Smoke news

[Sven Seynaeve]

how can you use a redrocket right now.... is it without the gateway???? maby possible with thunderbolt???

 

[Dermot Shane]

Jake do you have any input on Smoke vs DS? For years we've been thinking about moving up from After Effects but never really put time into it. Your thoughts?

I'm not Jake, and i don't play him on TV, but i do have experience with finishing / gradeing in DS, and in the past i was on Discreet, but mainly for compositing then... And at this time DS's updates have not been shown, so thre may be some updates on that front...

in comparision - both systems can do just about anything with color on a shot given a full on compositor in each with masks, trackers and plug-ins' on tap.. where they split is;

1) Smoke needs to render everything, no GPU use - so tweak and render and cry and tweak some more.. in DS the color tools are RT and run on the GPU - fast and interactive.
2) Smoke has no way to manage your grades beyond cut-n-paste, no way to see different grades quickly, no way to save, recall quickly, DS has better, but far from the best, but at least it exists - much the same as Symp.
3) DS has nodes inside the color UI much like resolve, both can add compositors on clips in the timeline, but both take you out of seeing color choices in context once in comp mode, so nodes in DS's CC keeps the shot in context, but allows you to work with layers, math op's and plugins
4) Project and media management in my experience is more solid in DS


Similar weak points;
1) Both are missing a 3D camera tracker, so replaceing skys requires a roundtrip out of the software for both of them
2) Both are missing a planner tracker as well, round trip time again

Smoke has a advantage in working with some media formats, mainly the prosumer based stuff, DS needs that washed through Media Composer, both run DPX RT, RED with a rocket is RT as well in both, DS does abetter conform from MC, Smoke does a better conform from FCP, both can conform from either or from PP & Lightworks.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

1) Smoke needs to render everything, no GPU use - so tweak and render and cry and tweak some more.. in DS the color tools are RT and run on the GPU - fast and interactive.

Yes. True. Nonetheless if your box has some power near RT is possible in playback, if no blur in the CW is applied.

2) Smoke has no way to manage your grades beyond cut-n-paste, no way to see different grades quickly, no way to save, recall quickly, DS has better, but far from the best, but at least it exists - much the same as Symp.

Not entirely true. You can safe as many grades as you want. You can quickly access them when stored on the edit desk. You can add the CC to the clip or above in a kind of editable "adjustment layer". You can stack a much as you want. You can enable and disable them, ad vignettes, track them, etc... But any dedicated grading system is faster.

4) Project and media management is vastly more solid in DS

Bold statement. Please elaborate. Never lost one single frame on the last 2 years. Edit all formats I shot with my Smoke, from TVC to 45 min. documentary - all shot on Red. Archiving works great.

Similar weak points;
1) Both are missing a 3D camera tracker, so replaceing skys requires a roundtrip out of the software for both of them
2) Both are missing a planner tracker as well, round trip time again

I'm doing sky replacements all day and they work well. You can track the foreground and add parallax shifts in Action by setting a meaningful distance (z) in the Axis node. The Pixel-Spread node is a wizard's stick when it comes to luma-keys and compositing. Second to none.

Smoke has a world class 2d tracker. Not sure what you mean with missing planner tracker.

Hans

 

[Antoine Baumann]

Planar tracker, think mochapro or nukeX 6.3.x. Planar tracker will track surface (plan) not point.
IMHO, Discreet point tracker is the best out there, same with master keyer, and a few more. But I have to say I've never tried DS. Personnaly I am very pleased to see smoke for $3500.-
And in my experience to hope "one soft can rule them all" (or in other terms do everything) is not gonna happen, I always need a bit of this and a bit of that. So round trip will still happen.

 

[Erich Ocean]

1) Smoke needs to render everything, no GPU use - so tweak and render and cry and tweak some more.. in DS the color tools are RT and run on the GPU - fast and interactive.

This is why I think we'll see Lustre in Smoke in the next major update or two. Autodesk has the tech (and they no longer even sell it).

 

[Björn Benckert]

I'm not Jake, and i don't play him on TV, but i do have experience with finishing / gradeing in DS, and in the past i was on Discreet, but mainly for compositing then... And at this time DS's updates have not been shown, so thre may be some updates on that front...

