Apple's "Phenomenon" due out in 2008?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
The latest release of Apple Computer's Shake compositing software may be the last of its breed, as the company reportedly plans to shift gears and focus on developing the next-generation of the application around a different codebase.



Apple made the revelation alongside the release of Shake 4.1 this week, telling customers that it "will no longer be selling maintenance for Shake" as "no further updates" to the application are planned.



Instead, Apple said it has begun work on the next generation of the software, which reports target for a release in 2008.



According to a rumor first published on MacRumors this week, Shake's successor bears the codename "Phenomenon." Although the software will build off users' experiences with Shake, the report states that it will be based heavily on the the codebase for Motion, Apple's professional graphics animation software.



Shake is a big deal in hollywood, where it is considered the most advanced compositing application -- designed for large format productions by major motion picture studios and leading visual effects houses.



The application has been responsible for visual effects in blockbusters such as "Star Wars Episode III," "Harry Potter," "Mission Impossible 3," "The Lord of the Rings" and this year's Oscar winner, "King Kong."



In rolling out Shake 4.1 this week -- an update that delivers native support for the new line of Intel Macs -- Apple also slashed over 80 percent off the cost of a Shake license.



Apple says the price cut from $2,999 to $499 allows Shake to fit into "almost any production?s budget."



No further details on Shake's successor have been reported at this time.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    TenoBell said in the other thread that he didn't expect Phenomenon to actually take as long as 2008. I tend to agree with this because lately Apple has been underpromising and over-delivering.



    Just a bit of history from my rusty memory. Apple purchases Nothing Real makers of Shake and Tremor. That same year they also acquire Silicon Grail's RAYZ another compositor.



    To date I don't think the best features of both have been combined which leads me to believe that the succussor to Shake could indeed already be half developed. It could combine the OpengL GPU accelerated features of Motion and meld together the best features of Shake, Chalice and Motion.



    Michael McLaughlin stated on hdforindies.com



    Quote:

    Funny how this discussion and this transition point for Shake sets me wondering about how Silicon Grail/RAYZ/Chalice ever worked or is working into the equation.



    Apple first purchased Shake if I am correct, and then (in the same year maybe) purchased the set of tools from Silicon Grail (RFX). The interfaces between the two apps were familar, but RAYZ was already doing 2K realtime and decent 4K (2002). RAYZ had a render that was superior to that of the scanline from Shake. It's cache/frame flipbook was also suppose to be highly advanced and the color correction tools because of the code written was more current then Shake's.



    And this could be faulty memory, but I thought I remember going to a Siggraph and meeting one of the guys from the company talking about a future database integration they were working on (they were in a SGI booth if I remember right so it could of been SGI).



    I can't believe apple didn't / isn't using some of those powerfull tools from that app that seemed way ahead of it's time.



    Michael McLaughlin



    Here's a Linux Journal article on Rayz



    http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5933



    Quote:

    Both RAYZ and Shake use an interactive scene-graph interface for defining how effects are assembled. While similar from a user-interface standpoint, RAYZ doesn't use the scanline rendering approach of Shake. ``I think caching schemes are more important today than scanline algorithms for optimizing rendering'', says Silicon Grail President Ray Feeney. ``Memory is much cheaper now. Scanlines can actually be slower than keeping more blocks in RAM--for example, with rotations.''



    I've read of Shakes speed problems and lack of solid caching. Ray Feeney seems to be spot on here.
  • Reply 2 of 18
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    NAB 07: FCS 2: featuring FCP with some minor tweaks and speed improvments from the final version of the Intel compiler optimized for 10.5, DVDSP-HD With full native support for HD and the ability to output a DVD, Bluray or HD DVD iso of any project. some tweaks to the rest of the apps...



    And the new prize fighter for Apple Video tools; Motion 3D, everything After effects can do and more, with Apple style. "Phenomenon" is just a silly codename, it doesnt fit the apple app monicur, too long and gives no clue as to what it does...





    Shake isnt going anywhere tho...it still servs a great purpose for high end composit work. Look for memory and resource managment tweaks and modifications to the rendering engine and full utilization of the GPU cycles to help the process along...Shake 5 will be ~2x faster...my guess...
  • Reply 3 of 18
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    NAB 07: FCS 2: featuring FCP with some minor tweaks and speed improvments from the final version of the Intel compiler optimized for 10.5, DVDSP-HD With full native support for HD and the ability to output a DVD, Bluray or HD DVD iso of any project. some tweaks to the rest of the apps...



    And the new prize fighter for Apple Video tools; Motion 3D, everything After effects can do and more, with Apple style. "Phenomenon" is just a silly codename, it doesnt fit the apple app monicur, too long and gives no clue as to what it does...





    Shake isnt going anywhere tho...it still servs a great purpose for high end composit work. Look for memory and resource managment tweaks and modifications to the rendering engine and full utilization of the GPU cycles to help the process along...Shake 5 will be ~2x faster...my guess...




    I can dig it... but I still think it'll be "MotionPro"... 8)
  • Reply 4 of 18
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    ?Shake isnt going anywhere tho...it still servs a great purpose for high end composit work. Look for memory and resource managment tweaks and modifications to the rendering engine and full utilization of the GPU cycles to help the process along...Shake 5 will be ~2x faster...my guess...



