Good things come to those who wait?
Fusion 7 is close to a release. It will go beyond Nuke in some aspects (great stereo tools bundled for free and an impressive-looking scripting console/debugger), finally catch up in other parts (a modular GUI and UV unwrapping in 3D space) and contain lots of fixes and overdue improvements.
Fusion? You know, the compositing software next to Nuke?
Fusion has always beaten Nuke in terms of speed and versatility in a broadcast / commercials area. But eyeon software‘s weird and cryptic marketing, dated website, their unwillingness to communicate a roadmap combined with the fact that Fusion hasn’t been updated for close to two years has pissed off their user base and made most of the industry switch to the software that initially only high end VFX shops were using. There they can profit from a large freelancer base, lots of talented R&D people, 3rd party training and a company that is upfront about future developments and schedules.
And if you’re doing high end VFX you’re just served well with Nuke, no matter how much faster Fusion would be. The motion graphics crowd on the other hand is still served well by AfterEffects. By now, Fusion’s at the bottom of a downward spiral of “less users – less interest of 3rd parties – less tutorials and plugins – less users” that I think is hard to recover from. Eyeon’s latest efforts to tap into the Avid community seem to bear fruits though but the GUI and feature needs of those folks clearly clash with regular compositing artists.
But here’s eyeon software, back from the dead so to speak, with at least a changelog and some videos about what we can expect in Fusion 7. I’ll talk more about the release once I’ve put it to the test myself.
For now, the “What’s new” PDF instills the feeling that eyeon’s marketing is still bonkers. They start up with the tiniest change. The cool stuff is at the end of the PDF. And it actually touts the standard multi-document (MDI) style of Windows applications as a new feature. Seriously folks, Fusion has had that interface for years and nobody loves it because a crash on one comp pulls down the whole application and nobody has the screen space to lay out two comps side-by-side anyways. This reeks of “grasping at straws” to inflate the feature list which wouldn’t be necessary at all. Fusion 7 promises new 3D tools, UV unwrapping, (screen space) Ambient Occlusion and many GUI improvements and it will include Dimension by default – eyeon’s stereoscopic and optical flow toolset that gives Occula a run for its money. It also seems as if I can update some of my Fuses and macros with new API features.
Stay tuned for a thorough review of different aspects of the Fusion update.
Spurious Correlations
The more the US spends on science and space exploration, the more people hang themselves?
I’ve seen the graph so it must be true!
source: tylervigen.com
The blog “Spurious Correlations” demonstrates that correlation doesn’t equal causation.
Help Fund Fonotune
Fonotune, a stylish indie movie I’m involved in, has hit Kickstarter! An homage to Japanese cinema, cool actors, design, and electronic music – this movie’s got it all. Or rather… it WILL have it all 🙂
It’s almost halfway funded already. Go check out the teaser! And feel free to help us finish the movie if the clip has managed to captivate you.
The project page has all you need to know. Check out the people that director Fabian Hübner has brought on board. The designer of some of the props is just wicked!
Futurama on Acid
Via Film Critic Hulk I’ve stumbled upon “Rick and Morty“, a cartoon series that is like Futurama on acid. Or Futurama with swear words – depending on whether you want to describe the visuals or the dialogs.
The show – which currently has 11 episodes but a second season has been announced – revolves around the drunken mad scientist Rick, his grandson Morty and their adventures in various parallel dimensions. Of course it’s immediately obvious where Rick and Morty draws its inspiration from: Back to the Future, Futurama, Sliders, American Dad… But it manages to go beyond each of its predecessors. Every one of the first season’s 11 episodes is great, fast-paced and has a dark undertone.
You can watch Rick and Morty bootlegged on Youtube if you don’t have access to Cartoon Network.
Awful Movie Reviews
It’s one of those low hanging fruits that I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before: movie posters featuring one-star Amazon reviews 🙂
