Ron Brinkmann, Apple Soho NYC, shake 4

[Ajax]

Hi All,

Yesterday Ron Brinkmann inn association with New York City Motion Graphics Organization, held a preview about the new Shake 4. I was a little dissapointed with the crowd and who actually showed up. I was expecting more shake artist to come out and support one of the fathers of the tool.

All in all shake 4 looks nice, there are new tools in the tabs I couldn’t see clearly but I’m sure will be a nice addition to the program. Ron did talk more about the new Multi-plane node and showed us a comp were the it was used along with boujou to create a seamless effect. He also showed us how one can manipulate the x, y, and z translation in the viewer to give us an idea about how shake does not do intersecting objects. I did ask the question about support for 3D lights in the Multi-plane, in which he answered, ” other people are making plugins that will create 3D lights for shake and the multi-plane”. He has created this node with no restrictions saying the sdk version allows you to do whatever you want with it. Optical flow was pretty nice too! scaling NTSC to HD ( kind of like algolith) but in someways better in my opinion. Re-timing was really precise and showed us the difference between a regular retime and the new optical flow version. One thing that did catch my attention as well was the new FilmLight option located below the update mode. This allows you to apply film stocks to your outputed sequences when transfering to film or where ever.

Jan Cilliers ( A shake user and VFX artist for EnlightenedFX NY) also contributed some of his work, breaking down shots from a recent Replay clothing commercial. I think he had some trouble locating files but still cool to see how one works. At the end of the session questions were asked like comparisons to NUKE and DFusion, but Mr. Brinkmann didn’t have too much to say about the programs, only answering things from what he has heard. And also praised Nuke saying it was a good composite tool. I just wanted to share a little info about events that may take place over here concerning shake and compositing in general. Cheers,

A. 😉

[Anonymous]

Ive been using shake for years… but this last release is crap.

3d space my ass… let me import fbx and project textures on it.
particles, none.

Tools, sluggish.

I am a little jaded i guess. But fusion 5 blows shake right out of the water.

[Ajax]

Yeah, I can agree about fbx and particles which would be nice if this was apart of shakes pipeline. But from what I am learning about shake (including your tutorials ) is that you can use whatever the tool gets the job done. meaning, possibly using maya to create your particles, and then comping in shake ( which is what probably most do anyways ), or whatever program. shake looks like its great for compositng shots together to create one seamless effect. It also seems to be very stable, unless of course I’m trying to comp like hundreds of nodes then I can see how it gets jamed here and there. I can understand the whole fbx issue as well, coming from a flame system myself made this pretty cool to use but honestly I don’t have that much experience with 3D objects within a compositing system other than creating it externally in maya.

Studios like Tippet, and other facilities like WETA, seem to use shake extensively, based on that and the craft of compositing, inspires me to want to learn it more and more. Cheers,

A.

[Anonymous]

the reason people use shake are two fold.

word of mouth and existing infrastructure.

Is it a good tool? yes…

but it has slid down the list dramatically.

I deal with all of them extensivly.. i rank them in this order:

IFF,
Fusion 5 (or 4)

and because of plugin support and particles… im givvin combustion 4 a tie with shake. shake has more power… BUT prcie point makes it a wash.

[Ajax]

Since you have also had experience with NUKE, what do you think about its capabilities? Do you think the interface of NUKE looks a little discouraging as far as pop-ups are concerned? These are my concerns between NUKE and Dfusion, as well as having to purchase a PC soly for NUKE or DFusion.

[Anonymous]

well, this is where im now split…

nuke has the capabilties to surpass shake.. im waiting for 4.4

the gui is an issue. im not sure why they chose to build all those floating windows.

I actually created a UI for it.. as a psd comp. but i was told it was not able to be constructed that way. so i beleive they took the wrong path with that (if what i was told is true)

BUT, it has 3d projections and space that work pretty well. Also, you have to allow time to deprogram the way u use shake.. its similar, but alot different too.

I should offer this to fxguide users now:

If you order the shake kit from cmivfx, i will send you the NUKE dvd we have on file for free. Please send a follow up email to: [email protected] with fxguide=true as the subject line.

http://www.cmivfx.com/dvd_shake.asp is the link. this way you can compare the workflows… maths etc..

i hope it helps u make a decision. I have found myself leaning on nuke more and more since the depressing announcments at nab.

[Ajax]

Are these the same setups you have posted in the tutorial section, or are they completely newer from them? I just bought your 3D compositing using photoshop DVD, nice methods! As a user who comps and purchases your DVD’s, Just maybe a slight request but I’d like to see more tutorials on maybe sky replacements, street and crowd replacements. Maybe 3D compositing as far as Matte painting intergration is concerned. Cityscapes, etc…

Also maybe optimizing your system to run the at its best for a particular composite application, color corrections on footage like those nice car commercials we see lately, how to accomplish those color tones almost like the shake training section in Sydney at the bottom of this site. Camera projections, things along this line. I would defintiely be one of your favorite shoppers! I thought it was awesome how you broke down the HP stuff Zoic did. Cheers,

A.

[Author]

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