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Smoke 2015

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Message 1 of 67
sebastien_leclercq
5643 Views, 66 Replies

Smoke 2015

Hello!

 

I just saw the announcement about Smoke 2015.

That's really great news 🙂

 

Any idea about the release date, minimum requirements and if it will be available as a free upgrade for Subscription Customers?

 

Thanks.

66 REPLIES 66
Message 41 of 67
davidtindale
in reply to: BKM

Yes, it would be nice if we had more support for third party plugins in Smoke, particularly OFX, but this isn't the issue here. If Autodesk choose not to implement ADDITIONAL APIs for third party support, this is up to them, and future purchasers will make their decisions based on this, as I did when I bought Smoke 2012. To this extent, I'm not really concerned whether Smoke Desktop has any of the current features of Smoke, including Sparks support and Flame compatibility, this is a business decision for Autodesk alone.

We are not future purchasers, we are current owners who have paid for the Sparks API in the software we bought, we have paid our maintenance fees to remain current with the latest developments in the software, we (or at least I) have bought the (admittedly hugely expensive) Sparks, and use them concurrently with Smoke as our livelihood. If you buy a 4 seater car, do you expect the manufacturer to remove two seats when you take it in for service? I didn't buy Smoke Desktop, I bought Smoke, and if Autodesk chooses to rebrand the existing Smoke as Flame Assist, then that is the product I should be upgraded to. If I really have to pay additional money to do so, I'll be prepared to consider it, but the fact that I've already spent a big pile of money on Smoke and maintenance (much more than the cost of The Foundry's Production Collective which upgrades free to Nuke Studio for example), should be a major mitigating factor on the cost of migration.

For the record, Genarts is not the only manufacturer providing Sparks for Autodesk - RE:Vision effects also make Sparks that run on Smoke on Mac, I have RSMB (no Autodesk or Matchbox equivalent) and Twixtor (nails the motion estimates that the native engine can't), in addition to Sapphire 7 & Monsters GT from Genarts.

Brian, I get that you don't use Sparks and good for you, but the fact remains that if you ever needed to, you could, in your shiny new Flame. I'm not surprised that you're happy with how things have worked out for you, but many of the rest of us are extremely unhappy with the situation as it stands, and it's disingenuous for you to tell us otherwise.

In other news, Genarts have announced cross platform licensing for their Sparks, meaning that if you run Avid, FCP, Premiere, Nuke, After Effects or Resolve on the same machine, the plugins can be licensed for all of them for the cost of the maintenance subscription. Autodesk is conspicuously absent from this list, meaning I can't even repurpose my existing Sparks in other software, leaving me with $4K worth of useless code, and a Smoke that in the future will no longer do what I paid for. Look at that list again - all the available offline software, plus the major potential competitor to Autodesk (Nuke, soon to be Nuke Studio), and even grading software supports these plugins. Why would Autodesk drop them from a product that already supports them?
Message 42 of 67
A_Over_B
in reply to: davidtindale

$0.02

 

I'm glad Brian has a flame now.

He earned that.

Holy goodness, if I'd been stuck with just a smoke & no flame for all these years, I can't picture myself being that good-natured.

 

If he put 10% of his smoke evangelism effort into flame evangelism there would be a lot more new flame users saying - "holy cow, thanks Brian".

One part that he will struggle with is that flame users tend to be a lot more private, a lot less vocal about what they don't know & very protective over what they do know.

Another part is that to be a new flame user, you have to be able to get access to a flame.

Which puts the onus back on shops that have flame to drag up the new gen.

It's not like autodesk didn't try to get a whole new gen of people into the toolset - there's smoke on mac, web tutorials, online documentation etc.

Turn the clock back half a decade and... oh, none of that existed...

 

Maybe owning a flame will change Brian but I doubt it.

I'm sure he will maintain his healthy & pretty selfless contribution - it will be harder for him to be heard but I'm sure that won't stop him.

 

Getting flamed for voicing his opinion is first amendment stuff for sure, but it's pretty ****ed up - don't shoot the messenger.

I mean, where else are you gonna get your free setups and your first hand knowledge?

 

Likewise, mike parsons educates a great many of us here with his experience.

