$moke 2012 to 2013

[julioleon]

Hello. As a current Smoke 2012 owner I keep wondering about the big difference in price on the 2013 release. I got my license last year (november). I can clearly understand the change in plans for Smoke but there should be some path for current owners to at least obtain an extra license. For the price of 2012 I could get 4 2013 licenses. Any thoughts on this?

[moreymichael]

My wife does the same thing after we make a large purchase (car, house, etc.) She has to keep looking at ads, to see if we paid too much, see if there was suddenly a sale the next week that they should have told us about. But I believe that when you make an important purchase, you have to ask yourself...at the time...if it's the right purchase, at a price you think is acceptable? If so, move forward and forget about future deals. It's not the money you should be concerned with. No one is going to reimburse you because you paid more last year. This November, your subscription cost should theoretically go down. Enjoy. You'll get 2013 with your subscription. Enjoy. What we should all be concerned about is the direction of AD's development of this product, especially the fact they are now courting editors, not compositors. This means we might all be NUKE users in 2 years. Look what happened to FCP when the developers lost sight of their client base. At this point, it remains to be seen if 2013 will be good news or bad for compositors. But as for the price drop, I would just let it go.

Cheers, Mike

[BKM]

Have you talked to your re-seller or Autodesk? I am sure they are aware of concerns like yours.

[julioleon]

Thanks for the comments. The car analogy is good but imagine you buy a Ferrari and the next week it transformed into a MiniVan. That been said I am a very happy flame artist (15 years) using Smoke at my house. Cheers, can't wait to use 2013!

[moreymichael]

I'm also looking forward to 2013. I'm pretty new to Smoke. Been on Flame/Inferno since '96, and I've been waiting for a couple of years for AD to port Flame down to Mac. Looks like that's not gonna happen now, which is a drag, because none of us "homers" can afford the current Flame. Still the best compositor on the planet, cost aside.

Cheers, Mike

[Anonymous]

well smoke came from 300.000 and it is now at 3500. flame came from 600.000 and it is now
100.000. i guess we can all afford it in a few years.

the point that adesk is loosing intrest in compers, i think that is unfortunately true.
in my opinion, the new smoke is a cool peace of software, but i think the world of editors
will stick with tools like avid (i think still the best editor).
the vfx people switched to nuke already, and the very few online editors dont like the new smac.

so what makes me wonder is, i can understand that adesk is trying to get new customers,
but i cant understand why they dont stick with their existing customers.
what i mean is, they have a nice comp product in a very interresting price range, witch is
pointing to the exactky same marked like nuke. it is flare. but they do everything to avoid selling it. at the same time they stop producing a product that is just getting more and more acceptance witch is smac.

and now they bring out a new product where nobody knows if anybody wants it and if there is a marked for that product.

so in the end i think adesk is still creating good products but they have the worst marketing ever.

[hansvons]

the point that adesk is loosing intrest in compers, i think that is unfortunately true.
in my opinion, the new smoke is a cool peace of software, but i think the world of editors
will stick with tools like avid (i think still the best editor).
the vfx people switched to nuke already, and the very few online editors dont like the new smac.

I kindly disagree. The editor of today is partly a compositor, much more than a few years back. Today the borderline between editing and compositing is more blurred. There are many project that are finished with the NLE that was used to edit them, often without using a compositing application. Actually, the wish list of many editors includes more compositing and finishing features such as CC and feathered masks than conforming or syncing tools.

I guess it depends much on the target group. If your are used to offline/online workflows such as Avid-Flame than your are right, of course. But if your shop consist of FCP and AE Smoke is an alternative for many. Hence the price reduction.

Regarding price reductions: I bought FinalTouch, used it 2 years and then it was available for 0 USD as Color. Loss: 5.000 EUR. I bought Shake for 3.500 EUR, 2 years later Apple sold it for 500 EUR. I bought SpeedGrade for 15.000 EUR and can now buy it again for 1.000 EUR at Adobe's online shop. My Smoke License is 2 years old. Loss: 10k. In the end I was able to return the investments with all my purchases - more or less.

The last roll 35mm I shot is 4 years ago. My current Epic can do all better. And operates much much cheaper. The industry is moving fast.

Hans