Blackmagic Forum

It would be great if you could do that. I've noticed your post on the "Press" page, and sadly it seems you are considering only Fusion Studio on Linux at this time.

Fusion 8 for Mac OS X and Windows will be available free of charge from the Blackmagic Design website in Q3, and Fusion 8 Studio for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux will be available for US$995, as well for download from the Blackmagic Design website free of charge for all current Fusion customers.

Hopefully as you already plan to develop software on this platform you'll consider the entry version doable as well. Linux needs a good and relatively user friendly compositor.

I think the issue there is that Fusion and Fusion Studio are interchangeable in a lot of studio pipelines.

Meaning some studio with, say, 200 users could buy 1 copy of Fusion Studio, set up a farm with 500 slaves and have 199 users just on Fusion. Total cost = $995. They'd be paying that per WEEK for After Effects. For Nuke? They'd pay more than that PER DAY just for SUBSCRIPTION.

Unless BMD plans to make Fusion and Fusion Studio incompatible, I'm not sure how the business model would work otherwise.

I don't get the problem - free version for Win / OSX are available. Why not Linux? What changes / what's different compared to WIN/OSX?
If that requires BMD to lock some net related functionality I'm all for it - do it. It's already awesome you provide free version. Heck in fact , I'd be more than willing to pay for stripped version (Studio is too much in terms of functionality for me, basic Fusion is in fact too).

They do the same with DaVinci.

Przemek Jeske wrote:I don't get the problem - free version for Win / OSX are available. Why not Linux? What changes / what's different compared to WIN/OSX?
If that requires BMD to lock some net related functionality I'm all for it - do it. It's already awesome you provide free version. Heck in fact , I'd be more than willing to pay for stripped version (Studio is too much in terms of functionality for me, basic Fusion is in fact too).

They do lock the functionality, but that's not enough. The files generated in Fusion can be network rendered in Fusion Studio by having the one copy of Fusion Studio manage the rendering with scripting.
The only way to prevent it is to make the files from Fusion not open in Fusion Studio. That's not an attractive compromise.

There's little risk in a studio with 200 users running OSX with the free Fusion. The Mac's are too expensive to make it worthwhile. Same with Windows.

Why not Linux? What changes / what's different compared to WIN/OSX?

Most big post/VFX houses usually run Linux. They have the money to spend, so BMD makes the Linux versions a premium product.

So what we have
Hardware that runs Linux also runs Windows and most likely Hackintosh.
And you want BMD to provide you a free version because you cant be bothered installing Windows or OSX
"so what if its free,give me more, whats the problem" haha

nope , that's definitely not my point Conway.
First of all - as stated I'd be happy to pay for stripped version.
Secondly - I'm not insisting , but kindly asking . And yeah, it comes simply from the fact the same product is available on other platforms, while it seems there's no Linux version of Fusion "Basic" in the works even though Studio is . So in theory it shouldn't be difficult to do.
Lastly - chill out. You're happy to run any system - go for it. Personally I find Linux with Gnome desktop an environment I feel the most efficient and comfortable working in. Just to give you a bit of perspective - I'm not telling you which car you should drive don't tell me which should I use .
And yeah I've considered Mac as the workflow is similar - but sadly brings a whole lot other issues. 3-4 years ago it would be a no brainer, nowadays it is not. Hackintosh is out of the question - unstable and hardly legal.
Also I have a Win partition , but in my work it is too often a real pain to deal with (no hard feeling towards this platform tough - it's simply a sum of small annoyances that made me quit on Win).

Chad Capeland wrote:There's little risk in a studio with 200 users running OSX with the free Fusion. The Mac's are too expensive to make it worthwhile. Same with Windows.

Really? I mean REALLY? You can run Win on exactly the same type of machines that Linux can, so the cost is exactly the same. Even if you add the cost of the OS (oh and btw - win 10 will be free in the first year) it is only a nuisance - times have changed and Win is very cheap nowadays (especially if you buy it bundled with your machine).

Basically the only thing I can think of that makes sense is that BMD is a tad worried about increased customer service costs (requests) that such version can bring. But I'm pretty sure with proper approach those could be avoided.

