2.5 For Windows

[user_deleted]

Hi everyone.

I am a freelance artist working for an employer who uses Shake 2.5 for Windows. I have been predominantly doing animation and visual effects in Maya for this employer, but he has asked me to start doing some compositing work, as well. The problem is that I only use legal software and do not own Shake. My work computer is a PC, and I do not own a current Mac (the only Mac I have is an old beige G3 which is about about 8 years old... I really need to upgrade), so currently my only real option is to buy Shake 2.5 for Windows. I have looked around to see if anyone is still selling it, but have not found anywhere that does. Even eBay does not seem to have any Shake listings pre-version 3.0.

So, does anyone know where I can find a full, legal copy of Shake 2.5 for Windows to purchase (hopefully at a significantly reduced price from its original cost, given that it is rather out-of-date version-wise)?

Thanks in advance!

-Steve

[deke-kincaid]

You can't unless you also buy the machine it comes on or if it is keyed to a nic card that isn't built in. The License is keyed to the MAC address and it is floats to/from any machine(license keyed to an old sgi will float to windows, linux, sgi). Apple doesn't issue any more licenses for Shake 2.5, even if you do own it. Support for 2.5 ended fall of 2003. Also v.2.5 is still upgradable to the current version on linux/osx so it is still worth a little bit of money.

Shake's user base around 2.5 was estimated to only be around 2500 licenses for all platforms (ie not that many people to buy from).

Good luck.

[user_deleted]

Even if you did manage to buy shake 2.5, it would be cheaper to buy a new mac and a licence for shake 4. As far as I remember, a shake 2.5 license was around 10K, shake 4 for mac OsX is around 3K.

[user_deleted]

Thank you both, I appreciate the responses.

Unfortunately, even if I did buy a new Mac and Shake 4, I don't think it would solve my problem. The main concern is that I would be trading Shake scripts back and forth between the employer and myself and (as far as I know) Shake 2.5 won't open Shake 4 scripts... so he wouldn't be able to read my files, even if I could read his.

I guess I'll just have to pass on the opportunity or think of another solution.

Thanks again!
-Steve

p.s. This is a somewhat unrelated question, but has there been any word on an Intel-compatible Shake? The new Intel Dual Core Powerbook is looking pretty sweet, and while Shake might run using Rosetta, I have imagine it would be unbearably slow...

[user_deleted]

well, as long as you only use nodes available in 2.5 on your Shake 4 machine, i guess you could always just copy-> paste the node lines from your v4 script into an empty v2.5 script. or am i missing something here?
i guess you could try to get a v3 licence so you're not tempted to use all the optical flow stuff

shake will become intel compatible with the next version. a wild, uneducated guess is that this wont happen before the intel powermacs are out. i would be surprised if it was before summer, but probably before the end of the year.
++ christoph ++

[deke-kincaid]

After 3.0 came out I worked a freelance job that had 1 pc with 2.5 and one mac with 3.0 and had to jump around. As long as I only used nodes that were in 2.5, everything from 3.0 came over just fine. I don't see why it would have changed. Shake scripts are simply ascii text.

Biggest thing that sucks is having to use the quickshape node for all your roto. Rotoshape is in 2.5, but wildly buggy and has been severly revamped since then. Also no filmgrain, no warp/morpher, no stitcher, 3d camera, etc... you get the point. Maybe you should convince the boss to upgrade.

QUOTE(ickyptang @ 02/15/06, 08:44 AM) [snapback]228313[/snapback]
p.s. This is a somewhat unrelated question, but has there been any word on an Intel-compatible Shake? The new Intel Dual Core Powerbook is looking pretty sweet, and while Shake might run using Rosetta, I have imagine it would be unbearably slow...
Steve said at the keynote that all Apple pro apps would have Universal Binaries by March.

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(beaker @ 02/16/06, 01:34 AM) [snapback]228359[/snapback]
Steve said at the keynote that all Apple pro apps would have Universal Binaries by March.

unfortunately they didnt have Shake on the visi screen at that point..
and apple since has stated that shake wont go universal until the next version. i'd be pleasantly surprised if Shake 4.5 comes out in march.

