Apple Announces the Fate of Shake

Rura Penthe writes "NothingReal, developer of Shake (a high-end video compositing application), was purchased by Apple in February. Until now the fate of Shake on Windows, Irix, and Linux was uncertain at best, but in an email sent out to Shake users, Apple has declared that Irix and Linux versions will be developed at least through 2003. However, the upcoming Windows version will be the last for that platform. Good news for Shake users with Linux render farms like Weta Digital, which used Shake for Lord of the Rings." (Reminder to Apple users: visit Slashdot's Apple section for more Apple-related news.)

Comments

Re:Double standard?

[NanoGator]

"Because after MS bought Bungie, it wound up shipping for X-Box, and, so far, nothing else. (Though Bungie continues to assert [bungie.net] "There WILL be Mac and PC versions of Halo." -- I'll believe it when it ships.)"

Okay, I found this comment a little offensive. Yeah yeah, it's cool to hate MS and all, but you're not considering an important factor here: Console games sell better than PC games. Always.

Halo would likely only be on the shelfs for a month or so on PC. It would hardly make any money at all on the Mac. What benefit is that to Bungie? As an XBOX exclusive, though, they have a title that will sell for months and months. Even today, they're still selling copies of it with new XBOX's because it's that graphic game that really shows off the power of the system.

It was a wise business choice for Bungie because it allowed them to earn money to fund future development (i.e. PC and Mac), plus it helped MS sell more XBOXes. More XBOXes, more developer support, and so on. If you're anti-MS, you hate this news. If you're an avid gamer, you love this news.

The fact that Bungie is saying 'Halo will be on other platforms', indicates that MS didn't do anything but give Halo a much better chance for success.

Consider that before you use Halo as an anti-MS weapon.

I think I do

[Rui del-Negro]

You keep using that word [monopoly].
I do not think it means what you think it means.

It means exclusive control (of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service). Apple is the only supplier of Mac computers, and effectively controls who can and who can't make hardware for the Mac. They also control the software their clients use (in the same way that Microsoft does).

Which wouldn't be such a big probem, if it wasn't for the ludicrous prices they charge. I work regularly with some old Mac-based Avid editing workstations, and the SCSI AV drives they use cost 4 times as much as the PC models. The drives are exactly the same; the difference is they're not oficially 'certified'. It's not just Apple / Avid doing this, some PC manufacturers do (or are planning to do) the same. I find it very hard to understand why some people scream bloody murder when Microsoft does something, but then applaud when someone else does exactly the same. It's not who, it's what.

As to DVD authoring, I was lucky enough to buy Spruce's DVD Maestro. It does everything that DVD Studio Pro or Scenarist do, and comes with much better documentation (IMO). Plus I get to pick my own MPEG-2 and AC3 encoders and my own DVD recorder, not to mention the rest of the system: Dual Athlon XP 1800+ with 1 GB DDR ECC RAM, 160 GB RAID, real-time Canopus DV editing card, a Pioneer DVR-A03 recorder and a dual-monitor card with fast OpenGL (Radeon 8500). It's about 50% faster than a Dual G4 (depending on the task - for 3D rendering and MPEG encoding it's nearly twice as fast) and cost about the same (but I get faster drives, real-time DV editing, better graphics, a much broader choice of software and the ability to upgrade each component independently). Oh, and I have a floppy drive, too. ;-)

I think Apple makes some nice products, but they are overpriced and bind the consumers to Apple's decisions. When I buy a PC I can select each component independently and I don't have to pay for "features" that I don't really need or want. It's kind of like Windows brought to the hardware level. The reason why I would like Windows to come without IExplorer (for example) isn't to "give other companies a chance". It's because I'm not planning to use IE, so I shouldn't be forced to pay for it.

RMN
~~~

Re:But It's Not

[Zeinfeld]

The salient point for me is that companies that invested in the Shake platform are now going to have much less choice in the hardware they use.

The graphics market has for a long time been driven by the games market. The $400 high end video cards made by the likes of nvidia outperform most of the 'high end' graphics workstations. With the exception of Evans and Sutherland and some 3DLabs stuff with $20K price tags and requiring multiple PCI slots this market is driven by the PC hardware platform.

While Shake is obviously bypassing a lot of the graphics hardware in renderfarm mode you want a combination of realtime and renderfarm. The closer you can get with your draft mode output the less you cycles it takes on the renderfarm.

There is no sign that Apple hardware is going to catch up in hardware speed any time soon so the lack of a PC version is a negative.

Then there are people like myself who loath the Mac user interface which was originally designed to allow newbies to learn to use computers quickly. Having used computers extensively for 25 years I don't need some idiot at Apple telling me how many of the buttons on my mouse are going to work (yes I know you can plug a three button mouse into a MAC, try using right click to bring up context sensitive menus.)

The monopoly issue is beside the point. It may be legal for Apple to behave this way, but that does not make it ethical or right. Apple continually does to its users what Microsoft is accused of doing to other companies. It is like a wierd S/M relationship, the worse Apple treats its customers the more they band round to defend the company. So ignore the fact that the mid range apples now cost double to three times the cost of the equivalent PC and will be obsolete faster because apple plays interface manipulation games.

Just because it is legal does not make it right.