mObject

Be aware of the comment in the page 1 article here. I'm encouraging everyone to fill that page out and request they purchase mObject and make it a built-in capability.

"One of the features we would love to achieve one day is to have mObject built in Motion, so if you want to help, drop Apple an email asking for making mObject part of their software."

www.apple.com/feedback/motion.html

I'm not so sure that would be a good idea. Just like with X2Pro or Xto7, mObject has seen much more rapid development as an independent plugin that it would have being bundled into the software.

I think we're way better served as users under the current model.

Respectfully, I don't believe it's in the FCP users best interest to wish a company to be acquired by Apple pro apps. I use and love FCP but history shows that a startup acquired by pro apps will likely be reduced to a shadow of its former potential. Shake, India Titler and Color were acquisitions and today those tools are gone or their features are barely present. Even what became Soundtrack Pro came from acquisitions. I believe in the future of FCP but it is also critical the dev community flourishes around it. I predict no company will develop 3d for FCP further if Apple is giving away their simplified and under developed version of it for free.

I agree to a certain extent. But Shake and Color were specialized and scandalously expensive standalone applications that had no future whatsoever anymore with regard to the upcoming competition that was better and much cheaper. Apple only bought these apps for their technologies while still selling them standalone at a much reduced price. Many technologies that were developed for the original Shake and Color have found their way in legacy FCP, Motion and FCP X.

Also remember: legacy FCP started as Final Cut, a Windows program written by Macromedia that was acquired by Apple, and it became a huge success.

I'm sure Simon has very valid reasons for wishing that mObject would be fully integrated into Motion. Because it is developed by Apple, Motion can tap directly into the lower levels of the OS and that's why it is so powerful and fast. Third party developers have to build their programs on the upper levels of the OS. As 3D requires lots of horse power, I'm sure mObject could also be much more powerful and faster than it is now if it could tap directly into the lower levels of the OS. So it's not really such a crazy idea.

- Ronny

ronny courtens wrote: I agree to a certain extent. But Shake and Color were specialized and scandalously expensive standalone applications that had no future whatsoever anymore with regard to the upcoming competition that was better and much cheaper. Apple only bought these apps for their technologies while still selling them standalone at a much reduced price. Many technologies that were developed for the original Shake and Color have found their way in legacy FCP, Motion and FCP X.

Also remember: legacy FCP started as Final Cut, a Windows program written by Macromedia that was acquired by Apple, and it became a huge success.

I'm sure Simon has very valid reasons for wishing that mObject would be fully integrated into Motion. Because it is developed by Apple, Motion can tap directly into the lower levels of the OS and that's why it is so powerful and fast. Third party developers have to build their programs on the upper levels of the OS. As 3D requires lots of horse power, I'm sure mObject could also be much more powerful and faster than it is now if it could tap directly into the lower levels of the OS. So it's not really such a crazy idea.

- Ronny

Don't say Color and Shake had no future!
In the right hands they would have had a great future... look at Nuke...
Yeah you right they bought the Technology but to bad they are not using the good stuff. The paint tools in Shake rocked!
lol I think I will see if it will run in 10.10

The code used to build Shake was ancient, and would today would be so horribly out dated, it would be pathetic. Same goes for Final Cut Server. There are parts of Shake in Motion such as the tracker, and look how outdated Motion's tracker is.

Color was originally "Final Touch", and was very expensive. When Apple acquired it, they added it into the Final Cut Studio suite for free. That was pretty awesome.

Final Cut X has been written from scratch, and it's integration with other apps would require they all be re-written from scratch to support things like roles and clip connections. That would be a butt load of work, and would take an extremely long, long time to accomplish. I doubt that's an investment Apple wanted to make, seeing as how you can get Resolve Lite for free, which is more powerful than Color ever was.

Imagine having to re-write Shake code from scratch... now way!

I am perfectly comfortable with the current model; build a core app, enhance it with FxPlug3 (and whatever else OS X 10.10 has in it), and let third parties do what they do better than Apple could. I'm sure mObject being purchased by Apple would make someone very, very financially comfortable, too.

BenB wrote: The code used to build Shake was ancient, and would today would be so horribly out dated, it would be pathetic. Same goes for Final Cut Server. There are parts of Shake in Motion such as the tracker, and look how outdated Motion's tracker is.

Color was originally "Final Touch", and was very expensive. When Apple acquired it, they added it into the Final Cut Studio suite for free. That was pretty awesome.

Final Cut X has been written from scratch, and it's integration with other apps would require they all be re-written from scratch to support things like roles and clip connections. That would be a butt load of work, and would take an extremely long, long time to accomplish. I doubt that's an investment Apple wanted to make, seeing as how you can get Resolve Lite for free, which is more powerful than Color ever was.

Imagine having to re-write Shake code from scratch... now way!

Never used Shake but... Apple would have been better of rewriting a new tracker then using the one that doesn't work!
Also saying a software is to old is a bit silly when they did the same with Motion and FCPX.
Which I still don't see any benefits in Motion 5 since version 3!

Maybe he is right in the right hans it would have been great App today. From what I looked up they did some really great stuff with Shake.