++ christoph ++

[user_deleted]

while we have touched on the subject (and apologies for getting a little off topic or pissing off the religious amoung you), a mac with an intel chip in is a PC right? So once all the glossy marketing bullshit from apple has been removed, we are left with a piece of good news. It is now possible to buy a version of OsX which wil install on a PC. I for one am over the moon that I will finally be reliesed from running shake on expensive slow hardware with a crap graphics card and more consideration given to how pretty it looks than to how well it functions as a serious workstation.

I wonder if it will support AMD too? I can build a quad Opertron, put a good cheap Quadro card in it, SCSI320 RAID and 4 15k disks. I wonder how the price compares to a quad G4 with an Xraid? True I will really miss those pretty blue flashing lights next to my desk but the miles of extra performance will make up for it, i am sure.

[user_deleted]

mike,
there seems to be some confusion so let me clarify:

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/16/06, 08:02 AM) [snapback]228376[/snapback]
a mac with an intel chip in is a PC right?

hmm, depends on definition i guess.. personally i'd call it an intel mac, but the hardware in it is nearly identical.

QUOTE
So once all the glossy marketing bullshit from apple has been removed, we are left with a piece of good news. It is now possible to buy a version of OsX which wil install on a PC.

if you mean "buy a version of OSX for a non-apple computer", nope, you can't buy that. you could hack it, but you'd break the software agreement of OSX (and quite possibly of shake).
it is, however, leagal to install windows on the mactintosh machines (although it's not trivial because it uses a different boot system). for most purposes it will also be possible to "emulate" windows in a layered mode under OSX with near 100% efficiency too.

QUOTE
I wonder if it will support AMD too?

it won't. not legally. not by apple. i guess someone will try to hack that too, but it wont be trivial. apple certainly has a door open to switch to AMD in the future, but for now i guess intel got an exclusive deal, while apple gets some advantages out of that too.

QUOTE
I can build a quad Opertron, put a good cheap Quadro card in it, SCSI320 RAID and 4 15k disks. I wonder how the price compares to a quad G4 with an Xraid?

why not put a SCSI320 RAID on the G5? (although personally i'd go for a SATA raid anyway, put some raptors in it if you really need the short access time). and does the graphics card make a big difference for rendering speeds? (i could imagine it will in the future, with Motion's technology hooking into shake.. but then again the linux version wouldnt get that.)

personally think about apple not as a company who makes pretty hardware, but a company that makes decent hardware with a free awesome operating system and some really good software. since they dont make much money on software anyway, their only choice is to make the hardware a bit more expensive to support all the software development. i can see this sucks for render farms though (but again, you get the OS for free, and you get the shake render nodes for free, so why complain).

as you can probably tell, i'm a mac head myself, so feel free to take the above with a grain of salt.
++ christoph ++

[deke-kincaid]

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/15/06, 11:02 PM) [snapback]228376[/snapback]
I for one am over the moon that I will finally be reliesed from running shake on expensive slow hardware with a crap graphics card and more consideration given to how pretty it looks than to how well it functions as a serious workstation.
The graphics cards on the mac are exactly the same as the ones on a pc (nvidia 5200, 6800, 7800 and quadro 4500). Apple uses Nvidia's reference boards to manufacture theirs and buys the same exact chips that Asus, Xfx, etc.. all buy off nvidia. There are a few boards out there that you can flash onto a windows version of a 5200, 6800, etc... and have it work on a mac.

[deke-kincaid]

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/15/06, 11:02 PM) [snapback]228376[/snapback]
SCSI320 RAID and 4 15k disks.
SCSI, thats so 90's SATA hardware raid these days is as fast and 1/4th the price, especially if your just looking for local storage. Highpoint 8 port raid card are fairly cheap but has the best performance.

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/sataguide\_1.php
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/satakits.php
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/

[user_deleted]

beaker, to answer your last 2 posts

1) Direct comparison between SCSI and apple SATA systems. Note, the SCSI option will offer better performance.

