The future of Motion and Shake
The price of Shake went down to $499 some days ago. Now it appears that Apple is going to discontinue Shake in the future. Frank Capria writes that Apple has announced on a mailing-list that this is the last version of Shake:
…It has been an absolute pleasure to serve the visual effects community for the past 9 years. We are looking forward to continuing to support you and are especially looking forward to working with you again. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this new version of Shake.
Frank thinks – and so do I – that there will be a new version of Motion with all the goodies from Shake inside. Why?
Motion never became the product Apple hoped it to be. After Effects users kept using After Effects, as Motion didn’t have all the features After Effects have. As Frank says:
But with all the power of Shake inside, and the new power of Intel-based Macs, Motion would be a amazing tool for high-end graphics and compositing. It would also mean that the stuff that is inside of Shake today, in the future will be inside the Final Cut Pro Studio package. So you get software previously priced at $2500 included with the Final Cut Pro Studio, at the moment priced at $1100 at Amazon.com.
All this is of course speculation from my side, and Apple is known to surprise us.
They already have by annoucing “the death” of Shake, a magnificent piece of software, used for compositing on blockbusters as King Kong and the Lord of the rings series. And when Apple ditches great stuff, it’s almost always because there’s something even cooler coming.
For now, there’s Shake to be bought for $499, and I would think that all the trained Shake users, will have a huge head start when and if the new “Shaked Motion” comes out.
Here’s something fun made in Shake, by my good friend Norby.
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Good point about Apple’s recent history. Unlike many other companies, Apple has had a good track record bringing acquired technologies into the Final Cut fold.
Thanks Frank. I remember seeing the “Nothing Real” software at IBC in 2001 and thinking “Wow, that would be something to have on my Mac”. Then Apple bought them some months later. Nothingreal.com still points to Apple’s Shake pages, now four years after…
Some rumor sites reports that the new product won’t be out until 2008:
That sounds like a million years away to me. Two years in this industry is a long time, and I doubt that this is true. I’m preparing to be surprised – again. I think there will be a new version of Motion no later than NAB 2007.