2015…pretty nice so far.

[jason]

Just installed 2015 this morning and it's a noticable improvement for me so far...the timeline fx performance is impressive.  

My initial thought is "this is what I wanted 2013 to be".  Hopefully the stability has improved the same.

After reading the various discussions about the direction of Smoke, it's obvious that many of us have very  different needs...but for my overall workflow, the new improvements are VERY welcome.

[mikeparsons]

Threw 2015 on the second machine this morning, thinking id dabble in my spare time. Been so impressed by speed that I stayed on it all day. No crashes and its been pushed very very hard.

This is the 2013 I wanted. I'm especially liking timline action. Just click on a desktop clip, add action and go. As easy as desktop action with the bonus of in and out of action pressing tilde. Very nice, Im liking the never seeing an unrendered frame message, Im liking the presets, I'm liking the whole thing actually, the less 3d look of the nodes is also feeling much more modern. I cant wait to see it as flame assist with the familiar colour coding.

Nice work everyone! im sure there will be things I discover that make me angry really soon, but its almost 1am and Im still going with no feeling of disappointment yet...

[BKM]

Who are you and what have you done with Mike? 🙂

[moreymichael]

...Mike_2015 ext. 1

[arichards]

Lol about Mike being sockpuppeted. 

Yup towers above 2013 and I agree about everything, especially the no unrendered message but also, in relation to this, that you can frameskip to see the natural timing. I always used to go into the animation editor to use the sound playback function for this and also to avoid the unrendered sign. Now this is exposed in the timeline I don't even mind seeing on frame a second to be able to see the timing. I have almost no crashes on my MacPro, but my only wish is that it'd take advantage of the other graphics card. I don't know if it would make it twice as fast, but it sure'd would be very very welcome. 

Cheers

Tony

[mikeparsons]

Let me have my 10 minutes of happy times. I'm sure the crushing disappointment will set in soon enough 🙂 

Actually it almost did at 9am when the license i created failed but I figured id go with the trial for a day as i've never managed to use 2013 for more than a few hours before stamping out of the room swearing. At about 1pm my office manager came in to make sure i was ok as i wasnt shouting at the screen and asked was I ok as I was smiling... Quite unusual given I am the very sharp end of a huge cg project that has seen me comping 34 shots a day in nuke prior to further combining with live action back in smoke. never a fun time.

I installed it on my resolve box so it has a titan black and a stack of ram and very fast raid but its screamingly quick, definitely much much snappier than my 2012 box and thats why i've stayed here all day. Its sadly going to be an overnight edit due to client presentations tomorrow to very time limited execs who are flying in so I expected to jump back in the old box at some point but even with the time pressure i've been happy to stay in 2015 all day and night so far. Its finally keeping up with me and other than small things like having to click a couple of menus to create a gmask shape rather than bam add shape, its not annoying me yet. Quick off for guides needs to be constantly available on the timeline though as well as in action. It just feels right in action and havign to select overlay options is a pain and unnecesary, just put it out there all the time. 

Oh and yes after an hour of work I thought id check i could export before getting to far into it and as usual I had no issues with backburner, it would have made my day complete had i been able to see the smoke 2012s framestore but I think once I complete the current three jobs I will probably actually let 2012 go... GASP.

I have to say I'd still like a new old keyer and a proper library back though, so it may not be quite that instant. Ask me again in a week:)

best regards

Mike

[rjino4732]

Didn't miss having Sparks available?

[moreymichael]

I'm definitely going to miss that. I know there are lots of claims that you can do most of that in matchbox or elsewhere, but it's just not true in many of the cases. Ah well.

Cheers, Mike

[rjino4732]

Truly, haven't seen anything come close to the Sparks S_Blur node.

[arichards]

Sparks are still available in 2015...

Cheers

Tony

[jason]

Sapphire still works for now.

I've been using it all day...2015 rocks!

I haven't had a beachball yet and that was a regular occurance with 2013 (using a 2009 8 core)

[mikeparsons]

I live in rackdefocus... Havent needed sparks yet, but i think the subs 2015 still supports them. Ill check later when i finish rotoing, tracking and generally having fun throwing frames around.

[BKM]

You can use Smoke Blur set to Defocus as well. Although it is a bit slower then Sapphire to render.

[rjino4732]

Yes, that works but the results are not the same. It takes longer to achieve a similar result that is not as "good"...subjectively. Not to sleight defocus as it is a very capable tool.

[nervevfx]

First client attended booking on 2015 tomorow, gonna be fun to se the difference in everyday preformance.

Fingers crossed