Let's see if he too gets so consumed with flame again that he has no time to help out with 101 questions.

 

And for me this seems to be the departure point.

Formula 1 drivers do not share their cars, nor do they turn those cars into buses.

Business is tough - there are people who are better at it than you are - deal with it - get better.

Unless of course you're super lucky & this is your hobby.

 

Message 43 of 67

Reading some of these post, and replys, it really makes me come up with a new fear.  Distrust for the Smoke Product.  Let me explain.

 

Pre Smoke 2012 released, so people loved it, high price, but gave a good workflow.

 

Smoke 2013, introduced some great new workflow.  Got rid of somepeople tried and true way they used the product.  Desktop Action and a keyer.  (this is where I started working on smoke, I dabled in 2012, learned 2013)

 

Smoke 2015, introduced some great new tools.  Kills another tool people use.  Kills another workflow that people use (archive to flame)

 

So what is next?  What workflow will Smoke 2017 kill?  The full archive featue? casue it is too close to flame?  Ablity to work with Sony camera formats nativily, becasue smoke doesn't need it.  

 

So it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, and a little quessy.  Autodesk can comment on anything in the future because they are publicly traded.  I have seen that on this very fourm.

 

I want to be a smoke user, I want to get all my friends to start using smoke.  I just can't in good conscious recomend smoke to them becasue of these factors.  And that kills me.  

Message 44 of 67
BKM
Advisor
in reply to: brookstomlinson

It is too bad that Autodesk has made this harsh a turn, but obviously the sales and adoption of Smoke 2013 really wasn't what they had hoped for. I am certain that there was soem push back from Flame and some push back regarding features for price.  Look at all the Flame freelancers, a small but mighty crowd, that are rasing red flags over the seperation. 

Here is a thought, one that has no basis in any concrete knowledge....

 

What if the split between Smoke and Flame is actually a good thing?  Autodesk seesm to think so. They seem to think they can keep both healthy and alive. And yes, I know they don't have a great track record. (*edit, Combustion, Toxik, Softimage) But think of it this way...

 

Now that Smoke will be split from Flame as far as setups, projects, and archives go, this will allow Smoke to develop feautures that don't directly conflict wth Flame.
Take 3D tracker for instance.  It was obvious that there was hesitaiton in bring that on board for Smoke.  But if Smoke gets a similar feature to Flame, there is no conflict because the two products aren't compatible.  Yes, both have a 3D tracker (as an example) but they are seperate and distict in that there setups and media don't mix. 

Now there is no conflict with Flame sales.  And both products can serve their target audiences.  XML interchange is a feature that Smoke will be improving. Smoke shoudl work with the rest of the Mac eco-system and gel with Resolve and FCPX.  I don't see this being a feature high on Flames list as they have Luster and it doesn't makes sense to send and edit back to FCPX form Flame.

I am probably not explaining this well... but the point is, since the 2 products won't be in the same family, then there won't be as much of a conflict regarding features between the two.

Just a hypothosis. 🙂

 

 

 


Flame/Smoke Editor
Check out the Premiumbeat Smoke Blog
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/category/smoke-2/
Message 45 of 67
brookstomlinson
in reply to: BKM

Ya, but lets not forget the real loss us smoke users are about to face.  You (Brian) as a smoke user.  Your moving to the land of Flame.  The land of milk and honey.  All of us poor smoke users will be left behind 🙂

Message 46 of 67
alex
in reply to: brookstomlinson

Whilst agreeing with almost all the complaints, there is something very promising on Smoke 2015: the faster Timeline FX.

Hopefully this adds enough interactivity to make it a usable offline-tool. Long overdue...

 

I have the desperate wish: the guy who is compiling the release, mistakenly enables the possibilty to colorize library items and we will have this as a bug, that traditionally will never get fixed!

schall&rauch
Message 47 of 67
BKM
Advisor
in reply to: alex

You can colorize items in the Library.  It's not a bug.. it's a feature.

 


Flame/Smoke Editor
Check out the Premiumbeat Smoke Blog
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/category/smoke-2/
Message 48 of 67
alex
in reply to: BKM

Oh really? I did not expect this to happen! This is very good news.

