Shake 2.4: a new interface for Kaydara's compositing program. (reviews).(Evaluation)

PRODUCTIONS that use special effects usually run footage through a compositing software suite. These suites have traditionally been expensive, so a market definitely exists for lower-priced compositing tools that can run on the desktop. Packages such as Discreet's combustion and eyeon's Digital Fusion are examples of these desktop programs, as is Shake, the baby brother of Nothing Real's high-end Tremor compositing suite. Shake supports most image formats and offers a number of heavy duty features that will satisfy production requirements in both film and video environments.

One great thing about Shake is that Nothing Real offers a fully operational version that can be downloaded from its Web site and used free of charge for 15 days. This is enough time to get used to the software and run a project or two through it.

Shake runs under Linux, SGI Irix, and Windows 2000 operating systems. A Mac OS X version is in the works. I tested the software on a Windows 2000 machine. Installation was fairly easy, though I had to call tech support and adjust some network settings to get the license manager running.

Shake uses a node-based interface to help organize and speed work flow. Each part of the composite, from the input of an image sequence, to effects, motion tracking, and final output, are all represented as nodes. Connecting the nodes builds the composite, which makes it easier to visualize the workflow, as well as to quickly make changes to the composite. In addition to the node editor, the software also lets you view composites in a timeline-style interface, similar to that of packages such as Adobe Systems' After Effects.

Shake is quick and responsive, and it's multithreaded to take advantage of multiple processors. I had no problem scrubbing several layers of good quality on my dualprocessor 800MHZ machine with an IDE RAID, which I've found difficult to do in other packages. Once I added a couple of filters, operations did slow down a bit.

Shake allows layers to move in both 2D and 3D space. Layers can be keyframed, as well as moved using expressions. For automatic motion, the software offers a number of handy motion-tracking tools, which let you stabilize shaky footage as well as track moving objects within a scene.

Once images are layered, you can either key or mask them to combine them into a composite. Keying allows a range of colors in an image to become ...