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Aaron Neitz on Apr 22, 2008 at 11:16:30 pm
Great post Andrew.
I have my serious doubts that Apple would develop a hard core compositor in the first place. The entire Studio bundle, while very powerful, tends to toe the line between prosumer and professionals... and somewhere in there there's a level of complexity they don't want to confuse Joe Consumer with. That's fine - it's your business model Steve. Perhaps that's what happened to the Shake team? The Shake guys said "let's blow this thing up!" and Apple said "it needs to cater to wedding videographers too"
Motion is great example. There were some interesting ideas in it - but I can't think of anyone who'd use it over After Effects in production. It's designed to get quick (somewhat uncontrollable) results with minimal knowledge of what you're doing.
Anyhow, it's a shame we don't at least get some .1 upgrades to Shake to solve the current problems with 10 bit codecs and Leopard. Nuke's really powerful - but I still prefer Shake's sensibilities overall.
BTW, does anyone know how to get a HoldOut matte in Nuke's Primatte to work? :)
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Randy Little on Apr 23, 2008 at 5:34:47 am
Please name more then 5 people that left apple for the Foundry? You probably can't. This is a rumor that just keeps growing. Let it rest. If it was dead it would be dead. It would save apple LOADS of headache to announce that there will be no new comper. But they haven't made a peep. NONE Hmmm No yes no No just quite. That is the normal operation of a something thing is happening. What it is who knows. I just have from very reliable sources that it ain't dead. Relax. Let them get it right. When they do it will be like when they got the iphone right. Hell there might even be a Linux version who knows?
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Randy Little on Apr 23, 2008 at 4:41:09 pm
Just to clarify. a Few people left and my no means the whole team. Ron was probably bored out of his mind working for a big company like apple that doesn't share the same love of the craft that Ron Does. That doesn't mean it won't be good and it doesn't mean it won't be bad. But it for sure doens't mean its Dead.
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Patrick Sheffield on Apr 23, 2008 at 6:34:54 pm
ugh, anyone else here hate motion?
I don't hate Motion - I use it all the time, I think it's fantastic. Very deep piece of software. Never touched AE. Shake and Motion do pretty much everything I need.
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Arnie Schlissel on Apr 23, 2008 at 8:48:26 pm
I'm with Patrick. Motion is starting to mature, & it's stability is getting better.
The addition of 3d space & tracking is a big plus.
If you add the Conduit plugin from DV Garage, you can do some lightweight nodal compositing directly inside of Motion. And maybe get an idea of what "Phenomenon" will look like?
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
Re: NAB and the missing Phenonomen by Andrew Shanks on Apr 29, 2008 at 8:27:24 am
I too have heard that something is brewing at apple (shake is dead, apple said that back in 2006, nobody knows what the new app will be until it arrives), but I'm with Aaron, I suspect it will be trying to appeal to a broader audience than just compositors, which isn't bad thing if it can maintain a professional useability about it, and not go nuts on eye candy clutter and gimmicks. My worry is that it will become what motion is to mograph (at least to start with), kinda cool when you first play with it, ...incredibly frustrating when you try to tweak things and do more complex jobs. That is motions main problem for me, great for quick canned fx (I have a couple of editor friends who love it to bits, and thats great, it fills an important niche, and their work is improved because of that tool), crud for serious mograph work though, ...don't get me wrong, motion has its place, and it is getting better with every revision, but there's a reason after effects is the biggest selling mograph app out there).
Apple will have to release a Linux version if they want to capture the facility market in the way shake did, but I can't see that happening as it doesn't fit with Apples usual way of doing things (they write software to sell their hardware, ...even itunes is a brilliant consumer spin on that idea, ...our software makes it easy if you have our hardware, ...not knocking ipods, I love mine :-). If it is a pro app it will follow the path of Finalcut, OSX only.
I've been snowed under with work the past week but I'll have a look at the matte issue in Nuke for you.