So all in all - BMD if you could make it , that would be awesome .

Przemek Jeske wrote:Really? I mean REALLY? You can run Win on exactly the same type of machines that Linux can, so the cost is exactly the same. Even if you add the cost of the OS (oh and btw - win 10 will be free in the first year) it is only a nuisance - times have changed and Win is very cheap nowadays (especially if you buy it bundled with your machine).

Yeah, I know you can, but I'm saying that they won't. Larger studios that have committed to Linux are a potential revenue stream that can be captured via the Studio version. The free version for OSX and Windows exists to present a demo/student/freelancer/amateur opportunity that can turn into a revenue stream. With larger Linux houses, the business model is different. Fusion Studio still presents an AMAZING value for them compared to Nuke. And that's really the only competition right now. After Effects isn't available, and the rest of the tools aren't commercial grade.

Przemek Jeske wrote:Really? I mean REALLY? You can run Win on exactly the same type of machines that Linux can, so the cost is exactly the same. Even if you add the cost of the OS (oh and btw - win 10 will be free in the first year) it is only a nuisance - times have changed and Win is very cheap nowadays (especially if you buy it bundled with your machine).

Basically the only thing I can think of that makes sense is that BMD is a tad worried about increased customer service costs (requests) that such version can bring. But I'm pretty sure with proper approach those could be avoided.

So all in all - BMD if you could make it , that would be awesome .

Really, i mean Really Jeske, are you even reading what you type haha
"Studios can install Windows, its no hassle, but im special its a hassle for me" haha

Chad Capeland wrote:I think the issue there is that Fusion and Fusion Studio are interchangeable in a lot of studio pipelines.

Meaning some studio with, say, 200 users could buy 1 copy of Fusion Studio, set up a farm with 500 slaves and have 199 users just on Fusion. Total cost = $995. They'd be paying that per WEEK for After Effects. For Nuke? They'd pay more than that PER DAY just for SUBSCRIPTION.

Unless BMD plans to make Fusion and Fusion Studio incompatible, I'm not sure how the business model would work otherwise.

This won't work. Even if Fusion was used just for roto work. The artist will need to send it to the farm to get it rendered out. I don't think you want 200 artist waiting for 1 license of Fusion Studio to free up just so that they can send the work to the farm. Also if you have a 200 artist facility, you're going to need to write custom pipeline tools to manage them. Fusion free was designed for the individual freelance artist anything more serious than that, you are going to need the network and scripting ability of studio.

thomascheng wrote:
This won't work. Even if Fusion was used just for roto work. The artist will need to send it to the farm to get it rendered out. I don't think you want 200 artist waiting for 1 license of Fusion Studio to free up just so that they can send the work to the farm. Also if you have a 200 artist facility, you're going to need to write custom pipeline tools to manage them. Fusion free was designed for the individual freelance artist anything more serious than that, you are going to need the network and scripting ability of studio.

Depends how determined you are.

You don't need to tie up the one Fusion Studio license, you just run scripts off of it. You could have lots of those running at once, they don't have to queue up. And you can run all sorts of scripts, you just can't externally control Fusion, but you can have Fusion run the scripts. And since (unlike with Nuke) the output is unencrypted, you can have any pipeline tool interact with the comps saved to disk. So say you ran Deadline, you could submit the comps to render from Deadline, you don't need Fusion running at all, much less Fusion Studio.

Of course, some would argue that anyone that determined is also likely to just run pirated software anyway, but if someone wanted to follow the licensing agreement, they could run a fairly large studio for less than they pay for decaf coffee beans.

Przemek Jeske wrote:Hopefully as you already plan to develop software on this platform you'll consider the entry version doable as well. Linux needs a good and relatively user friendly compositor.

Totally agree.

Przemek Jeske wrote:Basically the only thing I can think of that makes sense is that BMD is a tad worried about increased customer service costs (requests) that such version can bring. But I'm pretty sure with proper approach those could be avoided.

It would be nice if there was an "unofficial" answer by some members of the BMD team ...