Can't say I agree that Shake had no future. Their approach with node rendering was imo vastly more powerful and flexible. The proof was in the high profile industry leaders making killer effects for top line movies. Sure it requires effort to stay current with the latest OS but a successful developer can do that. The only reason Shake didn't survive is because their workflow was more complex and the company led by Steve Jobs was fishing for a larger prosumer market. The Shake team, while handsomely rewarded in cash and stock was simply put out to pasture and they eventually left Apple to create more great stuff as independents. This story has played out again and again.
Indie developers have access to the same core level technologies that the Motion team has including Core Image and Quartz. Apple is developing Scene kit for 3d as a core level for Mac OS and all indie developers have access to this. The mobject team would not have special access to technologies that are not already in the apple developer kit. Instead, upon acquisition they would immediately be faced with more meetings that include limitations in their next feature release that is coordinated more slowly with the rest of the machine while never knowing exactly what they will be working on in the next 6 months. The fun and excitement of releasing the next cool feature as quickly as possible would be gone forever. It's downright debilitating, just ask any former employee or founder of an acquisition. As for stand-alone applications for the Mac, why would we want to disable the dev community by spitting out free and "simplified" Apple developed solutions that only compete with and kill indie development? The fact is, a stand-alone true 3d application made for the Mac would be much faster in performance than a similar approach in Motion.
Do we really want free stuff at the expense of squashed development for the next 10 years? Hasn't the past 10 years at Pro Apps proven that acquisition as a strategy is terrible for new development?

There is more then just old code. They also has the team from Nothing Real.
It has been said... before Shake a industry standard compositing software was dropped like a brick.. some of team went to The Foundry to work on Nuke.

In this case I would say Apple had the resources maybe not the strategy and the will to cater a special crowd.

Here is nice explanation from Ron Brinkmann, which we should know, right?

Scrubelicious wrote: ... Here is nice explanation from Ron Brinkmann, which we should know, right?

Thanks for sharing - nice read!

I dare to say, it's all about A market and B mantra 'simplicity'.
Mr Brinkmann says it in his article - a 'special crowd' paying thousands or thousands (=millions) paying a few bucks? Simple business decision ...

The actual version of Motion is limited in its UI - triggered or 'tic'-based behaviors ("On .. do that", "If .. do that", "Every .. do that") are not representable in a 'timeline'-UI - that's when 'nodes' would come into play. Or whatever graphical representation .... Fun to see, how Apple axed 'layers' in FinalCut, but still keeps them in Motion!

As long Apple offers the needed APIs (wrong technical term, please excuse my ignorance) - why tie valuable internal resources to a special-interest product, if an external company can do so?

mObject is the perfect example for what Mr Brinkmann says: probably needed just by a 'special crowd', so no sense to tie valuable resources at Cupertino ... and if 3D is a wider market, Apple could buy them anyhow ... :lol:

Tracks in an NLE are not the same entities as Layers in a graphics application. Apples to onions.

Not to mention that article is old, a lot has happened since then, and FCPX is being used by he folks he said would never use it.

BenB wrote: Tracks in an NLE are not the same entities as Layers in a graphics application. Apples to onions....

... In a MOTION graphics application? ... there are by far superior Interfaces imaginable than stacked timelines ... as mentioned in my original post, a vector, even stacked, can not represent 'triggered' or 'logic' nor 'looped' behaviors... But discussing 'concepts' is a difficult task, esp. in written speech, across the pond.-

btw: an NLE without tracks was impossible either not so long ago .............. :woohoo: .

www.macprovideo.com/hub/review-2/review-...-for-final-cut-pro-x

The fact that the above's Motion/FCPX plugin is not widely used leads me to believe that most Motion users don't have a huge desire for nodes.

Could there be a better GUI for showing the functions you point out? Maybe so. But still, video tracks for editing a scene, and layers for graphics apps like Photoshop, AE, Pixelmator, Motion, etc, are not the same thing, don't provide the exact same function.

And I never said a layer-less graphics app was impossible. I'd love to see someone do it a better way. I'd very much love to see Apple sink more development into the evolution of Motion, but, I also am not going to hole my breath for it. Just like i doubt we'll see Compressor change much more than what we already have now.

Now, if I could get mObject to stop crashing my project, and simply export a ProRes file, I'd be very happy.

Ben you are comparing a Plugin to a full functional App. That would be like comparing mObjects with 3D Studio Max.
Apples to onions.

Not to mention that article is old, a lot has happened since then, and FCPX is being used by he folks he said would never use it.

Could you explain who you mean by folks? The article seems to point out Apple strategy which makes highly since... if you look at the numbers what makes money for Apple.

All NLE's, AE, and Motion rely on plugins, not sure what the point it.

He refers to Apple not pursuing high end editing market. As far as I can see, the tools are the same for high end, or event video, editing is editing, and films are done with FCPX. So not sure what his point was about Apple not including "high end" editors in their target. Simply not true.

Ben you are comparing a application Shake, which I haven't used, but I have done research on one of the largest databases in world. Shake was engineered as a so called "Node" based effects tool compared to a plugin to simulate "Nodes".

It would be the same comparing a fully 3D application to a 3D plugin to load 3D objects.
I understand what you mean, but don't forget someone "high end" using a tool doesn't mean that the developer had the 'high end" editors in mind.

Not saying FCPX is now but it has been mentioned many times when it was released the tool is not ready or ether not for he high end market. Many still say the same not having any Audio mastering.
It sure has mutated more mature (high end).

Yes we are all aware that FCPX was used on one major feature film with a adjusting workflow which had to be created from ground up. I also seen professional use iMovie for a short film, we can now say Apple target high end with iMovie!

I used Shake professionally for many, many years...

FYI, confirmed with MotionVFX my mObject issues wasn't mObject, but the number of emitters and replicators I was using. Two replicators and one emitter, and some Apple Motion bug is crashing things. So, report is in to Apple. My solution is to export those elements as baked-in .mov files, and import them to avoid the bug.