Shake: 499???!!!

A friend of mine who is an After Effects genius, and pretty much learns everything on his own, tells me that the learning curve on Shake is extreme. But hey, for $499? What did it used to be..$3000?
 
The Sarlacc said:
it is also rumoered that this is the end of the road for shake.
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If only you could be a little more cryptic.

Geno said:
A friend of mine who is an After Effects genius, and pretty much learns everything on his own, tells me that the learning curve on Shake is extreme. But hey, for $499? What did it used to be..$3000?
Click to expand...

If you only used it for it's "un-shake" and "better-than-frame-blending slow-mo" features, it would be worth it IMO.
 
Geno said:
A friend of mine who is an After Effects genius, and pretty much learns everything on his own, tells me that the learning curve on Shake is extreme. But hey, for $499? What did it used to be..$3000?
Click to expand...
It really isn't as difficult as some people would like you to believe. It does take some dedication to learning it, but if you want to be a compositor, you should learn it.
 
OMG, just ordered it. Supposed to be here July 5th. Ordered the Apple Pro Training Series Shake 4 and it is supposed to be here Friday...on my way...:love4:
 
darwinandpaine said:
If only you could be a little more cryptic.
Click to expand...


redrum redrum....


The rumors are that shake is taking such a price dump because apple is doing away with it in favor of coming out with a new pro compositing app circa 2007/08

Whether this is true or not i haven't the foggiest...the same rumor came out when apple dropped the price on Aperture.
 
The Sarlacc said:
it is also rumoered that this is the end of the road for shake.
Click to expand...
Strange, they used it for LOTR and King Kong, Not to mention the numerous awards it received, hard to believe it's on it's way out; unless Apple has developed something infinitly better.
 
emu said:
This is no rumor: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=529747&tstart=15 - it seems to be true.
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All it says is that Apple is developing the "next generation of Shake compositing software." Motion is purportedly based on Shake technology. My guess is that Motion will be transformed into something even more advanced than Shake 4.1. I hope that Apple doesn't plan to charge $3,000 or even $1,000.

Now, if only they added a high-end (but low-priced) 3-D app. They should've acquired Alias while they had the chance. Maybe they could acquire SoftImage from Avid.
 
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The Sarlacc said:
it is also rumoered that this is the end of the road for shake.
Click to expand...

However, the e mail about Shake indicates that it will reemerge:

"Apple will no longer be selling maintenance for Shake and no further
software updates are planned as we begin work on the next generation of
Shake compositing software."
 
Shake is definitely a great program, albeit with a steep learning curve.

It may be designed for high-end professionals, but you can get a lot out of it even if you're skills and equipment are low-end (like mine!). Here's a clip I made a while back using Shake, a crappy one-ccd camera, a downmarket 3D program (Poser) and my extremely stunted compositing skills:

http://homepage.mac.com/whalen/Planet10/iMovieTheater23.html
 
Shake is a great program if you are serious about compositing. The math nodes, Color curve nodes and script based architecture makes it great to tweak out the best results. You have access to the inner core of all types of keying and matte creation. The learning curve is in understanding how compositing really works and how your software/computer reads and manipulates the data. Being able to change LUTs is great, saving nodes is great and the node based workflow is really the best system for getting great results. As a longtime AE user from the COSA days I was resistant to the node based interface at first. Once I got used to it, manipulating mattes and plugging noodles into layers was mind blowing. Creating cool effects is much more intuitive. You can even create your own black boxes to reuse. But understanding how keying works is really the best way for success. Once you know what you program is doing under the hood, clipping values and pulling mattes is much more effective.

Shake also has great tracking tools. Warping and morphing to get it all to fit. Image stabalize is the fastest and best I have used. Combustion and Commotion being two of the other greats. It is a great compliment to AE as AE has it's place when you want to play with layers.
 
I hate to seem like I'm suggesting that Shake could be a substitute for a steadicam, but -- here I go -- if you can't spend the money on a steadicam, as long as you have some decently steady hand-held shots -- can you use image stabalization in Shake to make it look like you do?
 
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