LOS ANGELES Nothing Real ,a leading high-end compositing software provider to the digital content creation market,announced today that it is now shipping Version 2.2 of its highly acclaimed Shake product line. The release sports signi .cant improve- ments and features a new timeline-based compositing workspace,multiprocessor support,and tracking/stabilizing tools for added functionality.The enhancements in Shake Version 2.2 are designed to boost productivity and extend interoperability with other products and third-party solutions to provide users with an even faster,high quality compositing software feature set. Shake 2.2 is available on the Windows NT and IRIX platforms..

Beta Site Enthusiasm for Shake 2.2 Shake 2.2 has been in beta testing for the past several months with numerous worldwide facilities,including Digital Filmworks,Das Werk and Double Negative.

"Shake 2.2 marks a key release for our customers and prospective users.All the new enhance- ments we have made to the 2.2 feature set offer a more mature,high quality,and stable product - enhancements critical to help our customers remain competitive," said Allen Edwards, president of Nothing Real."Over the last year,Shake has rapidly matured into the .rst choice of the professional compositor.With version 2.2 customers get the unique combination of speed and quality that Shake is known for as well as improved value,performance and unlimited creative .exibility for turning around composites in the absolute shortest time."

"With version 2.2,Shake has now reached the point where it is a truly superior and well-rounded compositing tool,able to handle the most complex projects that our customers are involved with," said Ron Brinkman manager of the Nothing Real Shake development team."In addition, Shake 2.2 provides some added functionality that better addresses the needs of the commercial, video,broadcast and HDTV markets."

Shake Version 2.2 Highlights

Shake is a high performance compositing tool that enables digital content creatives in feature .lm,broadcast,HDTV,video post-production and game development to more interactively, powerfully and creatively bring sophisticated composites to completion.

Highlights of Shake Version 2.2 include:

Multi-processor support

Shake has always been recognized as the fastest compositing software on the market.It is now even faster .Shake is now fully multi-threaded to take advantage of both Windows NT and SGI IRIX multi-processor based systems,which have now become standard in the industry.

Tracker/stabilizer

Shake 2.2 now has a very robust tracker/stabilizer.This feature will allow the artist to do more within the same Shake environment.This new technology will allow users to track and stabilize the position,rotation and scaling of a layer as well as perform four corner pinning with superior control over individual layers.Given the open nature of the Shake work environment,tracking information can also be applied to any parameter in the composite.

Time view

This new tool enables users to see and modify compositions in an easy and intuitive temporal fashion.The time view tool makes it even easier to have a global view of when layers come into action and when they leave the scene.It also allows users to graphically trim,slip and slide elements within a composition.

Field-based operators and field-based rendering

The enhanced functionality of these operators will help to improve the work flow related to field-based material.

Motion blur on quickshapes

This new feature will eliminate the need to add traditional blur on masks.Depending on the velocity of the movement,the mask edges will automatically be blurred where needed to provide users with extremely precise masks without the need to spend hours tweaking them.

Macro editor

With this GUI-based tool,users will now be able to create and customize compositing nodes to streamline repetitive operations and improve workflow.

Drag,drop and linking of parameters

The Shake GUI can now be used to graphically drag,drop and link parameters from different nodes without the need to manually type data.This gives access to expressions for a wider base of users.

Collapse/expand of nodes

Users can now collapse and expand groups of nodes to simplify the compositing tree and therefore retain greater control over the result.

Extensive search capabilities

Shake 2.2 now allows users to search for nodes,types of nodes and expressions within the compositing tree.This tool will greatly assist users in locating data when dealing with complex compositions.

New file browser

The .le browser has been completely remodeled to allow extended functionality such as keeping a history of the folders that have been visited recently and one 's favorite folders.

Continuous play function

This new tool will help the user in such areas as timing of animation,automatic caching and faster playback rate then previously possible.All of this is now possible without the need to render the sequence.

About Shake

Shake is Nothing Real 's award-winning compositing software product line.Shake is a general- purpose image manipulation toolset that provides users with a low-cost,high performance compositing solution without the need for specialized hardware.Shake is the fastest,most memory-ef .cient 2D image processing tool for handling the heavy demands of .lm and high de .nition effects that is currently available from any vendor.It features a graphic user interface that emphasizes intuitive "process-tree " control features for the most complex image manipula-- tion tasks.This interface,in combination with its speed and quality,enables creatives in .lm, HDTV,video and broadcast,interactive games and multimedia a powerful and interactive tool to quickly manipulate high-resolution images in conjunction with the creation of composites,effects and animations.It is available on both the Windows NT and IRIX platforms.

Shake is currently being used by leading entertainment companies worldwide including Black Logic,Blue Sky Studios,Cinesite,Das Werk,Digital Filmworks,Double Negative,Dream Quest Images,Dream Works,Glassworks,Gray Matter,Manex,Smoke and Mirrors,WETA Digital, and many others.It has been used to meet the compositing needs in .lms such as "Anna and the King," "Bicentennial Man," "Fight Club," "Mission to Mars," "The Matrix," "Pleasantville," "Titanic," "The Million Dollar Hotel," "The World is Not Enough," and many others..It is currently being used to composite the upcoming .lms "2001 -A Space Travesty," "Big Mama," "Gladiator," "Lord of the Rings," "Mission Impossible 2 ","Navy Diver," "Nutty Professor 2," "Romeo Must Die," and others..

Pricing and Availability

Shake Version 2.2 is currently available directly from Nothing Real through the internet.The software is priced at $9,900.Additional render-only network licenses are available at $3,900. Shake is also available from the following international resellers,Digital Video &Effects (Germany),Intraware Australia Ltd.,Ordigraphe (Montreal),Post-Logic (France),Tyrell Inc. (United Kingdom),Video Design (Toronto),and Video Progetti (Italy).An evaluation copy of Shake 2.2 can be downloaded at www.nothingreal.com.

About Nothing Real

Nothing Real L.L.C.,established in 1996,is a high-end software provider of quality imaging tools.The company designs solutions focused towards the film, HDTV, video and broadcast, interactive games and multimedia needs of digital content creatives.The company 's open and flexible solutions are used at most leading facilities worldwide.Nothing Real software products are available from Nothing Real and its international reseller representatives.Nothing Real headquarters are located in Venice,California.

Additional information on Nothing Real is available on the Internet at www.nothingreal.com

Post a message in the Digital Post Production World Wide User Group!