Shake: 499???!!!

darwinandpaine said:
Anyone know of any good learning resource for Shake (instructional DVDs, etc...)? I can't find anything but live seminars.
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The best from what I've read:

Apple Pro Training Series : Shake 4 (2nd Edition) (Apple Pro Training) (Paperback)
by Marco Paolini
 
There's also the Gnomon DVDs for Shake. That's what I was looking at, but at $300 and knowing that Shake's interface may drastically change in a year, I'm thinking maybe just get a book and just use the basics of Shake until it's successor arrives before really digging my claws in so deep.

I've been waiting the past couple of months on purchasing Shake to see if I could justify the price difference from AE. Problem solved!
 
Go pick up the Art and Science of Digital Compositing, it's software agnostic, but it is written about Ron Brinkman, one of the lead programmers at Nothing Real, who helped originally write the program. Understanding the nuts and bolts of compositing is much more essential than understanding a tutorial. If you really want to harness the power of the program, that is they way to go. From what I've read, people say the Apple books don't explain anything on why.
 
telebay said:
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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Yes and No. Yes it will get the bumps out of a shot but you will need good markers to track. Too much movement will result in running out of frame edges to correct to. Result= black bars where you go run out of frame.

It is good to use it for fixing bumps in a dolly shot or a pan/tilt that got janky.

Most of the time in extreme movement shots I have removed the bouncing so I would have a steady plate to composite. Then apply the motion tracks backward to the composited footage so it matches the motion of the original shot. Result- you remove the image stabalization from the motion shot once you've made your composite and apply it in reverse to your composite footage.

It works great to steadygate footage shot on film so you can apply composites that match the film weave.
 
Saddler said:
There's also the Gnomon DVDs for Shake. That's what I was looking at, but at $300 and knowing that Shake's interface may drastically change in a year, I'm thinking maybe just get a book and just use the basics of Shake until it's successor arrives before really digging my claws in so deep.

I've been waiting the past couple of months on purchasing Shake to see if I could justify the price difference from AE. Problem solved!
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The Gnomon DVDs are where I started learning and they're phenomenal! I picked up the 6 discs for $150 on eBay early last year.

oneinfiniteloop said:
Go pick up the Art and Science of Digital Compositing, it's software agnostic, but it is written about Ron Brinkman, one of the lead programmers at Nothing Real, who helped originally write the program. Understanding the nuts and bolts of compositing is much more essential than understanding a tutorial. If you really want to harness the power of the program, that is they way to go. From what I've read, people say the Apple books don't explain anything on why.
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The Apple book is okay, but you're right, Brinkman's book is great! It should be owned by ANYONE doing VFX work, especially compositors.

Tzedekh said:
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.
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I think at $499, you will get a chance in as many as 2 years, to learn a great program that should be ungradeable when the next version comes out. Apple is saying the "next generation of Shake" meaning it's not going anywhere. Though it maybe the EOL for the Linux version and not to expect a Linux version in 07-08.
 
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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?
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This is absolutely not true. I've used AE, own Fusion and Shake and I can tell you with all honesty that I think Shake is very intuitive and about as easy to learn as one can expect for learning compositing. What is difficult is compositing in general and the artistic skills required to perform difficult composites, and not the tool itself. Shake is very straightforward and the interface is streamlined. If you have no compositing experience you will struggle with it, regardless of the app.
 
unfiltered said:
Tzedekh said:
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.
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I think at $499, you will get a chance in as many as 2 years, to learn a great program that should be ungradeable when the next version comes out. Apple is saying the "next generation of Shake" meaning it's not going anywhere.
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Yeah, that was kind of my point. But I think that Apple may decide to merge Motion with Shake, especially since they are now both under the Final Cut Studio rubric.
Though it maybe the EOL for the Linux version and not to expect a Linux version in 07-08.
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I think it's certain that the Linux version will be discontinued. As far as I know, Shake is the only Apple app that is supported on another platform, and I'm sure that's because the installed base of Shake users would have been really angry if they had been faced with a tough decision -- immediately switch their compositing hardware to Macs or their software to something like Nuke, Inferno, or Flame. Apple has wisely chosen to phase out Linux support gradually rather than just pull the plug.
 
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There's too large of a Linux user base, it'll still be Linux.

The Apple Pro Training Series on Shake will get you up and running with "Shake" better than any other tutorial around. Been using Shake for awhile now.

Some folks find node-based compositing very easy, some find it hard. Depends on you. Go into Shake with an open mind, do the book, you'll be fine.
 
