Apple announces biggest ever Shake upgrade

Apple has announced as a major upgrade to Shake 4, the industry leading compositing software used by independent artists and visual effects facilities to create visual effects for film and television.
The latest version of Shake features 3D multi-plane compositing, cutting-edge optical flow image processing and integration with Final Cut Pro 5.
“From Academy award-winning films to broadcast television, Shake helps bring realistic visual effects to life,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s VP of Applications Marketing. “With 3D multi-plane compositing, advanced optical flow technology and tight integration with Final Cut Pro 5, Shake 4 opens up a wide range of new creative opportunities for artists everywhere.”
Artists can now composite live action and 3D CGI layers with added realism using Shake’s new OpenGL accelerated 3D multi-plane compositing node. Seamlessly integrated into the node view, 3D compositing works with the same flexible user interface as every other operation and is as fast and high quality as 2D operations. Shake 4 presents an entirely new dimension by offering the ability to position, rotate and animate unlimited layers and cameras in 3D space.
Apple claim that Shake 4 is at the forefront of integrating the latest image processing algorithms and workflow advantages into a single, affordable visual effects package. Shake 4 features advanced optical flow technology that uses pixel-by-pixel image analysis to create smooth retiming and automatic stabilisation. Editors and visual effects artists alike can now effortlessly adjust the speed of any clip to achieve Hollywood-quality results. Shake 4 can also revive unusable content by automatically removing camera jitter from static shots and correcting uneven pans across a scene without setting tracking points.
Shake 4 integrates Truelight monitor calibration to maintain colour consistency between the computer screen and the final look of the film, allowing compositors to accurately pre-visualise the look of their HD or film imagery.
Shake 4 can also distribute visual effects processing across a cluster of Apple’s Xserve G5 servers or Power Mac G5 desktop computers for maximum rendering performance and efficiency.
Tightly integrating with Apple’s Final Cut Studio, Shake 4 can be launched directly from the Final Cut Pro 5 timeline and using the XML interchange format, cuts and layers from the timeline automatically generate a Shake process tree.
(SP/GB)