[loki74]

Okay, so I was on the NewTek LightWave3D forums and I run accross a thread with the same title as the one above... naturally I think it is some @sshole trying to sell cheap copies of hack software... but to my pleasant surprise, its not! Seems like Apple has slahsed the price of this amazing software to $499. Came here to ask about it, and sure enough the 'NN has an article on the front page. (Although much to my surprise, I did not see any new threads about it)

It looked really good until I noticed one thing--

In the Highend3D article the OP of the LW thread referenced, it is stated that "Shake 4.1 is a maintenance release." I tried looking into this, but I could not find much useful information as to exactly what this idicated... does this mean that this option is only available to current owners of Shake? Exactly what is a "maintenance release?"

Here is the Highend3D article:
http://highend3d.com/news/software/149.html

Here is the NN article (as though you really need a link..)
http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/06/...ases.shake.41/

Any insight would be much appreciated!

[Salty]

apple cnd edu store lists shake at 290 now

[mduell]

Maintainence means "nothing really new, just cleaning up/fixing a few things." Aside from the price drop, the only significant technical change that I know of for 4.1 is that it is a Universal Binary.
Reading a few other articles, it sounds like Shake has been end-of-lifed. Apple is offering big customers the ability to buy the source code for $50k so they can continue using it and fixing any problems they come across. Rumors say Apple is developing an in-house replacement (they bought Shake from another company) that will be better and available in ~2008.

[jamil5454]

Sounds good! I'm sure the people who recently bought Shake for thousands of dollars are now pissed...

[loki74]

Yeah, I actually went ahead and read the entire thread on CGTalk. There still seems to be a debate as to whether or not Apple will release the next gen software as Shake, or under some other name.

In any case, I think we can only expect workflow enhancements to make it work better with FCS and OSX in general. I'll be damned if they get rid of the simplicity and logic of the program, specifically node tree/working in context. Layer based and non-context compositors are sooo much slower to work in... and I'm sure if Apple made any drastic changes, many people would get pretty pissed off.

So I think that whether or not we get "Shake 5.0" or "Agitate 1.0,*" we can expect it to kick ass. In the meantime, I think that buying and learning Shake 4.1 may not be a bad idea, as it will surely provide a foundation for learning whatever comes out in '08.

* (joke ripped from CGTalk thread)

[Adam Betts]

Originally Posted by mduell

Rumors say Apple is developing an in-house replacement (they bought Shake from another company) that will be better and available in ~2008.

It's confirmed by Apple themselves so this is not really a rumor.