Apple Acquires 'Nothing Real'

[arn]

A couple of users wrote in with this:

According to VFXPro Apple has acquired the company Nothing Real... and it's products.<P.

An anonymous read writes:

Nothing Real no longer exists... it has been bought by...... Apple (!) No one knows yet what apple will do with the code, but the NReal team is kept and sent to Cupertino to start porting code to OSX.
Shake will no longer be available on IRIX, and NT for new customers. Only LINUX versions will be for sale until OSX is supported. Current customers on' all platforms will continue to have support from the integrated NReal team for at least a year.
The development of Tremor is stopped.


Here's an blurb about the company and their products

Is it possible that Apple has bought this company to beef up Final Cut Pro 4?

[lazyrighteye]

Are they not a 3D app?

[reyesg4]

I think Apple wants to make Final Cut 5 and iMovie 4 be able to handle hollywood style effects. More power to them. Just hope it runs on more than the lates Mac hardware at a good speed.

[Beej]

Very interesting. Looks like Apple wants to blow the video competition out of the water! That's fine with me...

[SPG]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple make a grab for the whole pie...Edit, Post, FX, Audio, DVD.

[Hemingray]

More power to 'em! This would definitely help beckon a new generation of pros to the Mac platform... and any program that worked on Lord of the Rings and Matrix has my instant and unconditional approval.

Well Adobe must reeeeeeally hate it. May be they stop supporting Mac paltform.

If only they didn't rely so heavily on their complete control of the mac market...

Originally posted by Unregistered
Well Adobe must reeeeeeally hate it. May be they stop supporting Mac paltform.

Yeah, sure. Give up half their market. Now that would be clever, wouldn't it?

[Stike]

I´ll say Apple will use the know how in different products. It is 2D, so I believe we can expect some picture editing solutions, for the consumer too, even combined with iMovie/Final Cut. Maybe something like "iAnimate" or whatever. Shake on OS X would definitely call more pros to the Mac, but it demands, as a high-end app really FAST machines...

So...
Expect G5 in Summer! Expect Shake at least on MWSF03!

Now Apple needs to use some of its cash pile to buy Discreet.

That way they can rescue Cleaner from those Windoze centric bahstards.

Who wants to bet against me that we'll never see Cleaner 6 for Mac from Discreet? (That is if if Discreet even continues development on Cleaner.)

This is great unless Apple, in its excitement over OSX neglects those studios who already use shake. If an effects house like weta, with its heavy investment in serious linux hardware, dosen't want to jump into Mac land then apple should respect that and continue to develop the software for other platforms.

If played right this purchase could give apple a shot in the arm with Hollywood.... if not it could really bite them in the a**.

Supposedly the software will continue to be developed for Linux, and will be developed for OS X, although all other platforms will be dropped.

I work in the VFX industry, and to me, this is one of the smartest purchases Apple has ever made. The Maya/Shake combo is basically the new industry standard for high end work. If Apple handles this well, there could be a big migration towards Apple hardware too. This would also allow smaller Mac-based studios that use more inexpensive 2D packages like After Effects to move up without having to move away from Mac in the process. Plus, there's obviously huge opportunities for incorporating stripped down versions of Shake's features into Apple's current iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto lineup, or even into Final Cut. I agree with the other post that Apple needs to buy Discreet next, but this is a great acquisition.

[cmoney]

Originally posted by mikedman_ak
This is great unless Apple, in its excitement over OSX neglects those studios who already use shake. If an effects house like weta, with its heavy investment in serious linux hardware, dosen't want to jump into Mac land then apple should respect that and continue to develop the software for other platforms.

If played right this purchase could give apple a shot in the arm with Hollywood.... if not it could really bite them in the a**.

Respect is good and all, but I think Apple would be fools if they still maintained feature-parity with the OS X version. This is obviously a move to get Macs in the pro-film/video market and they're not gonna be successful at that unless they make Macs the system everybody lusts after.

Maybe Apple's taking a page from Microsoft's book: embrace and extend! Buy up all the great video software and stop making it on PCs! Then provide great new features and integration so people forget that PCs were once an option. Sounds like a plan to me.

[mac15]

they should ban pc from doing video editing
because damn they suck

[ipiloot]

Slowly, but steadily Apple will more-andmore target SGI's business.

If it continues this way, SGI will be in big trouble in two years (actually it is already, but not because of Apple)

[amichalo]

Originally posted by ipiloot
Slowly, but steadily Apple will more-andmore target SGI's business.

If it continues this way, SGI will be in big trouble in two years (actually it is already, but not because of Apple)

Weren't there rumors two or three years ago that SGI would be purchased by Apple or by Red Hat (the Linux people)?

[abe]

I'd love to see an application like the mentioned iAnimation.

Imagine, with the power of MP G5s in the near future, create your own little "A Bug's Life" animated movie...

[crassusad44]

Will this mean Final Cut Pro 4 on steroids?
Hope so!!!!

[mymemory]

Well, looks like there is a big problem between Adobe and Apple. Premiere is out the map after Final Cut Pro, and let me tell you FCP is easy as hell. Is now the turn for After Effects? Maybe is happening again like Director with Flash... "We can make the same thing, more simple and with vectors". Is time to simplify things. After Effects can be easyer now days.

About SGI, Apple is pointing that direction, specially to the O2 and Indigo market. Apple is really working on doing network rendering, besides Apple has more aplications than SGI and a bigger market. Apple wants to take over the industrial design market.

The next step could be Photoshop may be.

[OSeXy!]

This makes me really start to believe there is a 'next rung' of Apple workstation on the way for pro users.

The 'rack-mount' idea which has been batted around seems to make sense with PPC's/OS X's multiprocessing capabilities. Combine that with G5 64-bit technology and I see scalable racks of shared G5s with slots filled to match the users' needs and depth of cheque book.

That strategy, if workable, would get Apple a new generation of pro users.

(just had a look at their website http://www.nothingreal.com/ to find out more, but all you get is this rather coy message:

"Please be patient while we make some changes to our web site.

We should be back online in a few days.

Thank you."

I'll bet there'll be some changes!)

Don't forget Jobs owns Pixar. Renderfarms of Macs? It could happen.

Also don't forgot OSX is based on NetInfo. Netinfo makes it very easy to manage large banks of machines from the perspective of admins. Basically it can be as simple as dropping in a new machine and turning it on.

After the G4 speedbump last month, this wouldn't be the first time that Apple offered us Nothing Real.