stupid "to be or not to be" question

#1

hello people,

I am sure this is going to sound like a dumb question but I figured I’d ask anyway.

I’ve been reading around and Apple is supposed to release this Phenomenon 2008 somewhere this year, and I was wondering if it would actually be worth it to buy Shake.

Usually I wouldn’t be asking this type of question if I was talking about Adobe, Autodesk and such, since they DO share their product release plans and all, but we’re talking about apple here, so I fear that a coupleof days after I finally decide to buy shake, apple will come and say “ok people, Phenomenon is here and you can get it now! and btw, Shake buyers will not have the option of a cross-grade”, and I will end up being extremely pissed off.

So, in part I am thinking that I should postpone any Shake buying plans till after SIGGRAPH since it is the logical step to release it there… unless they thought that “macworld 2009” was THE place to launch it -_-

and BTW, I am not buying it “right now” but right now it’s definitely on my to-buy list.

#2

Shake is a $5000 compositor (that is still fairly competitive with other $5K compositors even with the suspension of further development) that sells for $500. At that price it is selling for what some high end plugins for FCP go for.

Buy it if you need it’s capabilities and/or want to learn nodal compositing, not because you expect an upgrade to some application that may or may not be coming out. Learning shake is more applicable to other nodal compositors than most would guess and is a different mindset then layer based motion graphics/compositors like AE require.

I for one hope that Apple comes out with a successor to shake (really shake with just CoreImage/CoreVideo integration would be great as shake could use a GUI boost particularly things like setting up things like radial blurs or 3D multi-plane compositing that can be done at astounding speed with coreimage, but i suspect that it will be much more. (check out pixelmator for doing things like simulating volumetrics using (large) radial blurs, if you are acustomed to pshop your jaw will drop :eek: )

#3

well, I’ve had experience with nodal compositors in the past, and I even had the chance to test shake 2.4 or whatever (back on the shake for windows days), and I preffer that workflow a hundred times over the layer-based compositing found in AfterFX.

The 500usd pricetag is very attractive indeed. However, being on a windows-only environment my actual “cost of ownership” would be the cost of the mac + shake. That could very well be a little above the 2500usd in case I went for a top of the line imac. However for like 300bucks more I can get a core quad macpro + shake.

Still cheaper than others but not the initial 500usd pricetag :stuck_out_tongue:

I’d love for apple to just come out straight and tell us what they want to do instead of waiting for the “zero day big announcement”

Anyway, my other question would be what would you consider better: shake or fusion. Ignoring the pricetag and all, but mostly features. I’ve tried fusion before and it’s amazing, so if money wasn’t an issue, what would you go for?

#4

Yes you can have the imac and sake for less then any comparable compositor, the mac pro’s are substantially faster but you would likely spend $750(US) matching the imac’s 24" screen (it is NOT one of the cheap 6bit TN (twisted nematic) panels that so dominate todays monitor market)

Haven’t had a huge amount of experience with fusion but (in what I have seen) it looks like it has an edge over shake in a few areas. That said however, if all Apple did for a new version was integrate core image and core animation calls and clean up a couple loose ends, in my mind, that would tip the balance the other way and make shake the superior package. (and it is unlikely that that is all Apple will do)

#5

You should also look at Nuke. Faster than shake, more solid than fusion. Platform independent (even price wise).

-k

#6

2008 date was a pure rumor. Also Adobe/Autodesk don’t share unannounced products till they are almost shipping, just like Apple.

Personally I wouldn’t bet on any unannounced product no matter what it is. Use what is currently availible becuase it is here and now and actually works. Most brand new software is extremely buggy for the first year or two of it’s life.

#7

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