Shake was initially developed by Nothing Real, a relatively small company, who were selling their, at first, text-based only software Shake for around $10,000 for a single machine.In 2002 the company was acquired by Apple.

One of my friends had purchased a multi-server license back in the day, and since now his studio switched to Macs almost entirely (they're mostly using Linux for render farms since benchmarks show that for some reason Shake renders faster under Linux), he has let me use one of the latest betas Apple has released for PC before making it Mac-exclusive, 2.5.0810 I think. I believe there was an update for it, but of course it's nowhere to be found now.

With Shake being at version 4 now, I wouldn't say the changes were dramatic. It would maybe somewhat nice to have sound support for easier syncing, the 32bit float Keylight and Primatte keying, and time remapping. But I wouldn't die without those.

By the way, one of the best things in Shake that were gone after Apple taking over was the HELP FILE. Man.. I think I'll upload it somewhere, because it's just the way all help files need to be written.

Quotes:

For example, you cannot get the dark bit under her arm. Kind of like that nasty corner in your shower, you can scrub on it but it doesn't disappear.

For example, her shirt is transparent in some places (that's not a line you see very often in technical documentation, is it?).

Of course, in new versions of Shake Apple has rewritten all that in a more formal manner.

A key I pulled tonight from an older screen grab posted:
http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitr.../HVX_key_3.tif

Well, looking at the screen shot, its Shake 2.5. I believe that's the last version that ran on Windows.

<edit>Which I now see was already explained by Dmitry<edit>

I too had trouble using DVmatte in FCP. I didn't have much trouble using Shake 4 though.

http://10framehandles.com/movies/HVX_Comp_BobGundu.mov

Hey Bob - in fcp did you notice when you drop the filter on the clip the Canvas jumps back a frame ?

Really think dv matte is expecting interlaced and doesn't know what to do with P but it could well be the codec. Just my opinion, of course.

z matte did the same thing, threw it back a frame - but was way faster to key.

This was on the dl'd footage not the still.

The key is clean overall. I did notice some green spill from motion blur around the hand and arm at frame 82 (about 2sec). I believe it is more of a limitation of the keyer, however. Combustion has a nice Color Supression operator that will help clean this type of artifact.

Robert - Bob just dropped a general Keylight keyer on the footage in Shake. It nicely shows how little tweaking can produce very impressive results. Isn't this what we have been waiting for all our lives, people? :)
But.. As the Shake's help file says:
"Keep in mind this image is going to be projected on a very large screen in front of millions of science fiction geeks who later take your film and advance frame-by-frame on their DVD player to reveal the multitude of errors. Perfectionism pays. You have been warned."

Here is some graphical representation of what HVX is capable of in terms of chroma and luma (converted from RGB to YUV):
http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitr...mparison.1.tif

As can be seen, the luma retains quite a bit of detail on the hair, which is very good and calls for luma keying things like hair. As to chroma, I'd just blur it slightly horizontally to get rid of the choppy edges.

I think my OSX fanboy skin in Windows has lead people into confusion, hah.

Yeah I noticed the same thing. I think you may be on to something about it expecting interlaced footage.