1) Smoke needs to render everything, no GPU use - so tweak and render and cry and tweak some more.. in DS the color tools are RT and run on the GPU - fast and interactive.
2) Smoke has no way to manage your grades beyond cut-n-paste, no way to see different grades quickly, no way to save, recall quickly, DS has better, but far from the best, but at least it exists - much the same as Symp.
3) DS has nodes inside the color UI much like resolve, both can add compositors on clips in the timeline, but both take you out of seeing color choices in context once in comp mode, so nodes in DS's CC keeps the shot in context, but allows you to work with layers, math op's and plugins
4) Project and media management in my experience is more solid in DS


.

I think opposite form 1 to 4.

You can play out onredered effects if you are on a fast computer on smoke.
You can have infinite grading options for each clip and jump between in smoke.
The grading Ui in smoke is not just the CC node... thats like the most simple tweaks then the modular keyer and keyer is where you got the bigger guns and then action is where you have even more an then batch. CC node is the smallest node then there is a lot of onion skins you can put ontop in the Auto desk programs...

Have not fiddled with smoke for a while even though we have one, but exposure and luteditor in the flame got the nicest features for preliminary grading of raw I think.

Not saying that DS is not a good package but to me it would be an "off course" to get smoke since it is like baby flame... and when you got the taste for the later versions of flame there is nothing else that comes close I think.

Nuke is up there with the advanced nodes and compositing but flame got the framestore, reels and timeline to not only be the premium compositor but also a superb editor.

Did I mention I got a flame 2009 license left over / for sale for any one that will by a flame there is advantages of buying an old license and then upgrade.

 

[Dermot Shane]

The grading Ui in smoke is not just the CC node... thats like the most simple tweaks then the modular keyer and keyer is where you got the bigger guns and then action is where you have even more an then batch. CC node is the smallest node then there is a lot of onion skins you can put ontop in the Auto desk programs...

i agree with you, and i fully understand the color work one can do with a compositing toolset on tap... that excatly how i have been gradeing in DS for years and years now.

What DS brings (and smack lacks);
- A good color interfaace,
- Useful gradeing management,
- Seemingly infinate layers of grades in RT - we work with layers of grades much like one would work in a Pablo.. loads of layers of grades, stacks of them.. still RT, keep adding... still RT.... want some more sir? we have it for you....
- Opening up a tree inside a floating window while in the CC interface, so i have context to the work i'm doing, seeing other shots, haveing access to anywhere on the timeline while keeping the floating comp window open - in smack you are blind once you open up a comp, no jumping inbetween with DS, no leaving the comp to see the shots you are matching to...the shots you need are there already, and have been always
- And and DS is still RT with masks/keys/roto/tracks/mathop's until i start adding say Furnace DeNoise or S_Glows for examples of non RT effects
- I debyayer RED in the timeline, and have for years now, long before FFI could do anything but deal with rendered DXP.. your experience with what you can do with the SDK in the software is something DS has had for years now, it's been far ahead of FFI/Luster on that front, so that it works really well is rather old news to me.

In my experence smack is not anywhere near RT with even the simplest of color changes on a 2010 MacPro, i shudder to think what it's like on an iMac... even if it was (and it seems not to be) there's still a lack of gradeing in context, gradeing managment, etc to deal with....

I think they dropped the ball big time by hypeing it so much, then delivering relitivly little, after the hyepola anything short of amazing would be a dissapointment... and 2013's smack is not amazing or even new...

kinda brings one's mind back to a year ago when someone else promised to "change everything"... epic fail...

if AD ported smack to X64 and rolled in Luster - and left it at 15K then it would be great, at 3.5K it would be amazing, but as it stands.. it's far from a game changer, and not in the ball park of amazing...

And meanwhile DS is getting shows done, and done well, making the day, and making the ROI... it is the bigger gun, so no need to cry as you open up the smack onions...

d

Should add i'm talking about smack here not the real Smoke on Linux... that's a different toolset ,market & ROI... good luck on the Flame2009 sale.. still a great tool if it's the right fit

 

[Scott Crawley]

But if you believe their marketing when the next release is completed it will run faster, on lesser hardware... At least that is how I understood what I saw on the web. Are they saying different in the booth? Is the demo they are showing supposedly up to speed, or is that just a promise at this point?

