Apple today delivered Shake 4.1, the first Universal version of its industry leading compositing software and cut its price from $2,999 to $499 to fit almost any production’s budget. Final Cut Studio editors can now take advantage of Shake for sophisticated 3D compositing, keying, image tracking and stabilization for the price of a plug-in. Shake continues to be the tool of choice for major motion-picture studios and leading effects houses to create award-winning visual effects including this year’s Oscar winner, “King Kong.”
“At just $499, Shake is now priced as low as a plug-in for Final Cut Studio,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Product Marketing, in the press release. “Now Final Cut Studio customers can retouch their shots with Shake’s optical flow technology or add photo realistic visual effects to their productions, even on a shoestring budget.”
“Shake has become an essential tool at ILM for visual effects compositing, playing a central part in our pipeline on blockbuster movies such as ‘Mission Impossible 3,’ ‘Poseidon’ and the upcoming ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,’” said Cliff Plumer, chief technology officer of Industrial Light and Magic, in the press release. “By pricing Shake at less than $500, Apple has opened up the doors for the next generation of artists to master their craft.”
Shake 4.1 complements Final Cut Studio by providing a full range of operations from simple re-touching to complex 3D compositing. Launched directly from the Final Cut Pro timeline, Shake uses state-of-the-art optical flow image analysis to re-time, track and stabilize shots with precision. Particle effects from Motion 2 can be dropped directly into the Shake process tree to add elements such as smoke, sparkles and fire to sophisticated multi-plane 3D composites. High resolution work can flow from Motion to Shake by rendering with the shared OpenEXR format for pristine film quality reproduction.
Shake 4.1 delivers significant performance gains on the new Intel-based Macs providing artists and editors with desktop level experience on the new MacBook™ Pro* notebook computer. Performance tests on a MacBook Pro have shown that common tasks such as color correction, warping and the application of filters are processed up to 3.5 times faster on a MacBook Pro than on a PowerBook® G4. Artists and editors can start compositing with HD, 2K and even 4K shots directly on location making Shake 4.1 on a MacBook Pro an ideal tool for continuity.
Shake 4.1 is now available through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $499. Owners of Shake 4 can take advantage of a crossgrade to Shake 4.1 for just $49. Apple will no longer sell the Apple Maintenance Program for Shake.
Full details are available at http://www.apple.com/shake
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good good, just needs more new features as other compositors are beginning to steal the limelight. apple has to hold on to this area.
Lot’s of jargon there but the price is a killer. that should bring some more ‘maybe, possibly’ people over to the bright side.
The revolution continues….
And now we wait for the “glass is half-empty” crowd who’ll complain that the maintenance program has been terminated, despite the fact that the program now costs around 16% of the previous price.
Alternatively, we’ll hear from some bozo who’ll complain that they’ve just purchased it for $3,000 and when is Apple going to give them their money back.
And then there’ll be someone who doesn’t understand why it doesn’t work on a Mac mini.
Wow! And I’ll even say it backwards, wow!
According to a rumor on MacRumors.com, Shake is being abandoned in favor of a new program to debut in 2008. This price drop would make sense in that case.
What about the rumors out there that Apple is killing off Shake in favor of something else? Something more user friendly?
The interface still needs to be “mac-ified” so it looks like an Apple product, IMO. But this is terrific news. Maya and Motion 2 compositing with FCP – what more could a post editor need (besides native After Effects that is?)
Academic version is $249, ya’ll!
Dang,
I could have spent more on something when doing my Trilogy if had dropped the price five years ago! Steve Jobs, you owe me $1,400.00! And King Kong would have been under budget!
Peter Jacson
(and today’s magic word is “million”)
I’d call that price reduction freaking user-friendly!
Rumors, sheesh. This is what the rumor was alluding to!
Bozos
SJ
Its a bargain by any measure. A no brainer so just go out and get it!
Linux still same price….glad I switched!!!
It just gets better.
Now that Apple has really lowered the price, and I mean really, I guess I need to buy “Shake for Dummies” in order to make sense of it…
Why do graphic apps have to have such a huge learning curve?
Besides the price drop and added benefits I think some of the biggest news that no one has mentioned is the drop in support for Windows. Though they are keeping support for Linux. Sweet sweet sweet.
“And then there’ll be someone who doesn’t understand why it doesn’t work on a Mac mini.”
WHAT? It’s not OS 9 compatible? Will it run on my Mac SE? Can I get a backup on floppies?
Where’s the freakin’ Sanskrit version? Tablet PC? It’s not RAZR compatible? Why can’t I smell the smoke elements?
What a RIPOFF ! ! !
I know. Shake it off? Right?
“Apple releases Shake 4.1 (Universal), lowers price to $499”
Of course, they had to milk Shake first. Duh.
This will be Apple’s final release of Shake. They’re completely re-writing a package to come out two years down the track that will most likely make use of Core Image like Motion does. Very cool.
does anyone know if Ican i use shake on a white macbook 2g