The Foundry announces a Non-Commercial version of Nuke for Free!

Creative cow has this exciting news, The Foundry will be releasing a non water-marked versions of Nuke with some light functionality restrictions for FREE! Wow!You can get it here from the Foundry!Here are the feature differences:Output resolution up to HD (1920 x 1080).Some nodes disabled including: the WriteGeo node, Ultimatte node, Primatte node, BlinkScript node, and GenerateLUT node.2D format support disabled for MPEG4 and h264.Encrypted data storage and limited python scripting.I am assuming this is in answer to Blackmagic Design basically releasing Fusion for free. Looks like it is time to learn some new compositing software my near future!

Blackmagic Design announces Fusion 8 for Mac and Linux

Blackmagic Design has announced Fusion 8 for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is currently windows only on Version 7, but version 8 which will be released in quarter 3 of 2015 for Windows, OS X and Linux, and is being shown at NAB.There will be a free and $995 full version as there are now.Looking forward to learning a new compositor at a reasonable price. I love what Black Magic is doing!

Blackmagic Designs releases Davinci Resolve 12

Blackmagic Designs have released Davinci Resolve 12. It is still Free for the Lite version, $995 for the full version or $29,995 for the full version including the full control surface.The new version has a new interface that is supposed to be easier on the eyes.It has multi-cam editing, that allows real time editing.It has also updated it's editing mode, with an improved Trim Mode and more.And it now has a new audio engine for better realtime playback.And of course grading improvements.

AVID will once again be releasing a free version of Media Composer

It is called AVID Media Composer FIRST, and will be heavily feature limited. Including only being able to save a limited number of saves and those saves can only be made to the cloud, and you can pay for more space.It is a good idea for AVID to do for sure, and I would like to see Adobe do it with Premiere Elements at least.

BlackMagic Designs shows off 2 new cameras at NAB, the URSA Mini and the Micro Cinema Cameras

BlackMagic have announced two new impressive looking cameras at NAB.The first is the URSA Mini which ranges from $2995 for the 4K EF Mount, to $5495 for 4.6K PL mount!Most impressive is that it has a global shutter at 30 FPS, and rolling shutter at up to 60 frames per second, with 15 stops of dynamic range! (I didn't realize that the 4K sensor does Global Shutter at up 60 FPS, but only has 12 stops of dynamic range, or that the Mini loses it's upgradeability that it's big brother has) Wow!Of course the shoulder kit is another $395 and the full viewfinder instead of the side screen is $1495!The second is the $995 Micro Cinema Camera, which seems to be a souped up 1080 version of a GoPro for flying on drones or mounting, and it can be remote controlled with radio control airplane receivers, and with additional equipment can even transit NTSC or PAL, and also has 13 stops of dynamic range!

Adobe teases Character Animator

Tod Kopriva at Adobe's AfterEffects blog has given a preview of the new Adobe Character Animator for After Effects.This looks like fun, though obviously a work in progress for animating Photoshop or Illustrator characters. Not sure how much use I will have for this, but will likely learn it anyway!

Adobe teases the next version of SpeedGrade and the new Project Candy

At it's Moving Colors blog, adobe has teased the next version of Adobe SpeedGrade. Unfortunately it doesn't really go into the program itself, just going into it's integration with Adobe Premiere Pro. I was really hoping for multi-monitor support, as I find it the biggest problem of SpeedGrade. I want to be able to put my scopes huge on a second monitor so I can see them!Anyway, here are the features that they list, and the videos which I have already shown in the Premiere Pro post.•The Lumetri Panel in Premiere Pro.•Curves, Hue and Saturation in Premiere Pro•Lumetri 3 Way Color Corrector in Premiere Pro•Taking it SpeedGrade, your Lumetri color correct in Premiere Pro shows as a single Lumetri Color Layer in SpeedGrade.•Introducting Project Candy. This is a new app for your phone that lets you take a photo and color match it in 3D color space and save it to your Creative Cloud library and apply it in Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop or SpeedGrade. To me it doesn't seem all new, but an update the existing iOS Adobe Color App that would let you take photos to make color swatches. The funny part is while I think it is a cool idea, I would rather have the tech built into After Effects or Premiere, so I could do this with a photo on the computer, as I am much more likely to find a reference image that I want to use instead of a photo I am going to take with my phone.

Adobe teases next version of Media Encoder

Adobe has teased the next version of Adobe Media Encoder at the Adobe PremierePro blog.Here is a quick breakdown of the new features.•Time Tuner to retime your sequences 5% with predictable results or even 10% at times.•Dolby Digital output.•JPEG 2000 MXF Support.•User interface refinements