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

What actually has amazed me, is that no one from autodesk or anyone else is actually mentioning s3d in their Smoke and Flame demoes. Is it still supported in smoke, or does the problem shows up due to thunderbolt not being able to send out 2x sdi and laptops being to light.

 

[jake blackstone]

But if you believe their marketing when the next release is completed it will run faster, on lesser hardware... At least that is how I understood what I saw on the web. Are they saying different in the booth? Is the demo they are showing supposedly up to speed, or is that just a promise at this point?

The idea was to dramatically reduce the hardware requirements in order to run Smoke. Right now the requirements are very high. 2013 version can run on pretty much any Mac, including macbook pro.
That is why all demo 2013 Smokes are running on iMacs. And remember, it will not be available as a beta until June. So, right now it is probably still alpha, so I wouldn't pay much attention to the sluggish performance.

 

[jake blackstone]

What actually has amazed me, is that no one from autodesk or anyone else is actually mentioning s3d in their Smoke and Flame demoes. Is it still supported in smoke, or does the problem shows up due to thunderbolt not being able to send out 2x sdi and laptops being to light.

If you're talking about stereo, Smoke had been 3D capable for few years now. 2013 is no exception. SDI is not a problem. The bottleneck is, as usual, debayer and decompression. You'll need two RR, if you need full quality playback.

 

[Sandro Klopfstein]

Smoke 2013 looks really really good, compared to the 2012 version. Love the GUI update and really looking forward to the pre-release trial. However, I really dont understand why they didn't adjust the ConnectFX UI to something much more easily accessible. Why the heck are all the nodes still placed in a single box and you have to scroll back and forth to find what you're looking for?? I wish that this would be more like a Nuke toolbar kind of thing. Well, maybe they'll change that for the release version... at least I sure hope they will!

 

[jake blackstone]

Smoke 2013 looks really really good, compared to the 2012 version. Love the GUI update and really looking forward to the pre-release trial. However, I really dont understand why they didn't adjust the ConnectFX UI to something much more easily accessible. Why the heck are all the nodes still placed in a single box and you have to scroll back and forth to find what you're looking for?? I wish that this would be more like a Nuke toolbar kind of thing. Well, maybe they'll change that for the release version... at least I sure hope they will!

What do you mean? You can always split the screen into 3 parts and see nodes, action and result at the same time. But why bother. Just hit tilde to switch between nodes view and action. Couldn't be easier...

 

[Sandro Klopfstein]

What do you mean? You can always split the screen into 3 parts and see nodes, action and result at the same time. But why bother. Just hit tilde to switch between nodes view and action. Couldn't be easier...

the 3 part split screen is fine, of course. I mean the long list of selectable nodes with the scroll bar in particular. seems pretty overcharged and could have easily been sorted in a much better way. same thing goes for the whole "every function/button is visible at all times" idea. I'd rather have sorted toolbars and menu bars like in nuke and a "cleaner" screen. I just don't think it's as intuitive as it could be. maybe they'll fix that in 2014 ;-)

that being said, we're still going to buy a few licences of smoke 2012 as soon as it's out in the wild. in fact, I can't wait for it. since my first day in the biz I've been waiting for an application like smoke, only the previous interface (and price, of course) was a huge turn off.

 

[Hillary Knox]

Remember there are all those folks out there right now that *already* use Smoke. Autodesk has to them to consider as well as potential new users so they couldn't just do a total 180 on the UI. In fact, when I heard the whole "Smoke is changing everything" line, the first thing I thought was "uh-oh, people are gonna be *pissed*." From what I've seen, it looks like they did a pretty amazing job of fusing old & new. The Smoke UI has always been a learning curve, but once you learn it, you're off to the races.

 

[jake blackstone]

the 3 part split screen is fine, of course. I mean the long list of selectable nodes with the scroll bar in particular. seems pretty overcharged and could have easily been sorted in a much better way.

You can create your own custom tabs of nodes or use predefined tabs. It's always had been there. If that is not enough, typing a letter will narrow down your node selection even farther.

 

[Sandro Klopfstein]

Hello people

Apparently, a new version of Smoke's pre-release trial is out. Has anyone already got the chance to check it out (I can't do it as I'm busy with a huge stage production atm)? Are there any improvements?