Autodesk Flame Unleashed.

[Björn Benckert]

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/flame-unchained/

Flame on OS X for 500USD a month.

I´ve been curious to what Autodesk would do. Selling flame licenses for 200k USD did not really seem like a good approach any more.

I can only say that Flame 2016 runs in circles around everything else out there... getting it for 500USD a month and install it on a 5k imac 10 bit... Well that is a setup hard to beat.

One can only think what will happen next, what will BM and adobe do next. BM can not really start paying people to use their stuff or can they

 

[AndreasOberg]

Thanks for the tip Björn. I never used Flame before (may have something with the 200k price to do). What are the main reason you like it?

/Andreas

 

[Björn Benckert]

Thanks for the tip Björn. I never used Flame before (may have something with the 200k price to do). What are the main reason you like it?

/Andreas

Its better simply put.

I tested pretty much everything and to me its incomparable to the other options. Autodesk had what others have been trying to make for years. Flame is a top notch NLE platform with great, if not the best, conform tools, node based compositing and grading capabilities together with their Stone+wire file system (storage, clip and setup sharing) and now with the new flame render engine it´s also really really fast and Im pretty sure this is just the start, autodesk also got blackburn and Luster and it is natural that they will unleash them as well then, with blackburn you got background rendering across platforms and Luster is a very competetive grading platform even though I think they will not develop it much further but instead turn it into a batch node in flame.

Basically they decided to sell what they used to sell to just a few people for a whole lot of money now instead they aim for a large group of people and to charge less per unit. As not too long ago Flame was synonyms with composting, just as Autodesks Autocad is synonyms with... well auto cad stuff. (see I dont even know the word for whats done in programs like autocad, it used to be the same for flame) But Nuke and a lot of other options have changed the scene and I see this as huge change of tactics from autodesks side which is one of the absolute biggest software providers in the world. The big monster that kind of almost left the scene, did not do so, it just turned around, came back to claim it´s territory

 

[jake blackstone]

Luster is a very competetive grading platform even though I think they will not develop it much further but instead turn it into a batch node in flame.

Actually Lustre development picked up quite a bit of steam, once AD got rid of Philipe. Red GPU debayer and Lustre Reactor GPU color assist are only two of the latest developments for Lustre. Backburner is nice, but not that great for small shops. That is why AD resurrected Shot Reactor, formerly Slave renderer. Technicolor uses it to do the work on such challenging films, like Revenant. Using iPad for reviews, that are sync'ed to the Lustre timeline also new. So, it's a bit of disservice to pronounce Lustre at the end of the development. Lustre is alive and well, thank you very much.

 

[Joel Voelker]

Oooh, I'll have to look into this. I use Nuke for finishing/cleanup and Resolve for Color but would much prefer a better client-session- friendly option like Flame for the comp work.

 

[DJ Meyer]

Wonder if they have a Windows version in the works. Tying it to Mac Pro / iMac hardware is a pretty big limitation.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Wow! Cool news.... although I am still nowhere in the game to get back to it.
I did flint / flame operating in the 90's on the dedicated SGI hardware –*jeez that's been a long time. But that was some cool stuff.. would love to see what it is like to work with the current version of flame.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Thanks for the link, Bjorn! This is really, really interesting.

I use Nuke and AE but was always interested in Flame because it seemed to offer a bunch of advantages.

I guess this is the final bit of motivation I needed to put Linux on my 4ghz 8-core Titan X PC then!

Wonder if they have a Windows version in the works. Tying it to Mac Pro / iMac hardware is a pretty big limitation.

Just install Linux! It's not that hard.

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

 

[Michael Dalton]

It's been years since I was on a flame. Must admit with Bjorn, there is nothing like it. Gesture editing, solid node system. Wonder what it will do to the price of plug ins. You can't have a flame with out the mainstays like sapphire etc. Not sure what the current flavours are.

 

[Björn Benckert]

It's been years since I was on a flame. Must admit with Bjorn, there is nothing like it. Gesture editing, solid node system. Wonder what it will do to the price of plug ins. You can't have a flame with out the mainstays like sapphire etc. Not sure what the current flavours are.

The price for sparks will for sure follow, it does not make sens if sapphire would keep their current prices and charge more for the plugins than the actual software they are written for. Simply, number of users put the price. a lot of users, price goes low. So I think Sapphire and the others will have to tag of a few zeros on the license fee, but they will for sure sell a lot more copies.

 

[jake blackstone]

Wonder if they have a Windows version in the works. Tying it to Mac Pro / iMac hardware is a pretty big limitation.

There is a feature equal Lustre version running on Windows, but it's not available to any users. To my knowledge, Flame/Flare was never ported to Windows. Porting from Linux to BSD is much more trivial, than Linux to Windows. So, knowing that, I doubt very much, that AD would spend time and energy on this port. They have way bigger fish to fry...

 

[jake blackstone]

The price for sparks will for sure follow, it does not make sens if sapphire would keep their current prices and charge more for the plugins than the actual software they are written for. Simply, number of users put the price. a lot of users, price goes low. So I think Sapphire and the others will have to tag of a few zeros on the license fee, but they will for sure sell a lot more copies.

Sapphire for Flame was always very expensive, because developing for dozens is not the same as developing for many thousands of users. I see no reasons for this to change any time soon. $500 a month (that is, if you buy a year of rent, otherwise it's $750 per month?) not going to increase the number of Flame users that much, so it would affect the price.

