Apple Ships Shake 3

CUPERTINO, California—June 20, 2003—Apple® today announced the immediate availability of Shake® 3, the next generation of its industry-leading compositing and visual effects software featured in the production of over a hundred motion pictures, including the Academy Award-winning Lord of the Rings and this summer’s hottest blockbusters such as Finding Nemo, Matrix Reloaded and X-Men 2.

Shake 3 includes new Mac® OS X only features such as Shake Qmaster network render management software that allows visual effects artists to easily distribute rendering tasks across a cluster of Apple’s Xserve® 1U rack servers or desktop Power Mac® G4 computers for maximum performance and efficiency. In addition, Mac OS X users of Shake receive unlimited network render licenses at no extra cost. Shake 3 also includes new features available to Mac OS X, Linux and IRIX customers, including film grain simulation and tracking on paint strokes.

“With Shake 3, we’re adding more features professional artists need to create Oscar-winning visual effects and introducing new features that make Shake more accessible to a broader audience,” said Sina Tamaddon, Apple’s senior vice president of Applications. “Our Mac OS X customers are going to love the new Shake Qmaster render management software that turns every available Mac or Xserve in a production house into a virtual rendering machine.”

“Shake 3 has made some of our most complex compositing projects much easier including our recent production work ‘The Italian Job’ for Paramount Pictures,” said Ricardo Torres, senior compositor, Blackbox Digital. “We’re extremely impressed with the quality we get from the Shake renders. Now that render licenses are free with Shake for Mac OS X and it comes bundled with Shake Qmaster render management software, we're moving Shake 3 to the center of our production pipeline.”

Shake Qmaster network render management software for Mac OS X uses Apple’s Rendezvous™ networking technology to automatically identify available render nodes and clusters on a network while load balancing optimizes usage across each machine in the workflow. For compositors in commercial post-production, Shake 3 now includes powerful audio capabilities making it easier for artists to synchronize visual effects with audio, including the ability to automatically animate visual effects based on sound and view, slip or slide audio waveforms against animation curves. Shake 3 for Mac OS X also includes broadcast monitor support for previewing composites on a standard definition or high definition video monitor.

Pricing & Availability
Shake 3 is available immediately for Mac OS X, Linux and IRIX through Apple Authorized Pro Film and Video Resellers. Shake 3 is available for Mac OS X with unlimited render licenses for a suggested retail price of $4,950 (US), and for Linux and IRIX for a suggested retail price of $9,900 (US) with annual maintenance of $1,485 (US). Existing Shake for Linux, IRIX and Windows customers will continue to be given the option to double the number of their existing Shake licenses at no additional cost by migrating them to Shake on Mac OS X. A full list of Shake 3 system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/shake.

© 2003 Apple. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Mac, Mac OS, Shake, Xserve and Rendezvous are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.