New Autodesk Smoke announced

[Jacques Mersereau]

One of the last things I checked out at NAB was Autodesk's 'new' Smoke.

Summary:There will be a free beta download in June for everyone to try for a couple of months and lots of online tutorial videos coming. The interface (editing section) has been redesigned to be a '2-up' like FCP7 and Avid so Smoke can be a stand alone tool that both chops and composites with a TON of cool features. It now runs on a Mac laptop now without the need for expensive raids and video cards.

My review: The New Smoke looks to be AWESOME!

[Steve Kalle]

Dude, you left out the most important news about Smoke - its ONLY $3500 rather than the prior $15k for Mac or $45,000/90,000 for the Linux systems. However, it STILL does not include Batch :(

[Jacques Mersereau]

Thanks Steve. I had written the new pricing in, but probably erased it accidentally when I move a couple of lines around. YES, that is the biggest thing.

By Batch, you mean batch capture - or even capture at all?
If so, Autodesk is looking for suggestions like this, and capture is a big one for sure.
They never touched on how one captures and in the flurry, it never occurred to me - oops.

[Bart Walczak]

Batch in Autodesk products like Flame is a node compositor. Actually, some variation of it is included in new Smoke under the name "Connect FX".

I agree, the new Smoke looks very interesting for certain applications.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Yes, Smoke does use node compositing - but I am now really wondering about how Smoke, or even if it can, capture from sources like HDV cameras or HDSDI?

[Steve Kalle]

Also, Smoke 2013 can now edit multiple video formats & codecs natively so the days of converting everything to DPX are gone (although it could do a soft import without converting to DPX but it was very limited).

'Batch' makes compositing much quicker in Smoke and is part of the main difference between the $45,000 Smoke system and the $90,000 Smoke (on Linux).

For capturing, the Linux systems are great at capturing and playing out to tape. A common scenario for Smoke and Flame artists is to have a client arrive at 10am with several HDCAM tapes and need to have a tv commercial cut and finished by 5pm. However, the Linux systems come as a turnkey computer with storage over fiber and a few other pieces of equipment for inputting and outputting video and audio. Smoke on Mac is just the software so I don't know how well it can handle the same ingest/playout as the Linux systems.

However, most people *needing* the talent of a Smoke artist and the accompanying high cost usually have footage shot from high end digital cameras; thus, the need to ingest footage thru SDI is not very relevant.

With the democratization of advanced 3D/Editing/Grading/Compositing software, I feel bad for those Smoke & Flame artists and even some Colorists who have been able to charge $800-1500/hr because most clients don't realize the level of skill required to be a good Flame artist and a good colorist.

[Jacques Mersereau]

NIce post Steve, and yes, we are living in truly interesting, if uncertain times now. The democratization of high-end image creation tool-sets like Smoke and RAW video recording with BMD's camera are just about compete enough to truly make them affordable to just about anyone - to finally level the filmmaker's playing field - even as if by EARTHQUAKE to many pillars in the industry.

Although content remains king, marketing and distribution will be the 'war machine' necessary for financial victory for almost every filmmaker, and it still takes a lot of money to go to war.