PRESS RELEASE
April 7, 2003
Apple Announces Shake 3
Includes New Shake Qmaster Network Render Management Software, Unlimited Network Rendering Licenses & New Visual Effects
MARKHAM, Ontario—April 7, 2003—Apple® today announced Shake® 3, the nextgeneration of its industry-leading compositing and visual effectssoftware. Shake 3 includes new Mac® OS X only features such as theShake Qmaster network render management software and unlimited networkrendering licenses which allow visual effects artists to easilydistribute rendering tasks across a cluster of Apple's Xserve© 1U rackservers or desktop Power Mac® G4 computers for maximum performance andefficiency. Shake 3 also includes new visual effects features availableto Mac OS X, Linux and IRIX customers including motion-tracking andreal-time broadcast preview.
Shake is the industry's most advanced compositing software designed forlarge format productions by major motion picture studios and leadingvisual effects houses. Shake features the fastest resolutionindependent software rendering engine on the market, a productionproven visual effects toolset and a compositing architecture thatsupports multiple bit depths within a single project. Shake has beenused in the production of over a hundred motion pictures including allthree films in the Academy Award winning Lord of the Rings trilogy.
“With Shake 3, we're making the visual effects software used in Oscarwinning films more powerful and more accessible to a broader audience,”said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of WorldwideProduct Marketing. “Shake 3 delivers advanced new features for ourexisting Shake customers as well as innovative new network renderingfeatures exclusive to our Mac OS X customers.”
New Shake Qmaster network render management software included withShake for Mac OS X uses Apple's Rendezvous© networking technology toautomatically identify available render nodes and clusters on a networkwhile load balancing optimizes usage across each machine in theworkflow. If one Xserve or Power Mac G4 goes offline, built-in faulttolerance allows Shake Qmaster to re-route tasks to other render nodesin the cluster, so the project gets done on time. As Shake Qmaster isbased on an open architecture, it can also provide distributedrendering support for many leading third-party applications, such asAlias/Wavefront's Maya.
Shake 3 delivers powerful new visual effects tools to streamline thecreative process and give artists more creative control. Artists cannow apply tracking data to rotoshapes and paint strokes in order toautomate time consuming rotoscoping tasks. New audio support allowsartists to view audio waveforms against animation curves making iteasier to synchronize visual effects with audio. A film grain filteraccurately simulates a variety of film stock grain. Shake's animationcurve editor is dramatically improved for maintaining specificanimation behaviors like slopes and values over a range of frames.
New features for commercial post-production professionals in Shake makeit easier for editors, motion graphic designers and other professionalsto create Oscar-caliber visual effects. Broadcast monitor support onMac OS X enables artists to playback composites on a video monitor inreal time accurate previews. Shake 3 users can also import Photoshoplayers with blend modes.
Shake 3 for Mac OS X is optimized for Apple's new Xserve configurationtailored for computational clusters and distributed applications.Featuring dual 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 processors, Velocity Engine© vectorprocessing and up to 2GB of 333 MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) memory, thiscluster-optimized Xserve configuration delivers up to 19.5 gigaflops ofcomputational power in a 1U form-factor at a low price of $4,299.00 (CDN).
Pricing & Availability
Shake 3 is expected to be available in June for Mac OS X, Linux andIRIX through Shake Authorized Professional Video Resellers. Shake 3 will beavailable for Mac OS X with unlimited render licenses for a suggestedretail price of $7,699 (CDN), and for Linux and IRIX for a suggestedretail price of $15,449 (CDN) with annual maintenance of $2,299 (CDN).Existing Shake for Linux, IRIX and Windows customers will continue tobe given the option to double the number of their existing Shakelicenses at no additional cost by migrating them to Shake on Mac OS X.A full list of Shake 3 system requirements can be found atwww.apple.com/shake.
Shake 3 is expected to be available in June for Mac OS X, Linux andIRIX through Shake Authorized Professional Video Resellers. Shake 3 will beavailable for Mac OS X with unlimited render licenses for a suggestedretail price of $7,699 (CDN), and for Linux and IRIX for a suggestedretail price of $15,449 (CDN) with annual maintenance of $2,299 (CDN).Existing Shake for Linux, IRIX and Windows customers will continue tobe given the option to double the number of their existing Shakelicenses at no additional cost by migrating them to Shake on Mac OS X.A full list of Shake 3 system requirements can be found atwww.apple.com/shake.
Apple Canada Inc. is headquartered in Markham, Ontario and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc. Apple products are available at more than 450 Authorized Apple Canada Dealer locations across Canada.
- © 2003 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.Apple, the Apple logo,Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Shake, Xserve, Power Mac, Rendezvous, VelocityEngine and other Apple products are either registered trademarks ortrademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarksof their respective owners.