 

 I've seen this on the Flame Assist screenshots, the one of Smoke 2015 looked different.

schall&rauch
Message 49 of 67
dcnblues
in reply to: Robert.Adam

System requirements for Autodesk® Smoke® 2015

 

Optional Components
  • Blackmagic UltraStudio Express, UltraStudio 3D, UltraStudio 4K, UltraStudio Mini Monitor Thunderbolt devices as well as Decklink 4k, Decklink HD 3D and Decklink Studio 2. The required BMD driver for Smoke 2015 is 9.7.2 (supported only on Mac OS10.8.x)."

-------

Robert, I'm on a budget and I had thought that I could use my Intensity Pro card to output HDMI to a tv for color monitoring purposes, but have found the card is only 8 bit. Blackmagic, however, sells a DeckLink Mini Monitor card for only $145, and it outputs 10 bit color via HDMI. It's not listed in your 'Optional Components,' though a 'Decklink Studio 2' is. But they're not currently selling such a card.   

 

Can you find out / request that the upcoming driver for Mavericks (OS 10.9) support the Decklink Mini Monitor card? Any info most appreciated. (this would be especially nice since Smoke doesn't support my Matrox MX02, and I can find no explanation for why not...)

Message 50 of 67
alex
in reply to: dcnblues

Any chance of having an integrated waveform-monitor?

schall&rauch
Message 51 of 67
christophzapletal
in reply to: alex

Alex, you should find the Scopes in Player Mode when hitting ALT+4. Both Vectorscopes and Waveforms are there.

Message 52 of 67
alex
in reply to: christophzapletal

Hi Christoph,

 

thank you very much, but actually I'm missing this in CFX. Sorry for my very unprecise question.

 

 

 

schall&rauch
Message 53 of 67
christophzapletal
in reply to: alex

That would be actually pretty useful 😉 Second Alex' request !

Message 54 of 67
hansvons
in reply to: alex

Now my 2 Euro-Cents.

 

Smoke is leaving the Flame eco-system, won't have Sparks, won't have desktop Action, dektop keyer etc... Does that mean Smoke is going to be EOL?

 

No. On the contrary. It means that Smoke is goin to become more and more the ADSK NLE, independently from Flame. And hence ADSK is owing 3D they need a NLE that can deal with 3D well, thus Action, thus the 3D-tracker inside Smoke. I'm sure we will see more in this area. I think one of Smoke's tasks is to be a useful sidecar application to the ADSK 3D suite. In future release I can imagine that Smoke will be also availabel as part of the 3D suite.

 

It also means that Flame is alive, more than ever. I'm sure we will see intersting developments in this area. Linux as a platform is loosing ground, big irons die out but complex and highly productive software packages survive and become more and more important in our ever evolving industry. I'm sure ADSK will react on that. NAB 2015 is the starting signal to a new area in postproduction. The latest developments in GPU acceleration are nothing but tremendous. And were are only at the beginning of this development.

 

4K is round the corner, it's coming with huge steps. Currently Smoke is not ready for 4k but FCP-X is. How long will ADSK leave that gap open? 

 

With Smoke beeing freed from the neccecity to be compatible with Flame ADSK can put all the development power into a tighter intergration with the Mac platform. Is Smoke going to be the guinea pig for Flame on Mac? Interesting times.

 

Ok. All in all I'm not disapointed with the NAB 2014 announcement. But I have wishes: Make Smoke OFX compatible. Matcbox is nice but not a replacement for Genarts, etc... And please don't stop R&D regarding editing. There is a lot of headroom left. And of course creative colour timing. CW can do a lot but is missing mattes, etc...

 

Hans

 

Message 55 of 67
mikeparsons
in reply to: hansvons

I dont see Linux losign much fround in big facilities in my market or in London. If anything Mac is on a decline as is windows with RedHat and scientific Ububtu quite possibly now being the leading OS in VFX certainly in the film world. Small shops yes still run Macpros but supermicro/dell/HP are the flavoiur of the month in virtually every Nuke shop I've seen. To say nothing of all the big Resolve suites and of course Flames.

 

In fact I wonder how long before someone simply writes a true VFX linux, one where the file browser autodetects image sequences and lists them as such. A finder window with drop down bookmarks etc. Hmm I might just look at that myself around an XUbuntu shell...

