Nothing Real L.L.C was a company founded in October 1996 by Allen Edwards and Arnaud Hervas which developed high-end digital effects
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
for the feature film, broadcast and interactive gaming industries. It was purchased in February 2002 by
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
for its flagship digital effects software,
Shake.
[Macworld , Apple buys Nothing Real](_blank)
/ref>
History
In 1996, Allen Edwards and Arnaud Hervas founded Nothing Real, and released Shake 1.0 as a command-line tool for image processing to high-end visual effects facilities in early 1997. Edwards and Hervas met in 1990 working in the R&D of Thomson Digital Images, a Paris company and maker of Explore, a 3D software. In 1993, they were among the early employees at Sony Pictures Imageworks in Los Angeles, and later worked at early Weta in New Zealand on the film "The Frighteners" for Peter Jackson. Their experiences from both the software development and user sides led them to begin development of Shake as a high-speed, high-quality tool specifically designed for the feature film visual effects industry.
Emmanuel Mogenet joined the R&D as a senior developer in the summer of 1997 as Shake 2.0 was being rewritten with a full user interface. In the fall of 1997, Dan Candela (R&D), Louis Cetorelli (head of support) and Peter Warner (designer/expert user) were added to the team. After initially working as a consultant in early 1998, Ron Brinkmann also joined that spring as product manager. This core group were all among the original Sony Imageworks employees.
Shake 2.0 was first shown at the 1998 NAB conference as an alpha demo with a minimal set of nodes, a node view and the player. A more complete beta version of Shake 2.0 was shown at the 1998 SIGGRAPH conference.
Version 2 was released in early 1999 for Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Win ...
and IRIX, costing $9900 US per license, or $3900 for a render-only license. Over the next few years, Shake rapidly became the standard compositing software in the visual effects industry for feature films.
In 2000, Shake version 2.1 cost US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
9,900 plus an annual maintenance fee of approximately US$1,500. The additional render-only license cost US$3,900. The software was available for Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
, Irix and Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Win ...
.
Apple Computer's purchase of Nothing Real in 2002 changed the way in which Shake was marketed and sold. Apple released Shake for Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
and lowered the price to US$4,950 with an annual maintenance fee of US$1,199. Apple continued to lower Shake's price over the years. In 2006, Apple released Shake 4.1 for US$499 with no annual maintenance fee. On July 30, 2009, Apple discontinued Shake.
Corporate facts
*Nothing Real was headquartered in Venice Beach
Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California.
Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...
, California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
References
External links
Coverage discussing Tremor from The Register
{{Apple
Software companies established in 1996
Apple Inc. software
Apple Inc. acquisitions
2002 mergers and acquisitions