The Linux version of Shake isn't going anywhere... It just looks like it because Apple are downplaying it severly. There isn't a new version for Linux, it's still 4.0, from the looks of things, and it's still at the same $3000 render only price and $5000 comercial price. You can't buy it from their website anymore, you have to call them or email the specific Shake sales dept. As free as Linux is it doesn't make up for the $4,500 difference in price now.
 
oxrs said:
The Linux version of Shake isn't going anywhere... It just looks like it because Apple are downplaying it severly. There isn't a new version for Linux, it's still 4.0, from the looks of things, and it's still at the same $3000 render only price and $5000 comercial price. You can't buy it from their website anymore, you have to call them or email the specific Shake sales dept. As free as Linux is it doesn't make up for the $4,500 difference in price now.
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If Apple hasn't upgraded the Linux version and doesn't seem likely to, it's essentially orphaned, unless you can still buy a maintenance contract, which you can't with the Mac Version. There is a large installed Linux base, but the tone of an e-mail sent to Linux Shake users (see the original post in this thread) seems to indicate that Apple is trying to get them -- at least the large installations -- to buy a $50,000/5,000-seat license, which includes the SDK. I can see it now. "Thanks for buying the volume license. Uh, by the way, do do have 5,000 Macs? How 'bout a thousand Macs? A hundred? . . . Huh? Twelve?!"
 
Tzedekh said:
If Apple hasn't upgraded the Linux version and doesn't seem likely to, it's essentially orphaned, unless you can still buy a maintenance contract, which you can't with the Mac Version. There is a large installed Linux base, but the tone of an e-mail sent to Linux Shake users (see the original post in this thread) seems to indicate that Apple is trying to get them -- at least the large installations -- to buy a $50,000/5,000-seat license, which includes the SDK. I can see it now. "Thanks for buying the volume license. Uh, by the way, do do have 5,000 Macs? How 'bout a thousand Macs? A hundred? . . . Huh? Twelve?!"
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Well, if they have the code/SDK, why would they need Mac's, it's the Linux code they're buying, and if it wasn't ported over, then the facilities can do that.
 
It goes deeper than that.

Some facilities are have contracts with up to source code access. Shake's functions
are a 'toolkit' that a lot of facilities have used as a core for other packages. So it
may 'live on' in a frankenstein-like capacity.

Overall, I think we're seeing a shift where apple is going to take shake and turn it
into a mass-market solution as part of the bundle and maybe produce a 'cadillac'
option ala Flint/Flame/Inferno.. sorta like the old Tremor project.
 
Greggl said:
It goes deeper than that.

Some facilities are have contracts with up to source code access. Shake's functions
are a 'toolkit' that a lot of facilities have used as a core for other packages. So it
may 'live on' in a frankenstein-like capacity.

Overall, I think we're seeing a shift where apple is going to take shake and turn it
into a mass-market solution as part of the bundle and maybe produce a 'cadillac'
option ala Flint/Flame/Inferno.. sorta like the old Tremor project.
Click to expand...

I don't know if I like this, this is the way some apps have gotten ruined.
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
Well, if they have the code/SDK, why would they need Mac's, it's the Linux code they're buying, and if it wasn't ported over, then the facilities can do that.
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Yeah, they could, but even with the source code, porting isn't a trivial matter. Otherwise, we'd see a lot more mass-market apps ported to Linux. That being said, if the site license, porting, and optimization cost, say, $200,000, for an effects house that has a couple hundred compositing workstations, that would bring the per-seat license to $1,000 -- a third of the original. The question is, could that effects house then turn around and license its port to another company, assuming that the latter bought the official Apple license?
 
no.. the toolkit isnt for commercial development.

And it is a pretty trivial port btw... shake has always been a
unix development... Irix/Linux/OSX are just a hop/skip jump...
the windows port was the tough one that required the resources.

I was involved (on the edges) of app development for a project
that relied on shake components at its core. The MAC-centric
move was in an effort to spur hardware sales and get more
macs into vfx work.
 
The Apple training books are amazing for getting you aquanted with Shake, but it is the kind of program you could spend years and still learn new things, but then I still learn new things in AE, and I have been using it proffesionally for years. Sure Shake has a learning curve, but it really isn't that hard. If you are interested take a look at the videos on Apple's web site, they give a pretty good idea of how it works, and once you understand the nodal view you will love shake, though it is a tool, and I use it for some things and AE or Motion even for others, though it would be nice to have it integrated with Motion... And by 2008 who knows what else will be on the market.
 
Tzedekh said:
Yeah, that was kind of my point. But I think that Apple may decide to merge Motion with Shake, especially since they are now both under the Final Cut Studio rubric.
I think it's certain that the Linux version will be discontinued. As far as I know, Shake is the only Apple app that is supported on another platform, and I'm sure that's because the installed base of Shake users would have been really angry if they had been faced with a tough decision -- immediately switch their compositing hardware to Macs or their software to something like Nuke, Inferno, or Flame. Apple has wisely chosen to phase out Linux support gradually rather than just pull the plug.
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My post was to support your post, so we're on the same, but we're just "spelling some words differently." ;)
 
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