 

Bifurcating the smoke line into flame assist and smoke offline. Interesting move. I had thought they would just kill smoke to be honest so they are to be commended on giving it one more go at the entry end of things. Dropping sparks ive come to terms with, dropping project compatability too I can accept ... if...

 

Whats needed is an AD 'super edl' by which i mean a 'send to flame' button, which in one step sends a timeline with all its associated media (with user defined handles) and automatically rebuilds the timeline no matter what has been done to all the media, 100 layers of video, audio with speed changes, grades transitions i dont care. Send to flame puts that timeline into flame with zero human interaction other than 'load super edl'. That's all I need, I can roundtrip Resolve, audio whatever I need from that point but if im reduced to xml or edl conforms I may as well use another offline system.

 

As you know Hans its been my long term goal to have an entirely AD facility, with the new announcements I intend to do that at the online editorial level in the next few weeks. I am still looking for the replacement for FCP7 for my offline guys, personally I never left Avid (other than the  Discover Channel documentary on the Himalayan Tsunami I cut last year in FCP7) but I am keen to have a nice pen driven system if only to save my wrists. 

 

4K is the driver here. But not AD style video. 4K is only goingto be enjoyed in compressed quality by 99% of the world, we cant handle the uncompressed bandwidth affordably yet. This is the main reason I believe for the split. Smoke as was has to please the quality freaks like me who wont work with prores intermediates. Thats means heavy files in everything I do. Im fine with that as I just want the best video possible. But the vast majority of editors just want codec compatability with source, so a 4K system that works natively is ideal, hence h265 and red acceleration in FCPX and Premiere. Splitting smoke off as an editor allows AD to do the same, real time dissolves, real time speed changes etc all become a possibility once they stop dragging monsterous files around.

 

Dropping sparks in that scenario is fine, provided there is an alternate plugin architecture provided. Hopefully OFX or maybe they can have AE compatability, teh API has been in AD products before such as Combustion and there have been API translation plugins for Avid such as Elastic Gasket so maybe an enterprising third party could handle that issue. Sadly I suspect the 64 bit API has never been publicly shared and no doubt Adobe would see their plugin API as a trade secret at this point and defend it vigorously.

 

My main personal excitement is to get my hands on a new dual GPU flame and get a new smoke back in its proper livery, I love the 2012 GUI and luckily have had no compelling reason to yet upgrade. Jumping from 2012 to flame assist is going to feel like the upgrade I've wanted (fingers crossed).

 

All's well that ends. That's why its called finishing.
Message 56 of 67
hansvons
in reply to: mikeparsons

Mike, I'm all with you and glad that you become (again?) an ADSK facility. If I were in the same realm working as you are, I would do exactly the same.

 

But my work is different. Occasionally I work as a director for TVCs. After the shoot those are all done at a facility like yours, Red/Alexa - Avid/FCP7 - Resolve - Flame - ProTools - Flame - done.

 

My other work are documentaries I write, shoot and direct. They get edited at my place, finished and from time to time even the sound mixing is done at my place which is much more a little post-boutique taylored to my personal needs. Like in commercial land I shoot all my stuff on my Epic and don't want to miss the tools in post I'm used to when making commercials. So in 2009 jumping on the Smoke on Mac waggon was obviously a no-brainer for me.

 

However, Flame in its current pricing, and more importantly in its technical requirements, is a over-kill for what I produce. But Smoke fits there well and the collaborative possibilities 2 Smokes are making possible are great to expedite turnarounds significantely. I actually edit my stuff from the scratch on Smoke, right now a 95 min. documentary which is about structural changes in society. Smoke is good online deditor that offers now a creative editing workflow that made me sending FCP7 and PP to an unexpected unemployment.

 

But you cannot do that in TVC land. There you need off-line/on-line, colour timing, sound studio, 3D department etc.... for every pixel a specialized authority. Otherwise chances are high that your clients don't believe that you can deliver high-end work. As a director never touch the pen of the Wacon when a client is in the room even if you out-perform the "artist" by miles. Clients don't like a swiss army knife.

 

Ok. But there are plenty of other places in the industry and there Smoke can be a godsent. And yes, many projects don't need DPX in the frame store, ProRes MOVs do it equally well for many. But surely not there wheer your business lives.