    Uh, dude, Apple has plainly stated that Shake is EOL'ed; the name may carry over for the next-gen product, but it will be a different code base than the current Shake?



    Like good ol' Alias|wavefront going from PowerAnimator to Maya?



    Heh, Maya, with all the modules, ran about US$45,000 for a single seat back in the day?



    And it will rule the industry?! One compositor to rule them all?!!!



    Mwah-hahaha?!



    ;^p
  • Reply 5 of 18
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Every since the news about Shake, I've been wondering why Apple broke with their usual pattern of absolute secrecy and mentioned they were working on a next-gen product on a new codebase.



    Either they've concluded that there is no real competition to their next-gen product, or they know someone else is doing the same thing and wanted to pre-announce theirs.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    I'm just hoping that if some combo with Motion occurs, it doesn't move far from the path Shake is on. Adding Motion's feature set to Shake would be fine, but they are two very differnt programs, with two very different audiences.



    I wouldn't want to see Apple alienating one to gain the other.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    nmcphersnmcphers Posts: 47member
    I wonder how long until Microsoft jump into the mix with their version. Don't they have to be involved in every market?
  • Reply 8 of 18
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Frank777

    Every since the news about Shake, I've been wondering why Apple broke with their usual pattern of absolute secrecy and mentioned they were working on a next-gen product on a new codebase.



    Either they've concluded that there is no real competition to their next-gen product, or they know someone else is doing the same thing and wanted to pre-announce theirs.




    I think part of the reason is that unlike consumer or even prosumer hardware/software. Professional applications need much more planning and span a much longer timespan. Also, the comment emerged as part of a maintenance statement which has to be announced. It wouldn't look good to just stop selling maintenance without saying, it's because were making a better product. Not that we are shutting the whole production down.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    catman4d2catman4d2 Posts: 174member
    great that means that they can go back to and probably will charging nearly $3,000 for this next app...............
  • Reply 10 of 18
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Catman4d2

    great that means that they can go back to and probably will charging nearly $3,000 for this next app...............



    To be fair, I think that was their original plan .
  • Reply 11 of 18
    maccentricmaccentric Posts: 263member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Catman4d2

    great that means that they can go back to and probably will charging nearly $3,000 for this next app...............



    At least they gave users this opportunity to get Shake for a much lower price. Another company would have continued to charge the $3000 price until they released their new product. It also will reflect the development costs of the new version where Shake by and large is already paid for and will cost Apple very little to maintain as there will probably be only a few small bug fixes going forward. Who knows, maybe the elasticity of demand is such that this price drop will show Apple that they could make more money at the $499 price point and will release phenomenon at $499 or $999.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    of course they are going to charge $3000 or more for the Shake replacement. Let's be honest even at $500 Shake isn't going to be an app that people just buy on a whim.



    In fact there are still plugins that damn near run you $3k for the pleasure of using.



    What I want to see Apple do is create one hell of a Compositing application that is fluid, powerful and a joy to work with once you traverse the learning curve.



    I want it to support as much GPU acceleration as possible and have steller 3D support, particles, painting and some decent rotoscoping functionality.



    I want it to have Qmaster support that actually works and I want it's integration with Final Cut Studio 2.0 to be beyond reproach with workgroup features and project management that cause Avid owners to turn greent with envy



    I want it to be stable enough in the first version for light production work and I want it to integrate into effect house pipelines easy.



    And dammit I still want Apple to acquire Luxology!
  • Reply 13 of 18
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    And dammit I still want Apple to acquire Luxology!



    I wish.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison And dammit I still want Apple to acquire Luxology!



    One of the most paining things about coming to Appleinsider is YOU and your gosh darn logic!



    Seriously, I think that would be great. I agree with most that they need a modeler of some kind.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    tak1108tak1108 Posts: 222member
    Shake runs on Linux. Shake will always run on linux. By EOL'ing it, and making a "new" product, they get around supporting Shake on linux.



    Apple tried to price the big shops into using Macs but not many of them converted. This is one more attempt to get the big shops to convert the mac.



    Not that I mind. If i didn't just invest in a complete DVCPro Hd production package, I would pick it up.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    ?And dammit I still want Apple to acquire Luxology!



    Heh, they get all riled up over at the Luxology forums everytime I mention that Apple should buy Lux?



    Imagine an entire Apple pipeline, start to finish, hardware & software?



    Sweet?!



    ;^p
  • Reply 17 of 18
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    of course they are going to charge $3000 or more for the Shake replacement. Let's be honest even at $500 Shake isn't going to be an app that people just buy on a whim.



    In fact there are still plugins that damn near run you $3k for the pleasure of using.



    What I want to see Apple do is create one hell of a Compositing application that is fluid, powerful and a joy to work with once you traverse the learning curve.



    I want it to support as much GPU acceleration as possible and have steller 3D support, particles, painting and some decent rotoscoping functionality.



    I want it to have Qmaster support that actually works and I want it's integration with Final Cut Studio 2.0 to be beyond reproach with workgroup features and project management that cause Avid owners to turn greent with envy



    I want it to be stable enough in the first version for light production work and I want it to integrate into effect house pipelines easy.



    And dammit I still want Apple to acquire Luxology!




    You have to stop thinking small, and think big.
  • Reply 18 of 18
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by melgross

    You have to stop thinking small, and think big.



    Now THAT'S funny! 8)
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