Apple Announces Shake 3

Apple today announced Shake 3, the next generation of its industry-leading compositing and visual effects software. Shake 3 includes new Mac OS X-only features such as the Shake Qmaster network render management software and unlimited network rendering licences which allow 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. Shake 3 also includes new visual effects features available to Mac OS X, Linux and IRIX customers including motion-tracking and real-time broadcast preview.

Shake is the industry’s most advanced compositing software designed forlarge format productions by major motion picture studios and leading visualeffects houses. Shake features the fastest resolution independent softwarerendering engine on the market, a production proven visual effects toolsetand a compositing architecture that supports multiple bit depths within asingle project. Shake has been used in the production of over a hundredmotion pictures including all three films in the Academy Award winning Lordof the Rings trilogy.

“With Shake 3, we’re making the visual effects software used in Oscar-winning films more powerful and more accessible to a broader audience”, said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Shake 3 delivers advanced new features for our existing Shake customers as well as innovative new network rendering features exclusive to our Mac OS X customers”.

New Shake Qmaster network render management software included with Shake forMac OS X uses Apple’s Rendezvous networking technology to automaticallyidentify available render nodes and clusters on a network while loadbalancing optimises usage across each machine in the workflow. If one Xserveor Power Mac G4 goes offline, built-in fault tolerance allows Shake Qmasterto re-route tasks to other render nodes in the cluster, so the project getsdone on time. As Shake Qmaster is based on an open architecture, it can alsoprovide distributed rendering support for many leading third-partyapplications, such as Alias/Wavefront’s Maya.

Shake 3 delivers powerful new visual effects tools to streamline thecreative process and give artists more creative control. Artists can nowapply tracking data to rotoshapes and paint strokes in order to automatetime consuming rotoscoping tasks. New audio support allows artists to viewaudio waveforms against animation curves making it easier to synchronisevisual effects with audio. A film grain filter accurately simulates avariety of film stock grain. Shake’s animation curve editor is dramaticallyimproved for maintaining specific animation behaviours like slopes andvalues over a range of frames.

New features for commercial post-production professionals in Shake make iteasier for editors, motion graphic designers and other professionals tocreate Oscar-calibre visual effects. Broadcast monitor support on Mac OS Xenables artists to playback composites on a video monitor in real timeaccurate previews. Shake 3 users can also import Photoshop layers with blendmodes.

Shake 3 for Mac OS X is optimised for Apple’s new Xserve configurationtailored for computational clusters and distributed applications. Featuringdual 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processors, Velocity Engine vector processing andup to 2GB of 333MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) memory, this cluster-optimisedXserve configuration delivers up to 19.5 gigaflops of computational power ina 1U form-factor at a low suggested selling price of £2,399 (inc VAT).

Pricing & Availability:

Shake 3 is expected to be available in June for Mac OS X, Linux and IRIXthrough Apple Authorised Resellers. Shake 3 will be available for Mac OS X with unlimited render licences for a suggested selling price of £3,799 (inc VAT). UK Pricing for the Linux and IRIX version, together with annual maintenance, will be announced shortly. Existing Shake for Linux, IRIX and Windows customers will continue to be given the option to double the numberof their existing Shake licences at no additional cost by migrating them toShake on Mac OS X. A full list of Shake 3 system requirements can be foundat https://www.apple.com/uk/shake.

 

 

Press Contacts:
Apple UK and Ireland Public Relations
Email: media.uk@apple.com
Phone: (020) 8218 1440