 

---

 

Here in my market Flame faced a severe headwind from so-called "flexi-suites" where you can edit (FCP/AVID) and online with AE. Yes, AE. The race to the bottom made it possible. More and more TVC don't see Flame anymore and ADSK's big iron turned from the must-use tool to a only-if necessary-tool. I'm really interested to see how Nuke-Studio will find it's place. The majority of the facillities that cater TVC land have nuke seats. The skilled staff is there.

 

Ok. Personally I'm not leering to The Foundry's new kid but I'm intersted how ADSK will answer their move. 

 

Hans

 

 

 

Message 57 of 67
BKM
Advisor
in reply to: hansvons


@hansvons wrote:

 

My other work are documentaries I write, shoot and direct. They get edited at my place, finished and from time to time even the sound mixing is done at my place which is much more a little post-boutique taylored to my personal needs. Like in commercial land I shoot all my stuff on my Epic and don't want to miss the tools in post I'm used to when making commercials. So in 2009 jumping on the Smoke on Mac waggon was obviously a no-brainer for me.

 

However, Flame in its current pricing, and more importantly in its technical requirements, is a over-kill for what I produce. But Smoke fits there well and the collaborative possibilities 2 Smokes are making possible are great to expedite turnarounds significantely. I actually edit my stuff from the scratch on Smoke, right now a 95 min. documentary which is about structural changes in society. Smoke is good online deditor that offers now a creative editing workflow that made me sending FCP7 and PP to an unexpected unemployment.

 

But you cannot do that in TVC land. There you need off-line/on-line, colour timing, sound studio, 3D department etc.... for every pixel a specialized authority. 

---

 

 

Hans

 

 

 

So happy to hear you say all of this.  And to your point of TVC. There are a ton of TVC, spots, promos that can be done the way you are doing your documentaries. Not every TVC is Mercedes, McDonalds, or Pepsi.

I work in local broadcasting and do spots for my station all day every day on Smoke... (Now Flame) But the point is the same. 

Smoke is great for an all in one workflow where you may be the director/editor and compositor.

 


Flame/Smoke Editor
Check out the Premiumbeat Smoke Blog
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/category/smoke-2/
Message 58 of 67
Robert.Adam
in reply to: dcnblues

Hi dcnblues,

 

As I've mentioned over private message, we have not tested the DeckLink Mini Monitor, so we cannot state that it's supported with Smoke.

However, Smoke does support its ThunderBolt equivalent: the UltraStudio Mini Monitor. The two devices have the same price point and seem to have the same features. I recommend using the UltraStudio Mini Monitor if your Mac has a ThunderBolt port.

 

Also note that the BMD driver Smoke currently supports (v9.7.2) is not officially recommended by BlackMagic with OS X 10.9. We are working on supporting the latest driver, which does work on Mavericks, but I have no information as to when that will be completed.

 

Best regards,

Robert.

 



Robert Adam
Program Manager

Message 59 of 67
dcnblues
in reply to: Robert.Adam

"I recommend using the UltraStudio Mini Monitor if your Mac has a ThunderBolt port."

 

Hello Robert, many thanks for the recommendation. I got confused by Blackmagic's website, and wasn't aware of this item. However, I have a 2008 Mac Pro (3,1), which does not have Thunderbolt. Can you also recommend a card that will give me a thunderbolt port? And let me know if there are any potential problems with doing so? Many thanks.

Message 60 of 67
Robert.Adam
in reply to: dcnblues


@dcnblues wrote:

"I recommend using the UltraStudio Mini Monitor if your Mac has a ThunderBolt port."

 

Hello Robert, many thanks for the recommendation. I got confused by Blackmagic's website, and wasn't aware of this item. However, I have a 2008 Mac Pro (3,1), which does not have Thunderbolt. Can you also recommend a card that will give me a thunderbolt port? And let me know if there are any potential problems with doing so? Many thanks.


Hi.

 

I hadn't realized you're using a MP 3,1.

Unfortunately, I don't believe it's technically possible to add TB ports to that computer, as the motherboard and CPU don't support that.

 

Regards,

Robert.



Robert Adam
Program Manager

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