Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 18, 2012. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Smoke was developed for editors who, in addition to pure editing, also have colour correction, compositing, keying and other tasks in their daily workflow—that is, small studios, freelancers and one-man bands.
As a “toolbox”, Smoke on Mac 2013 has now also received a powerful FX module, as well as a keyer, a new interface and a real 3D space. In addition, according to Autodesk, Smoke 2013 is so flexible and economical in its system requirements that even “current” Mac Pros still clear the hurdle of work-ready systems with acceptable marks.
Beta Blues and User Feedback
Up to the current version, Autodesk had made 6 versions available in order to eliminate all errors and make the new features as user-friendly as possible—a total of 15,000 professional users participated in the pre-release trials, downloading 31,000 versions between them—such a number of testers is rare. Autodesk wants to retain this procedure for future versions of Smoke. Autodesk representatives expressed enthusiasm to DP about the quality and feedback.
New Features
Alongside many adjustments and accelerations, three are particularly worth mentioning: Connect FX, the FX module that enables node-based compositing within the timeline (!) and applies effects to material extremely quickly—including all the advantages of node-based work, such as standard actions grouped together in user-defined nodes, as well as clear work in complex FX structures. To keep this clear, Autodesk has designed a new UI which—although it is still recognisably Smoke—should enormously accelerate the workflow.
Price and Availability
Autodesk Smoke 2013 is now available at a price of about EUR 3,900 (excluding VAT) per licence. More information at http://www.autodesk.com/smoke. A 20% discount on the list price is available at launch.
And of course, in the next version of DP we will look behind the "smoke screen" and test the software and its features in detail.
