Big Autodesk announcement?

[Paul Lee]

Smoke is already something that people would call a "super app." It's not an idea, it's reality. My fear is that Autodesk jumps on that "app." wagon, "streamlines" the best GUI in he world and Smoke becomes a FCP-X on steroids with templates and all the stuff I don't want.

But then there is the possibility that they don't screw things up and give Lustre a new life inside Smoke. The only thing I ever missed in Smoke was RT grading.



Hans

Yes, +1 on grading

[Ben Rojas]

With all my connections under non-disc's, I've only been able to piece together minimal things. The sole complaint for the 12yrs I've been on Smoke (aside from price, which the drop to 15K made me smile, but 5K would make me ecstatic 'cause I could have more than 1 Smoke in the house... But I digress :O), I'd love a revamped editor, media bin/management, etc. Something MC or FCP UI like that is conducive to "rapid-fire" offline style editing. Grant it, the Autodesk folks have come a long way giving us a much better timeline, Soft Effects, timeline compositing and more, but cutting is still cumbersome. I've ranted about it for years and last week heard with a nod nod wink wink that I'm going to be very very happy with this release. Since these individuals know me well, I can only ascertain that editing has been revamped and pricing will be much more competitive. I'm still in the dark w/so many questions but if the Autodesk folks have finally created the legendary "Final Cut Extreme" many fantasied about, we could see a game changer of a product. That being said, if Smoke doesn't wow us, Adobe has done a pretty good job w/the latest on CS6. Apple and Avid are probably having WTF moments around the water cooler today.

[Jeff Whitehurst]

Smoke is already something that people would call a "super app." It's not an idea, it's reality. My fear is that Autodesk jumps on that "app." wagon, "streamlines" the best GUI in he world and Smoke becomes a FCP-X on steroids with templates and all the stuff I don't want.

But then there is the possibility that they don't screw things up and give Lustre a new life inside Smoke. The only thing I ever missed in Smoke was RT grading.



Hans

The announcement page called it a super App, so I think you may not be very pleased...

[Steve Sherrick]

If you dont own Smoke, you will come Monday :)

:-)

[Björn Benckert]

I been on Fire for 8 years and during that time also had several infernos, flames and flint and now we got both flame 2012 and smoke 2012... I can not for any reason see that anyone would like to have a smoke if they even just seen flame...

I think they should droop the smoke and just make one big stone to kill all birds... using flame, then you are heading in the right direction (you got all the wanted part of smoke inside of flame) using smoke will get you going in the wrong directions in regards of workflow. Do not take me wrong it's better than FCP, AVID and all the other stuff out there... but the flame is atleast 3 times better.

I actually happen to have an old flame 2009 license for sale, that is upgradable, we do not use it and I will sell it cheap, you can use it an pay a license transfer fee and then upgrade to flame 2013... that will most likely be like a bulldoser next to sledgehammer smoke...

Like smoke, have it in a case to bring to shoots... good for quick comp checks on set.

[Gunleik Groven]

If you dont own Smoke, you will come Monday :)

Ok...

[Ben Rojas]

"smoke will get you going in the wrong directions in regards of workflow"??? Sorry, don't follow... Smoke has roughly 90% of Flames tools. We just finished a feature and of 25 shots that needed clean-up, compositing, etc, 2 went to Flame. Björn, if anything, Autodesk will morph Smoke, Flame & Lustre together. Oh wait, they did last year ;o) No, actually morph them and not bundle them. As for Smoke itself, Autodesk has done very well w/Smoke on Mac and I wouldn't be surprised if they port everything over else as well. I doubt that's the big announcement because who knows what Apple's plan for the Mac Pro is... an untimely death this year or next would make Autodesk look ridiculous. As for killing Smoke all together, well, now your talking writing off thousands of Editor / Smoke Artists like myself, which I'd dare to say make up a larger population than Flame Artists. I do agree w/u, however, that even today we have to many product lines. I started out on Fire and worked closely w/the Inferno artist. It's quite amazing everything that has spun off from those 2 sys. But hey, fast forward to today and what we're about to see is the evolution of the artists working today. An all-in-one tool that hopefully has enough packed in it to appeal to everyone.