About Autodesk Toxik

[Eddyisgreat]

well, we have a copy of it, however problems with our licensing server is preventing us from actually using it ~.~

[davezak]

what does toxik do? :|

[thatoneguy]

Discreet has an online demonstration/tutorials. They're little video features that walk you through the functionality of Toxic. Just go to www.discreet.com (http://www.discreet.com) then products then Toxik and I think it's down at the bottom "Online demonstration" then fill out the form. Very informative.

[beaker]

The company I'm freelancing at has had it for a few years. While it has all these really cool high level tools, it is still missing way too many basics compositing 101 stuff which makes it pretty useless for most pipelines.

[jeremybirn]

The company I'm freelancing at has had it for a few years. While it has all these really cool high level tools, it is still missing way too many basics compositing 101 stuff which makes it pretty useless for most pipelines.

Do you think they might be just a version or so away from it becoming a mainstream product? (I mean, do you expect the version at next year's SIGGRAPH to be complete enough that they'd start selling individual licenses? Or has it not been moving that fast?)

-jeremy

[beaker]

2007 Ships later this year, so I can say more then. :)

The issue with the individual version is they for some reason decided to use Oracle for the database server (one of the most expensive ones on the market). They had to spread out the cost of it which is why it is sold in groups of 5. So they would have to use another database, make a better deal with Oracle or just eat the cost(all guesses).

[thatoneguy]

I was just pondering a similar question this week. I wonder what direction autodesk is trying to push Toxik. Are they hoping to compete with the Shake/Fusion/Nuke crowd? Are they hoping some day to replace the aging FFI and sell a few copies on the side? Are they maybe even planning on making this into a long term desktop compositing replacement for Combustion?

Right now it's clear they seem to be trying to dig their way into the medium to large studio system which is mostly running shake, but since it is a windows app, price point seems to be only the only point keeping it from fighting on the lower end market. Problem is the lower end market has little to no use for collaborative compositing work so the oracle backend is, like beaker said, just driving up costs with little to no practical use. It'll be interesting to see if Autodesk doesn't try to maximize their Toxik platform investment and release a stripped lone copy of Toxik. I don't even know if that's possible anymore with the architecture they've built.

My guess is, when the shake team announces what they're up to Autodesk will be a little more clear about their desktop plans.

-- by the way... has anyone signed up for an FXguide PHD class. They say it includes a copy of Toxik for the duration of the class. Has this worked out very well for anyone? $300 to demo and learn toxik is a tempting offer.

[beaker]

Are they hoping to compete with the Shake/Fusion/Nuke crowd?This one

Are they maybe even planning on making this into a long term desktop compositing replacement for Combustion?doubt it

Problem is the lower end market has little to no use for collaborative compositing work so the oracle backend is, like beaker said, just driving up costs with little to no practical use.I disagree. An example of the most basic form of collaborative compositing. One small company of 5 compositors that I worked at a few years ago. We used this really cool applet for osx called ClipboardSharing. Since Shake is built on all ascii text, you can copy/paste text in and out of a text editor and it will just show up as nodes in Shake. So we would always just swap nodes and settings that work on different comps with each other by just copy/paste with each other and that applet. It was a great way to work.

http://www.lagercrantz.ath.cx/software/clipboardsharing/

Currently under linux we have to save out our nodes as a separate file(which build up and clutter our folders). The immediacy of just copy/pasting from other people was just really awesome.

[Aneks]

without qualification clipboard sharing is the most useful plugin that one can use. We used to use all the time last place I worked, wiht a couple of Shake seats, and it totally revoluitionised the way the team worked.

toxik 2007 is a very interesting product but far from complete. Over at fxphd we are using a special stanalone version via VPN which will run on one machine. That is run DB, Licence and Media server all locally. As a result its a little slower, but it does work.

It's a bit of wierd app though. Layer based paint and normal map inputs for nodes AND NO CORNER PIN !

I wonder at the logic of pushing multiple seats as a package deal. Places with larger teams who lack their own internal DB are sure to like what Toxik offers, but I personally am having a hard time seeing where it would fit into most sectors.

[rhodar]

Hi people,
I am currently a combustion user, and am considering the purchase of Toxik 2007 for my compoisiting studio, however i see that you need an Nvidia based graphics card (system requirements states you need a Quadro card) is there any way to work around this as all the systems we have use ATi based cards.

Thanks in advance

Rhodar

[beaker]

You can try, but Ati cards have horrible opengl support. Most apps like maya, houdini, shake, etc... all have issues with them.

No offense, but your going to spend US$ 40-50k on a compositor and can't shell out an extra couple thousand on video cards? You don't even need quadro cards, just a nice geforce 6800 or 7800.

[dprgb]

Hi people,
I am currently a combustion user, and am considering the purchase of Toxik 2007 for my compoisiting studio, however i see that you need an Nvidia based graphics card (system requirements states you need a Quadro card) is there any way to work around this as all the systems we have use ATi based cards.

Thanks in advance

Rhodar

I'm running it on an ATI All-In-Wonder x800 at home (through fxphd) and it's buggy and some features don't work (for instance the raster paint doesn't work at all). I've considered getting a new graphics card (I just bought this one 4 months ago), but I'm not putting any more money into AGP - I'd rather hold off and get a new computer.

