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NEW Ways to Enhance your Smoke for Mac Experience
With the release of the Autodesk® Smoke® 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack extension, you gain some new functionality that will enhance your day-to-day workflow. The pack includes powerful new creative and technical tools plus increased format support including:
Creative Tools – New and enhanced tools provide stylized graphic effects to create original looks and more control over relighting, blur, and recursive operations. Presets help you to be creative faster.
Matchbox fragment shader – Spark your creativity with the new GLSL fragment shader tool. Matchbox lets you access, design, and add custom-built GPU enhanced fragment shaders to Smoke.
Stereoscopic 3D viewing modes – Additional stereoscopic 3D viewing modes help you visually scan for differences between left and right eyes.
Format support – Support now includes Apple® ProRes QuickTime files and MXF OP-1a export, HDRx support, AVCHD codec import, and Avid DNxHD® format in a Quicktime wrapper.
Top 10 enhancements from the Smoke 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack
Marc-André Ferguson, Autodesk Smoke Industry Manager, has come up with his list of the top 10 enhancements from the Smoke 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack:
1. Enhanced support for RED Epic: Continuing Smoke native support of RED files without pre-converting, Smoke has new options available when importing R3D files. There are commands and sliders for ingesting EPIC HDRx files to blend the two exposures. Also, the Gateway now reads image orientation metadata.
2. Import AVC HD footage: This is a great addition to the format support list. A host of consumer cameras use this codec from the entry level Panasonic GH-2 to more professional ones such as the Sony NEX-FS100. Files must be encoded as MTS or M2TS, and the audio must be Linear PCM.
3. Import GoPro footage: Avoid large down payments and better manage your budget by having fixed monthly payments over 12 months.
4. Save Import History as an Import Rule: While using the Gateway to import media, you can set rules to define custom import options that automatically apply to clips you drag and drop into your Library. When you modify an individual clip’s parameters before importing it, these options are saved as the clip's Import History. You can easily turn the applied settings into a rule to use it again at another time.
5. Export Apple ProRes QuickTime files: Smoke for Mac has had native support for importing Apple ProRes since its introduction. Now you can export ProRes, improving your Final Cut Pro X interoperability.
6. Export MXF files: You can now export clips to the standard MXF format, improving interface with Avid editors and some broadcast servers. The codecs supported include AVC-Intra and Avid DNxHD.
7. Broadcast monitoring from the Kona 3G's HDMI port: An HDMI interface is now provided to allow client monitoring, a feature long requested.
8. No more selecting segments on locked tracks and layers: Before this release, even though a track was locked, you could still perform destructive operations. Now you can no longer select elements on locked tracks and layers, preventing you from altering your timeline.
9. Blooming: Use this new relighting node in Action to add a beautiful glowing effect to your scene.
10. Restart the Wiretap Gateway from Smoke: To enhance the capabilities of your import server, you can now restart your local Gateway directly from the Smoke user interface.
For more information about these new Smoke for Mac features or any other Autodesk Creative Finishing or 3D animation products, contact ALT Systems at sales@altsystems.com or call us a 818-504-6800.