Adaptec SCSI raid card -$225
4 x SCSI 10K drives - $560

Vs

Apple Fibrechannel card - $600
7 disk Xserve Raid - $8500

2) Display cards

cheapest Nvidia Quadro FX card for Windows: $169

only Nvidia Quadro FX card for Macintosh: $2000

Please note. I am not anti Mac. In fact I dont have a preference for either platform, I support whichever does the job better and cheaper. After all, its all about making money isnt it?

I currently use Shake on OsX because it is cheaper and easyer to use than Linux and I only have 2 choices. I do not lament the days of Shake on Windows, no-one bought Windows lisences anyway. However, I think that in terms of hardware, Apple promises much and delivers little. Their professional hardware is horrifically expensive and perfoms badly compared to the competition. In conclusion, looking pretty can only get you so far.

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/16/06, 11:40 AM) [snapback]228389[/snapback]
1) Direct comparison between SCSI and apple SATA systems. Note, the SCSI option will offer better performance.

Adaptec SCSI raid card -$225
4 x SCSI 10K drives - $560

Vs

Apple Fibrechannel card - $600
7 disk Xserve Raid - $8500

i dont get it, why would you want to commpare a 3.5 TB SATA array with Raid5 option to a 150GB SCSI Raid0? (also you left out a quality SCSI enclosure, but that's beside the point)

compare it to:
highpoint Rocketraid SATA card with hardware raid5 $300
8 x 250GB SATA drives $800
decent SATA enclosure: $500

[edit] but i still dont understand why you dont hook up those 4 SCSI drives to the G5 if you really have need for 10 mins worth of ultra fast 2K storage.

QUOTE
2) Display cards

cheapest Nvidia Quadro FX card for Windows: $169
only Nvidia Quadro FX card for Macintosh: $2000

so what, just get the default mac card which works just as well and wont give an any driver headaches.
now if you'd do any maya work i'd understand your whining

++ christoph ++

[deke-kincaid]

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/16/06, 02:40 AM) [snapback]228389[/snapback]
beaker, to answer your last 2 posts

1) Direct comparison between SCSI and apple SATA systems. Note, the SCSI option will offer better performance.

Adaptec SCSI raid card -$225
4 x SCSI 10K drives - $560

Vs

Apple Fibrechannel card - $600
7 disk Xserve Raid - $8500

Thats why I pointed out if it is local storage for your machine then a SATA raid direct, not over fiberchannel is much more economical and just as fast. The advantage of fiberchannel is the ability to put all your machines on a switch and run some kind of SAN software(XSAN, etc...). SCSI also fares better with many different machines all reading and writing to it at the same time. For a single machine, you don't need all the extras included with SCSI.

Anyways, what do you take me for? You didn't even put the capacity of that setup. Your comparing 4x 73gb drives = 292 gig vs Xserve Raid which has 1TB. Also a scsi card that does hardware raid is much more expensive then $250.

SATA raid (strait to the card, not over fiber). 1TB - $1,100, 4TB - $5500, SATA raid card = $300
http://www.promax.com/Storage/#SATA
http://www.promax.com/products/detail/27455

I used one of these at my last job. No problem capturing uncompressed HD on these. Really fast and really small. Perfect for PC and Mac. If you use the links I listed in my last post, you can build your own even cheaper.

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/16/06, 02:40 AM) [snapback]228389[/snapback]
2) Display cards

cheapest Nvidia Quadro FX card for Windows: $169

only Nvidia Quadro FX card for Macintosh: $2000

Again, comparing apples to oranges. That pc quadro you listed is a quadro 600. An equal Quadro 4500 on windows costs exactly the same as the mac version:

Apple Store it is $1700.

$1747, cheapest one on pricewatch.com
http://www.atacom.com/program/print\_html\_n...VIDR\_PNYX\_PC\_65

Also why would you bother with a quadro card with Shake? Only useful for 3d work, not Shake. Any Nvidia card will work fine with it. Shake runs great on a crappy $50 FX6200.

I don't care about mac vs pc either. Shit, I use gentoo linux at home and at work we run Debian. I only have a powerbook. Just clearing up misinformation people seem to always spread.