In the wake of Autodesk renaming Discreet as Autodesk Media and Entertainment [Hub News, March 24th 2005] the parent company has released the long-awaited Toxik under the parent name, sans any reference to Discreet.
Toxik is a new way of creating visual effects for film using a modular software platform that features integrated enterprise collaboration. Toxik will not be for everyone – in fact few Apple Pro Apps users will come across this competitor to Apple Shake, with collaborative tools added. Toxik is important because it is a new generation of collaborative working tool and points the way to what might be the future if Apple adds in some similar features to it’s professional video application.
Toxik, at a recommended price of just US$9000 a seat is surprisingly inexpensive for a Discreet/Autodesk product and will give Shake some serious challenge in the collaborative environments at the high end, unless Apple counters with some collaborative workflow tools.
At the heart of Toxik’s multi-user collaboration is an Oracle relational database to synchronize between all systems. Versions of images and compositions are tracked automatically. Compositions can be created on multiple systems while simultaneously linked together for centralized review and rendering. Artists, visual effect supervisors can open and review compositions while other artists or supervisors are working on them.
Beyond multi-user collaboration, Toxik’s key features are: