Fusion on Mac?

[jimmybee500]

I am about to buy a Mac Pro for Adobe CS3 suite, FCS, Mocha and Cinema 4D…I am very interested in getting into Fusion however. I need to go Mac for FCS and I also thought Mac would be the best route because of ability to run Windows AND OSX…but can anyone shed any light on how something like Fusion would run in this situation? And are there any plans to release a Mac version of Fusion?

Finally, when is Fusion64 released? I see it was announced a little while ago, but can’t find much info on it. How would this work dual-booting Vista64 / XP64 on a MAC?

Thanks.

[Dani Sanchez]

Jimmy,

you may want to check out; http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html
note; Apple officially supports 32 bit XP and Vista (not 64 bit).

You may be able to install a second hard drive and install a linux to use Fusion.
If not, Shake, Nuke, Combustion, and After Effects are all available on OSX.

[Alex Udalcov]

Thanks for your reply…I just wondered if Bootcamp and Windows on a Mac really does run aswell as it would natively on a PC. If it does then great – keeps my options open. Shame about 64bit Windows..but then as I can’t even find a price/info on Fusion64 then I guess it’s irrelevant for now anyway!

Is there any news on Apple’s replacement for Shake? I was thinking of going for Shake instead of Fusion as it’s so cheap – despite it’s inferior toolset – but if Apple really is bringing out ‘Phenomenon’ or whatever then is it a waste of time and money?

I’ll have After Effects already which I love, but I really wanted to get into some serious node-based compositing…

I know this is a Fusion forum – I just thought as that was my app of choice and my system is less than ideal for it I’d see what my options are / what other people’s experiences have been.

Any more info greatly appreciated.
Jim.

[Reuben Smith]

It’s depends on how quickly you need your compositing solution. A combination of Shake and Motion or even just Motion and the Conduit plug-in from DV Garage out match Fusion, feature wise, pretty easily but “Phenomenon” will be out in the next couple of months. Nuke imo is also better solotion for 99.9% of tasks than Fusion and it also runs natively under OS X. Windows under bootcamp works exactly like any other PC, but it’s and inconvenient option to have to partition and reboot just to get into Windows. If for whatever reason you’re still stuck on Fusion you’d be better off using VMWare Fusion under OSX and you should be able to run Eyeon Fusion in Windows inside of a Window, 64-bit if necessary, with no performance hit and when you get the blue screen of death or everything freezes you can just close the window and continue working on OS X.

[Dani Sanchez]

@jimmybee500 24537 wrote:

I just wondered if Bootcamp and Windows on a Mac really does run aswell as it would natively on a PC.

That’s tough to answer. Windows apps do not work equally on all hardware.

Boot Camp allows users to install XP or Vista on the mac, and then installs drivers to use Windows on the Intel Mac machine. With Boot Camp, you dual boot XP/Vista and OSX (you can chose either when booting-up).

One of the computers here is a Mac Pro with Boot Camp. Shake and Final Cut Studio are used in OSX, and Fusion, Combustion, and After Effects in XP SP2. We haven’t experienced more glitches than usual with the Windows apps.

[prajjwal]

@Imhotep397 24541 wrote:

It’s depends on how quickly you need your compositing solution. A combination of Shake and Motion or even just Motion and the Conduit plug-in from DV Garage out match Fusion, feature wise, pretty easily but “Phenomenon” will be out in the next couple of months. Nuke imo is also better solotion for 99.9% of tasks than Fusion and it also runs natively under OS X. Windows under bootcamp works exactly like any other PC, but it’s and inconvenient option to have to partition and reboot just to get into Windows. If for whatever reason you’re still stuck on Fusion you’d be better off using VMWare Fusion under OSX and you should be able to run Eyeon Fusion in Windows inside of a Window, 64-bit if necessary, with no performance hit and when you get the blue screen of death or everything freezes you can just close the window and continue working on OS X.

Have you tried Digital Fusion under VMWare Fusion?

Last time I tried, it failed. I’m guessing because of the lack of proper OpenGL drivers. Maybe things are different using the very latest version of VMWare. Digital Fusion booted just fine in Boot Camp though.

I wouldn’t seriously recommend using your main compositing app inside a virtualisation software anyways… running two OSes on top of each other is OK for using Outlook and PowerPoint, but not really efficient for RAM and disk IO hungry operations like compositing.

My suggestion is give Shake a spin. At 500$, you can’t really go wrong. Shake, Fusion and Nuke all work on the same basic node-based architectures anyways, so if you want to switch to another package down the road, you don’t have to relearn *everything* (unlike if you move from Flame to AE for instance). And there are *tons* of resources to learn Shake (books, DVDs, online, etc…)

Regarding “Phenomenon”… my bet is that it is pure vapourware. If they had a really kick ass high end compositing package (a true successor to Shake), half of the key Shake staff wouldn’t have quit to go work at The Foundry (makers of Nuke and Furnace) like they did. They would have stuck around to be part of this new revolutionary product, wouldn’t they? Also, how long does it take to come up with a comp package when you already have the code for Shake, Motion, Final Cut, QuickTime, Aperture and the whole friggin OS? Wouldn’t it be in beta already? It hurts to say this, but Apple has bigger fish to fry than a tiny little niche market like compositing. They said at NAB that Final Cut is in the 800 000 users range. They are about to sell their 5 millionth iPhone. How many compositors in the *world*? 2000 maybe? Considering that big studios like ILM, SPI, DD, MPC, etc… are very unlikely to switch to Mac, how big a market is compositing for Apple? Tiny. Don’t hold your breath for “Phenomenon”.

— Xavier

[guillem ramisa]

@Imhotep397 24541 wrote:

If for whatever reason you’re still stuck on Fusion you’d be better off using VMWare Fusion under OSX and you should be able to run Eyeon Fusion in Windows inside of a Window, 64-bit if necessary, with no performance hit and when you get the blue screen of death or everything freezes you can just close the window and continue working on OS X.

Running Fusion using VMWare… you’ve got to be kidding.

– – –

And for answering jimmybee’s original question, why not use Shake? I mean it’s the most commonly used compositor in the film business and I don’t think there is anything “inferior” about it’s toolset. You’re using OSX and Shake is also extremely cheap.
Maybe it’s getting a bit old and don’t have all the latest technology under the hood but it will do it’s task and do it good. I love the workflow and feeling of Shake. I guess there is a reason people are still using the 2.5 verion on PC. And as mentioned above I wouldn’t sit around waiting for anything new from Apple, at least not software targeted at any serious compositing.
If you wanted to try the latest I’d bet my money on Nuke, I like it a lot and it’s getting better and better for each version. Latest 4.7v5 is really stable and I’m looking forward to the Foundry’s rework of the user interface that will arrive soon. It’s on OSX too. That way you don’t have to dual boot.
The Foundry is also really innovative as a company and I hope and believe that a lot of their technology will be incorporated within Nuke. In addition to that they seem to really listen to us users… a thing that is surprisingly uncommon in this business.

[Alex Udalcov]

Thanks for the input guys…I really did think I’d get a biased lean *towards* Fusion from a Fusion forum, but it seems everybody so far thinks it’s outperformed by everything else on the market!?!

I will have a good look at Nuke…I did watch a few tutes on it a while ago and the interface looked horrible and very clunky, but now The Foundry has it I’m sure they’ll do a sterling job with it. I may buy Shake in the meantime then…only thing is Shake doesn’t have a true 3D environment and Fusion’s true 3D scene import/3D particles, primitives and text looks very powerful and I really did think Fusion was becoming the cheap seat Flame backup tool of choice. Seems not the case…

Looks like Phenomenon is a load of hot air from what ppl have said (unless anyone in the know wishes to chime in? 😉

[prajjwal]

@jimmybee500 24547 wrote:

I will have a good look at Nuke…I did watch a few tutes on it a while ago and the interface looked horrible and very clunky, but now The Foundry has it I’m sure they’ll do a sterling job with it. I may buy Shake in the meantime then…only thing is Shake doesn’t have a true 3D environment and Fusion’s true 3D scene import/3D particles, primitives and text looks very powerful and I really did think Fusion was becoming the cheap seat Flame backup tool of choice. Seems not the case…

Yes Nuke’s current interface IS absolutely horrible. No doubt about it. I’ve personally seen a demo of a beta (or alpha?) version of the next Nuke interface. The Foundry completely reworked it. Much much better. (You can get a glimse of it on one of this year’s NAB video podcasts) Nuke does have a decent 3d environment with .obj import textures, projectors, bicubics and bilinears. No native 3d text or particles though.

Fusion does have some advantages, they just don’t apply to pure feature film compositing. If you do a mix of comp, motion graphics, titles, etc… then Fusion might be a better choice for you because of the particles, 3d text and AE plug-in support. If you are a Flame op, you will also get a warm fuzzy feeling when you open Fusion’s color corrector. (To get the same fuzzy feelings in Shake, check out my macros on http://www.pixelfudger.com)

Back to the original question, Fusion should run decently on a Mac booted in Windows (via Boot Camp). I wouldn’t count on VMWare or Parallels though. I think all the drivers that come with Boot Camp (to drive all the Apple hardware within windows) are only 32 bits, so forget about Fusion64.

— Xavier

[Ian Anderson]

If you are used to flame, fusion is IMHO best desktop “replacement”. It renders slower then shake or nuke, especially in higher resolutions (no dod), but with enough ram and fast disks I found it most interactive.
I use fusion on macpro from time to time, but can’t use more than 2gigs of ram even with /3GB switch (bootcamp 1.4). I don’t believe fusion will be available on osx anytime soon, but hope for 64bit in very near future.
hth

[Anonymous]

@Imhotep397 24541 wrote:

It’s depends on how quickly you need your compositing solution. A combination of Shake and Motion or even just Motion and the Conduit plug-in from DV Garage out match Fusion, feature wise, pretty easily

Did I read that right ? Motion and Conduit match Fusion featurewise? Does not sound like someone who has used much Fusion.

[Anonymous]

As long over two years of this first post.

Anyone knows if Eyeon have planns to port Fusion for OSX?

I’m a Mac user, and to use Nuke by the momment is strongly for me. I’m handy with Fusion, and would be enjoying over OSX.

I think that if exists a Linux version, although use Wine for GUI, is possible with a relative few effort porting this version to OSX?

[Alex Udalcov]

@wardeworth 29502 wrote:

Hi.
I’ve heard good things about Fusion, but no one has really been able to point out significant features that would move me away from parallels. I’d love to see a side by side review.

Wardeworth – we are talking about Eyeon Fusion – a compositing and FX program, not VMWare Fusion.

Just happened upon this post I started 2 years ago, as it was on the homepage! I see Fusion has still not got a Mac version yet and Nuke seems to be ruling the roost for desktop compositing these days.

[Buford Stacey]

Hey all,

I did a tutorial on how to run Fusion on OSX. I talk about running Fusion with Parallels, and a few other tips and tricks to create a decent workflow using this method.

Hope this is useful

http://vfxhaiku.com/2010/09/how-to-run-eyeon-fusion-in-mac-osx/

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