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Post FinalCutProは、smokeで決まりだ！！

I feel overwhelmed for you and excited at the same time!

Get yourself a couple of assistants. I'm Looking forward to an exciting future....everyone is watching because this is big.

Thanks Autodesk, what took you so long!

I didn't see any examples of this in the videos... but will the new smoke still have a swipe gestural interface? I feel like that's one of main reason Smoke feels so fluid.

@mjmurdoc

Swipe Bars are still available. A Preference was added to enable / disable them. You didn't see them in the videos because they were disabled

screw apple.... no way we buy 40 seats of their overprized products.

so when is smoke released for the PC?

well pixelLoop as you wrote "you did not use smoke".

i worked for a company who used smoke.
and the editors, who actually worked with smoke, never liked the interface a lot.

face it... it´s much easyer now with 2013 when you work with other tools like AE, AVID etc too.

and most people seem to like the new smoke 2013 a lot.

It looks like a fantastic piece of kit, but at the end of the day this is all it is.
This time of year everyone gets so hooked up on new software and what should we be using for this and for that.
The biggest investment you can make in your facility is really on your talent, that is what brings these machines to life.
So spend a little of your time bringing through the talent, and the knowledge within your facility and maybe with a great piece of software like Smoke there job and ideas might come to life a little bit easier.

I'm totally with C153!
My boss bought the SMAC2012 just about a year ago.... He thought a long time about it, cause it's a pretty small company, and it's a lot of money. When he heard that now it's about 1/5 of the price, I think he wanted to jump out a window....

I always read Smoke FOR MAC....will there be a Linux Version (as before)? Will it have the same price as the MAC Version? Will there be a PC/Windows Version (some day)? Sorry to bother but I couldn t find answers to those questions in all those release-stuff on the net.

Its incredible to read comments of people that have never used Smoke... And the people asking for a Windows version, well...

Whats so incredible about asking for a Windows Version???

Its always good to try to read past the marketing material and try to see how this tool will fit into your goals as an an ........(fill in the blank).

Smoke is not for everyone from the price point; user interface; learning curve ; set of features. It will never be an everything tool but it comes a lot closer than other systems. Even with its new UI it will still take months to get comfortable. That's why the official training classes cost so much to attend. The initial frustration level will be eased by these new updates so you don't have to spend your first day working out how to get video into smoke and the next day trying to get it to play it back.

Autodesk will use smoke to leverage the purchase of other products. Smoke plus one of their 3D packages will make a great combination. There are lots of features I'd like to see added but there are some scenarios where it will be quicker to round trip e.g. planar tracking/gmasks; graphic effects generation.

A lot of the tools in smoke are not the best, but the fact that they are under one roof is a significant advantage. Unfortunately it can take quite a bit of time (if you are starting from zero) to make use if this fact. When you do you will never look back.

Three years is a long time in software lifetimes and I for one am grateful that Autodesk continues to develop this product and despite the price drop it still remains one of the best investments that I've made. The greatest investment though is the time I've spent working out how to use it effectively.

Thanks Grant for such a great blog.

Hi All,

Apologies for my delayed response but I am still in recovery from NAB 2012 and the big announcement but I will try answer where applicable.

@7even currently there is still the Linux products with their own separate pricing as turnkey solutions. Please contact your local Autodesk rep for pricing etc. As for Smoke on Mac, currently there is only a Mac version.

@Mindseye Currently the software shown at NAB was early alpha (no where near ready for release) so it is impossible to properly comment on performances and benchmarks on different hardware specs.

@DominiqueDominique Please read the answer above regarding hardware performance. Smoke is an editor and I suggest you sign up and download the Pre-Release Trial in June and try it out for yourself as and editor. Currently the alpha software only supports AJA Kona3G and AJA IOxt as broadcast monitoring solutions. BTW, you could also use the 2nd DVI head as a broadcast output to another monitor as well. Smoke does have a capable audio editing toolset that you would expect to find in an editor. It has a mixing desk with track patching. Audio can be key framed during playback. You can treat video like audio in the timeline in a sense of adding dissolves for cross mixing and audio fade in and out. Audio filters includes gain, noise gate, compression, EQ, reverb, Delay and audio time warping. If someone asked me to show it at NAB, I did You can edit in AVCHD natively in Smoke and performances are dependant on your hardware. Smoke does not have support for automated syncing like Plural Eyes etc. In terms of colour grading, Smoke has the colour corrector and colour-warper which are certainly capable of grading. Remember that Smoke is an editor and not a dedicated grading solution so the workflow is different. In terms of advanced grading and effects, you can achieve this through the connectFX node based compositor in the timeline.

