Nucleo is on sale.

[Greg Neumayer]

Can you point me to the URL?
THx.
-Greg

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Ron Lindeboom]

Here’s the Cow banner on Grdiron. Please use it as we would appreciate it so that the Gridiron people know that the Cow works.

Thanks,

The Cow Team

[Nicholas Toth]

Is it really that fast?
Holly cow sh*t. Those benchmarks are rediculous.

Nicholas Toth
Freelance Animator
nicholastoth.com

[Steve Forde]

Ummm..yep. They were all done by yours truly here in our lab.

That said, not “every” project will perform like the ones currently posted. Some are better, some are worse.

As an example, using the primatte 3 plugin from Red Giant, a G5 Quad will reduce the time it takes to render a given project by over 70%. However, another project like “Nightflight” will see only a time reduction of only 15%.

Its the reason why we posted the “Averages” benchmarks. These charts for RAM Preview, Render to Image Sequence, and Render to Movie represent what you should see “on average” across multiple projects. The averages were calculated using over 50 projects, all at different resolutions, using different effects. There is also an average for each workstation type (G5 Quad, AMD Quad, Dual Intel, Single Intel, Dual G5, and Dual-Core).

Lastly, we provided all the benchmarks as “% Faster”, which is calculated by taking the Standalone AE time, minus the Nucleo time, and dividing by the Nucleo time or (AE – Nucleo) / Nucleo.

There is also a tab for “% Time Decrease” (my personal preference), which is calculated by taking the Standalone AE time, minus the Nucleo time and divided by the Standalone time or (AE – Nucleo) / AE. This number will tell you actually how much time is saved as a percentage by using Nucleo.

Check out the averages at: https://www.gridironxfactor.com/products/nucleo_benchmarks.asp

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Spritemaster]

Could you say something on how Nucleo fits in with X-Factor? I’m thinking of using an extra laptop and desktop I have as render slaves, and I’m curious if I should also consider Nucleo on top of that, or if those are mutually exclusive.

AA

[Sean Cusson]

Well guys, I can tell you first hand that Nucleo works as well as the advertising (and Steve) says. I just got back from a 3 hour viewing (damn I was tempted to say “tour”) of Nucleo and it blew away any of my expectations. I really didn’t expect it to work as well as it did. Steve walked me through some of the project files he used for the benchmarks and it was pretty impressive. Believe me that this isn’t just “hype”. This thing works as fast as it says it does. In fact Steve was showing me another test (render) that even surpised him. I’m telling you this because, as a user, I would have loved some inside info on a product before buying it.

Sean Cusson
Q media design
sean@qmediadesign.ca

[Steve Forde]

Nucleo is designed specifically to use all CPU within your workstation. It will speed previews, and renders to either image sequence or movie. Performance gains can be quite dramatic, yet this is entirely dependent on the effects used within any composition.

X-Factor is designed to use machines other than your workstation for the horsepower. In fact, by default, X-Factor will not use your workstation at all for rendering.

That said, I would give Nucleo a go first. It will available on Thursday, and you can test for yourself the performance of the product.

On the other hand, X-Factor really doesn’t shine unless you have a fast network, large disks, fast processors and synchronization between all fonts, plugins and footage. Basically, unless you are going to throw alot of hardware at X-Factor, and have the expertise to properly set it all up – Nucleo is definitely the way to go.

We are going to be releasing a new version of X-Factor in the early part of the new year. The goal is to provide an easier, more stable and faster version than what is currently available. After giving Nucleo a run, and you still want to try using the other machines, I would suggest waiting for the next release of X-Factor based on the hardware you have to throw at it.

Lastly, Nucleo and X-Factor are designed to co-exist.

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Spritemaster]

Thanks for the info, Steve. This is really helpful. I will certainly give Nucleo a try, though unfortunately I only have a P4 with HT right now, no dual cores or dual processors…

AA

[Greg Neumayer]

This is no doubt something Adobe wishes they already had built into AE. What is the likelyhood that we’ll purchase Nucleo only to have it (or something similar) built into ver. 7? Any word on this being a feature of ver. 7?
-Greg

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Steve Forde]

I posted this before, but just in case….

Not that I will comment on anything that AE 7 will or won’t do, it would seem a little odd that Adobe would endorse Nucleo if there were no gains to be seen with a future release so close according to their website.

From the Nucleo press release…