[Aneks]

Short answer. You will probably be able to get the applicaton to work, but you are going to have compatablility issues. Certain things, like paint, will not work properly without the right hardware. You might want to try the vpn version to see what else is problematic.

[jbradley]

The issue with the individual version is they for some reason decided to use Oracle for the database server (one of the most expensive ones on the market). They had to spread out the cost of it which is why it is sold in groups of 5. So they would have to use another database, make a better deal with Oracle or just eat the cost(all guesses).

Oracle is no better than MySQL, that's forsure, and MySQL is free.

You'd figure that at this point in the game, some of the compositing tools would start to take advantage of open technologies, to allow more freedom (rather than less) to the users.

I wonder if Autodesk actually did their best to find a database technology that would make the product cost more, just so they could charge more and mark up the DB technology.

I'm just keeping an eye out to see what Apple does with the next version of Shake.

[beaker]

You'd figure that at this point in the game, some of the compositing tools would start to take advantage of open technologies, to allow more freedom (rather than less) to the users.The really nice thing for opensource and TD minded people is it is all built on top of Python. Even better, the next version of maya is supposed to include a python module.

[thatoneguy]

Oracle is no better than MySQL, that's forsure, and MySQL is free.


I would be a lot less sure. Yeah if you're hosting a PHP blog MySQl is all you need. It's all I've ever needed for my personal uses. But Oracle is far far more powerful on the backend. Oracle for instance can convert a search string into a phonetic object and then compare entries in a database to it and produce a set of results based on phonetics. Far more powerful than *search*. And that's just the beginning.

[jbradley]

I would be a lot less sure. Yeah if you're hosting a PHP blog MySQl is all you need. It's all I've ever needed for my personal uses. But Oracle is far far more powerful on the backend. Oracle for instance can convert a search string into a phonetic object and then compare entries in a database to it and produce a set of results based on phonetics. Far more powerful than *search*. And that's just the beginning.

So can a few other database technologies, such as PostgresSQL. Even then, the need to do things like that are extremely minimal, if necessary at all.

My main point is that I don't see how Toxic would benefit from Oracle, as opposed to PostgresSQL (which is more comparable to Oracle than MySQL, my original comparison). Seems to be a unnecessary way to bloat the software requirements, that's all.

BTW, the whole Python thing is very interesting. I've been developing with Python for quite a few years now, so that's piqued my interest a bit.

[thatoneguy]

Maybe. We honestly don't know what the requirements for the Toxik platform is. We don't even know how much or if at all Oracle is driving up the cost of Toxik. Autodesk may want support on the database in which case Oracle might be cheaper than even PostreSQL.

The needs of an interactive collaborative compositor could be vastly different from that of the capabilities of PostreSQL. I know mySQL is built around a web paradigm and probably wouldn't be suited to a desktop application. I wouldn't be too quick to rule out Oracle as the best choice for Toxik. Besides whose to say even if they did use a cheaper database they would pass on the savings to us?

[rakmaya]

Oracle is no better than MySQL, that's forsure, and MySQL is free.

The last time I looked at the db, Toxik ain't using any Oracle specific optimizations the database provides. Hence it still makes me wonder why even. But on a large scale with 1000s of artists storing files and settings, it might seem benefitial in future.

We have seen systems cry and darg while Oracle cruise through the Financial database and processing. MySQL and SQL Server couldn't even handle CDR processing info of Florida alone while the Oracle was running the same system for NYC and LA traffic. So don't talk about usefullness. A company I used to work for, they hired me to write Monitoring, Caching and Data managing tools to support reading and writing from SQL Server and MySQL database b/c realtime streaming in and out of those systems was not possible. The money they payed on me could have been spent to buy at least 10 systems and an Oracle license.

We don't know for what else they plan to use the db for future. From a compant point of view, they could save a lot by using a different DB. There might be other reasons than just a big bang name impact.

[Kyo007]

Toxik is very hard. Now i am learning with documentation. Can someone use it good ? i can't run it with ati, when i run toxik it write : " request for specific hardware- accelerated pixel format could not be met: WGL_ARG_pixel_format not " what can i do ?
when i run it at office (with quadro fx4500 card) haven't got a proglem.


Thanks.

[thatoneguy]

Just got back from the Autodesk Systems Demonstration here in San Francisco (was anybody else there?)

I must say I was really impressed with what I saw when it came to toxic. I'm not sure what might be missing/lacking at this point since they obviously didn't show the entire package, but it looked production ready to me. The most impressive aspect that I came away with was its speed. I don't think they're hyping their engine enough, that thing is amazing, the real time feeback blew me away... and it has a DOD system of sorts... all the better. I would be very interested to use it on a project sometime and I hope Autodesk brings the technology into the Combustion product line. Pooor poor combustion... it really does need help on the feedback front.

Anyway, it looked like they've gotten all of the workflow kinks worked out from FFI/Smoke/Lustre project sharing which is impressive and should definitely give some people a second look if they're building a full boutique post house.

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