Smoke has a variety of output formats but since the software is still alpha, nothing has been confirmed yet. Please sign up for the Pre-Trial Release in June and test it for yourself.

I am expecting loads of questions when the Pre-Release Trial arrives so hopefully I'll be ready

Regards
Grant

The Smoke Learning Channel

Hi Guy,

As mentioned in my previous post, I cannot comment on performance because Smoke 2013 is an alpha software (there is so much debugging and logging going on in the background) Hopefully things should improve by the time of the June Pre-Trial Release and you can see for yourself.

Sparks/plug-ins are still supported as far as I was aware but this is all down to third party companies developing their plug-ins as well as setting their own pricing.

Regards
Grant

Hi Grant,
Thanks for the answers. I signed up and look forward to trying it out. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to NAB 2012 this year, otherwise I would have been all over Smoke 2013 asking for a demo of this and that. I was very impressed, however, with the in depth video on youtube.

I forgot to ask how good it is at handling a multicamera shoot and how many angles can be seen at one time.

During the trial period will there be a forum for trial users to post comments and questions for all users to share and read, or at least a way for individuals to return feedback to Autodesk?

Thanks again and I'm so looking forward to June.

Hi DominiqueDominique,

You would have been fighting for time to see a system. There were 4 of us on pods and we were swamped the entire 4 days... I can't wait till June either

In the Alpha version we showed, there was no multi-cam function but the features are not locked down yet and all the feedback goes back to developers so we have to wait and see.

In terms of the Pre-Release Trial, I have not been given any details about forums or two way communication. I am sure something will happen but I cannot validate that until closer to June.

Sorry to be so vague but I don't know the answers yet.

Regards
Grant

Hi Grant,
Wow, thanks for being so prompt with replies. I understand nothing is locked down yet. If the developers are taking note from this forum, I would like to ask that multicam function be added as it is absolutely essential, for me at least. Many of the projects I've edited were multicam shoots and continue to be. Even if everything else the software offered proved to be the holy grail for me, if this feature was missing I couldn't justify investing in Autodesk Smoke 2013, since I'm an editor first. Thanks for taking my feedback into account.

Dominique

Hi Serge,

The node-based compositing is based on the batch technology and is called ConnectFX but I am delighted that it a feature that you most wanted

As for what will work between applications, I cannot verify anything for you as the software is still in development and features are not set in stone. My suggestion is sign up for the Pre-Release Trial and see what happens in June

Regards
Grant

Hi BaebleMusicPost, I have indeed tried it but purely on a basic level since we showed an Alpha version of Smoke 2013. It did rebuild the timeline with layers etc. However since it was a prototype I cannot say what will be the final supported functionality that will come across.

Hopefully Pre-Release time, you will be able to try it out for yourself

Regards
Grant

Hi Jamil, At the moment I cannot tell you what will be the final supported formats in Smoke 2013 for mac. We'll both have a good idea of exactly what we'll get when the software is official released. Regards Grant

Awesome!!!!!!
I hope the editing part will be as smooth and fast as Final Cut 7.

I also hope that the plug in makers lower their prices for smoke on mac! ( like sapphire, right now they cost more than the software )

Hi Grant,
I had posted a comment on Apr. 23 asking a bunch of questions if certain features would be in the new Smoke 2013. Your responses right after is posted but I was wondering why my questions were deleted. Thanks.

Hi i don't know whether can i ask this ? here or not, where can i find luster tutorials

Hello Grant,

I was referred to your blog by Autodesk in Illinois (Paul). Just took a first look at a demo you did about Audio. Looking forward to learning more from this blog. Looks like you have a really extensive library of tutorials.

Anders Utterstrom
Chicago, Illinois

Hey Grant, can you tell me if Smoke 2013 will have support for nested sequences like FCP7/After effects?

I've always thought this would be a huge time saver for versioning for longform work (possibly shortform as well).

Silly question:
With the FCP user Preset on smoke 2012 you have the "L" hotkey for Playback.
But when I hit it twice the video stays at 1x speed playback instead of going 2x playback 3x speed playback an so on.

I didn't find the command in the playback's hotkey editor.
Is there a way to do that?
And... On smoke 2013 would be nice to have it.
Thanks!!!!!

chocotrucco: I haven't been on Smoke for a year now so my memory is quite sketchy, but from memory the up/down arrow during playback would alter the playback speed (smoke on linux). Up for increase speed and down for decrease speed.

Thanks "cold_and_frozen"

That works with the smoke hotkey preset I think first the "v" and then the up dn arrows but for the FCP it doesn't work.

And I would prefer to just hit the "L" key twice. (just one key, I'm picky)