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Apple Releases Shake 4.1, Drops Price To $499

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hefty-drop dept.

chasingporsches writes "Today, Apple released the long-awaited Universal Binary version of Shake, their high-end compositing application. Its new version is 4.1 and is available from their online store or as a crossgrade from version 4.0 for $49. The price of Shake has been dropped significantly, from $2999 to $499. (Educational version is $249.) The minimum system requirements imply that this could run on any new Mac, including the iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook, as well as older PowerPC-based Macs."

5 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, it runs (on) Linux! by richdun · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux

    * 1GHz (or faster) Pentium III, Pentium 4, or AMD Athlon processor or faster
    * Fedora Core 4
    * 512MB (or more) of RAM
    * 1GB hard disk space for disk cache
    * Workstation-class graphics card, such as NVIDIA Quadro2 or Quadro4
    * Display with 1280-by-1024-pixel resolution and 24-bit color
    * Three-button mouse

    Well, it runs on Fedora Core 4, but whatever.

    1. Re:Yes, it runs (on) Linux! by ptomblin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, but they didn't reduce the price for the Linux version.

      --
      The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
    2. Re:Yes, it runs (on) Linux! by clem.dickey · · Score: 4, Informative
      Has Apple done prepackaged software for GNU/Linux before? Why Shake>

      Apple purchased Shake's creator and dropped the Windows version but kept the Linux version, at least for now.

    3. Re:Yes, it runs (on) Linux! by pulse765 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Shake does not compete with the core business of Autodesk Flame/Inferno or DS-Nitris. They are very different animals. With Shake you are not going to sit down with a client behind you in the room and interactively change around your composite while the client makes comments, viewing changes on a broadcast monitor. Shake is not designed to work that way. Shake is a fantastic tool for dealing with complex shots - which tend to exist mostly in the feature film world - but is not very client interactive. Clients are (currently) still paying big bucks for the interactive tools mentioned above to complete jobs on an hourly basis, complete with an online edit and everything.

      In the business we have been wondering about this move by Apple. It's generally being viewed as a good thing but it brings into question the future of Shake. In an email sent out, apple includes this interesting tidbit:

      "C. Additionally, Maintenance customers may choose to license the Shake 4.1
      Source Code for $50,000. The Source Code license includes a 5,000 seat
      volume license of Shake 4.1. This offer is designed to help facilities with
      significant Shake investments maintain a reliable and controllable visual
      effects pipeline. Maintenance customers that wish to license the Shake 4.1
      Source Code must do so by July 23, 2006. Apple reserves the right to refuse
      any maintenance customer source Code access."

      This is aimed squarely at facilities like Weta Digital, who currently have (so I've heard) hundreds of Linux shake licenses. At $50,000 would take care of all the licenses they would ever need and all they would need is a Mac to run it on. Access to the source code would put them in a better position to expand their custom shake plugins and integration into their pipeline. The idea being that Weta and companies like them would be inclined to buy more macs. Apple is first and foremost a hardware company....

      Just my .02 from within the VFX realm....

      -pulse

  2. Here's the more interesting internal email... by asparagus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple will no longer be selling maintenance for Shake and no further
    software updates are planned as we begin work on the next generation of
    Shake compositing software. While we're excited about the innovations we can
    bring in the future, we understand you have a business to run today that
    requires Shake. To that end, we will provide all Maintenance customers with
    the following three options:

    A. Customers can continue with end-user e-mail support, as well as SDK
    support for the duration of their Maintenance contract.

    B. Customers may elect to cancel their Maintenance and receive a pro-rated
    refund for the unused portion. Existing software licenses would continue to
    function according to the Software License Agreement. Maintenance customers
    that wish to cancel their contract must do so by July 23, 2006.

    C. Additionally, Maintenance customers may choose to license the Shake 4.1
    Source Code for $50,000. The Source Code license includes a 5,000 seat
    volume license of Shake 4.1. This offer is designed to help facilities with
    significant Shake investments maintain a reliable and controllable visual
    effects pipeline. Maintenance customers that wish to license the Shake 4.1
    Source Code must do so by July 23, 2006. Apple reserves the right to refuse
    any maintenance customer source Code access.

    I like shake, but it's never really fit in amongst the other Apple apps. But to EOL it for their (rumored) own app seems short-sighted. It's more likely people will migrate to Nuke in the meantime, which has jumped ahead while Apple has mostly let shake wither on the vine.

    A year since version 4, and we've got bug-fixes and an universal binary. Whee.

    -b