Toxik/Strata/Mezzo at NAB 2004?

[nanuk]

SPRAWL wrote:

sidewalksurfing wrote:

i’m not saying the thing didn’t have potential, but there were several issues…
v2 did help with some of the problems (no archiving!) but basic workflow
issues like the “map view” which was an ineffectual schematic didn’t help…

had some nice plug-ins though! javascript:emoticon(‘:wink:’)

I´m still useing cyborg v2 and it´s great. much easier and faster than a flame or anything else availible from diecreet at this time. though i´m looking forward to cyborgs little brother scratch!

Assimilate/Scratch will rule, no doubt. But I hope toxik will rule to. We will see when it gets its compositing part.

Sprawl, are you working in Berlin?!

[Diogo Girondi]

Sony XPRI does look great, I would like to hear impressions of their users as well.

Cyborg was great, specially it’s architecture. I’ve heard that v2.5 had the schematic issue solved, it’s a shame that they didn’t had the time to put it work.

cheers,
dg

[Anonymous]

renderizer wrote:

SPRAWL wrote:

…though i´m looking forward to cyborgs little brother scratch!

Are you sure that it’s going to be THAT little? The specs (as far as they are made known to the public by now) and the interface look really impressive.

On a side track, and just out of curiosity: did anyone have the chance to taste the most redcent release (v7) of Sony’s XPRI?

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/xpri/products_DMWS02NL.html
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=28223

hey, we are using xpri cobra here, mainly instead of smoke. its a good finishing system but very different from discreet.

in many aspects its _MUCH_ more powerful than inferno or fire, in other a flint is better.

mayor plus
– realtime HD 1080 primary and secondary colorcorrection, useable, no colourwarper class but pretty close and RT
– realtime HD 1080 blur
– native HDCAM storage. I have 22 hours on-line lossless HDCAM here. try that on stones 🙂
– very good background network render
– _much_ better audio tools
– no penalties for buying the product (like overpriced stone disks, slow octane hardware, only 8 bit on pc etc), one can use 3hrd party hard and software as it is common today, except in discreet-land.
– up to 8 xpri cobras can be networked in realtime HD configuration in standard storage configurations

mayor minus
– no RT transfer modes. one needs to use AE plugs.
– no real 3D, only 2.5 D
– no schematic views

our conclusion
for shortform, very complex VFX and >1920*1080 smoke&fire are king of the hill, for longform finishing and typical FX xpri is much better, aka faster, aka cheaper, aka better heart of the network. very good price btw at sony, didn’ t expect that, but then i might be spoiled by 9 years discreet.

back to the discussion topic: i think discreets strategy isn’t good anymore. neither fish nor flesh. flood the market with software, end of blackboxes once was the message, meanwhile discreet is _the_ main enemy of open software. lets face it. no matter if linux or irix, the “turnkey” systems today are not more or less than a totally overpriced dongle.

if you want so, a G5 is the motion/fcp/shake dongle 🙂

i am afraid that we will be shifting more and more away from discreet systems, even if most people here love the interface. the discreet systems simply don’ t have the creative edge anymore, are really difficult to earn back and there are plenty of better/equal/weaker (dependent of scenario ) solutions on the market for a fraction of the cost.

BTW: lapicielsky was fired quite silently.. why? not that the guy didn’t deserve it, but he didn’t even get a PR? has anyone more insight?

[Anonymous]

dg wrote:

Sony XPRI does look great, I would like to hear impressions of their users as well.

Cyborg was great, specially it’s architecture. I’ve heard that v2.5 had the schematic issue solved, it’s a shame that they didn’t had the time to put it work.

cheers,
dg

guys, btw, have a look at the media 844/x.
its not cyborg/flame, rather a SD smoke 3 on a rocket. 8 channel RT transfer modes, gaussian blur, colorcorrektion, key, 2.5D geometrics….. are something i always missed for those “standard” agency jobs.

[nakago]

Having worked at Pixar for almost 4 years leaving at the end of Incredibles, I can tell you that on the desktop we moved from SGI to IBM Intel Xeon machines at the end of Monsters Inc. Half way through Nemo we moved from Sun Renderfarm to Racksaver Dual Xeon Blades. We never used AMD products. The move to OS X is the right move for the studio, and was not ever pushed on us by Steve. Steve allowed Pixar to make it’s own choices, and for a long time Apple products weren’t it. With OS X, and the G5 Series machines this has finally come to the right point to start making the move. In the end Pixar makes the right choice for the studio.

– Rock

dekekincaid wrote:

dg wrote:

Plus all, and I mean ALL big vfx studios in the world have at least a Flame in their set of tools

Yes and no. The companies doing full cgi (Disney, Dreamworks, Core, etc…) aren’t using Flame for film work. DD has them but only uses them for client sessions on the commercial side. The reliance on Flame and Inferno in vfx for the film side has gone down a lot these days. R&H is still using old Cineon’s for compositing and a lot of shake and digital fusion. Again, Inferno boxes are mainly for the commercial side.

dg wrote:

But thinking that Shake is acctually the best solution avaliable on the market it’s not being real with things, it still lacks of many or better tools that you can find in much cheaper tools.

I’m guessing your refering to Combustion. Yes it does have better tools but Combustion and AE are equally missing just as many tools. Which is why Shake and Combustion or Shake and Gfx are a pretty nice team. I would much rather do anything to do with paint in C* or Gfx and the rest in Shake.

dg wrote:

As for Pixar switching their pipeline to Mac is kinda obvious, besides the fact that Steve Jobs is a major share holder there, they will act as a huge hands on action RD “department” for Apple products line and marketing strategies.

I always have to bring this up. If what you said is true, then why didn’t Pixar switch over to Apple machines (or NeXT machines for that matter) a long time ago. Jobs has been running Pixar since the beginning and he took back over Apple 8 years ago. Pixar went from SGi’s to AMD linux machines for the Incredibles.

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