 

[Dermot Shane]

i had hopes when Steve Mcneil went to AD, if any one understands developing an overaching tool set for users that can make it sing, it's him.. but years and years later, still nothing....

the mind set of "a bespoke tool for each task" seems to be deeply persavasive at AD, and the "hero box" concept? They have spent years trashing that saying there''s no-one with the skill set to grade, comp and finish... like many other things, on this file they are dead wrong...

Will wait and see, AD fanboz have been claming a hero box at the next [insert upcoming trade show name here] since the turn of the century... still waiting....

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

I'm running Flame 2016 on a Linux Z-Box latest edition, with M6000 etc.... As Björn said, it runs circles around everything else. The last iteration of Flame is that, a super-NLE. It incorporates the virtues of classic Flame Reels Batch workflow with the timeline based Smoke workflow. Flame can do everything, even creating dailies off 6K R3Ds in ProRes LT when needed with the new GPU based publishing functionality. Exporting is very, very fast.

Ok. A grading node for creative colour timing, a sort of Moular Keyer for grading working as a TL FX is missing. But I know from the horses mouth that at Montreal they are aware of this. Currently Lustre makes only in a high-end post sense where versioning is not much needed, DPX are mandatory - it can't export to ProRes for instance and a re-conform of a Flame TL is awkward. But when Lustre is a part of Flame...

Ok. Killed last week my Adobe account. Got Affinity for Photoshop and Compressor for Media Encoder on my Flame Assist on Mac. Don'tlook back.

---

The best thing about this announcement is that many of Flame seniors that dropped off elsewhere in the past, founded litte post boutiques are back in the game because that prohibitive cost-wall has been tiered down.

Well done AD!


Hans

 

[jake blackstone]

Currently Lustre makes only in a high-end post sense where versioning is not much needed, DPX are mandatory - it can't export to ProRes for instance

That is incorrect. Lustre works just fine with many RAW flavors, like R3D. There is even a GPU debayer now. And Lustre can read and write all flavors of Prores through Gateway just fine. So, yes, DPX works great, but it is no longer a requirement.
I'm not sure I understand your post about versioning. Lustre can easily create multiple versions of the timeline and, frankly, it always could. Is that what you're talking about or is it something else?

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

That is incorrect. Lustre works just fine with many RAW flavors, like R3D. There is even a GPU debayer now. And Lustre can read and write all flavors of Prores through Gateway just fine. So, yes, DPX works great, but it is no longer a requirement.
I'm not sure I understand your post about versioning. Lustre can easily create multiple versions of the timeline and, frankly, it always could. Is that what you're talking about or is it something else?

Jake, made my self not clear enough. Apologies. I meant that Lustre can only export DXP and the like and not the medium-end codecs such as ProRes etc which Flame can, even on a shot by shot basis (sequence publishing). Ok. The next thing I came across is that importing a TL from Flame to Lustre is as easy as it gets which is great, but when this TL gets update in Flame to a new version a simple re-confrom in Lustre seems to be tedious.

If the latter is not the case and I missed the workflow/knobs, please let me know.

Hans

 

[jake blackstone]

Jake, made my self not clear enough. Apologies. I meant that Lustre can only export DXP and the like and not the medium-end codecs such as ProRes etc which Flame can

Lustre with Flame Premium 2015 Ext2 has now native ProRes XQ and DNxHR Import and Export on Linux.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I'm running Flame 2016 on a Linux Z-Box latest edition, with M6000 etc.... As Björn said, it runs circles around everything else. The last iteration of Flame is that, a super-NLE. It incorporates the virtues of classic Flame Reels Batch workflow with the timeline based Smoke workflow. Flame can do everything, even creating dailies off 6K R3Ds in ProRes LT when needed with the new GPU based publishing functionality. Exporting is very, very fast.

Ok. A grading node for creative colour timing, a sort of Moular Keyer for grading working as a TL FX is missing. But I know from the horses mouth that at Montreal they are aware of this. Currently Lustre makes only in a high-end post sense where versioning is not much needed, DPX are mandatory - it can't export to ProRes for instance and a re-conform of a Flame TL is awkward. But when Lustre is a part of Flame...

Ok. Killed last week my Adobe account. Got Affinity for Photoshop and Compressor for Media Encoder on my Flame Assist on Mac. Don'tlook back.

---

The best thing about this announcement is that many of Flame seniors that dropped off elsewhere in the past, founded litte post boutiques are back in the game because that prohibitive cost-wall has been tiered down.

Well done AD!


Hans

Wow. Given the state of Premiere Pro (didn't work well before El Capitan, now really crippled) and Mac Pro (giving up PCIe without meaningful alternative), maybe I, too will change directions.

 

[M.Halsell]

The pricing matrix is really good. Kudos to AD for unbundling the hardware. That approach was really messy in today economics. Obviously anyone familiar with the AD universe will understand the 'cojones' required to manage the hardware and any complications yourself. I would imagine it will save AD a bit coin not having to staff the help desk for hardware issues by putting the burden in the customers lap. Our shop doesn't have a Flame, but we've been onboard with Mac Smoke for a quite awhile now. Smoke/Resolve pretty much covers all that we are required to do for our clients in a reliable manner.

Don't think it will necessarily invite a swarm of new adopters, clearly not a sexy beast, and resource heavy, significant learning curve, but ideally suited for Flame creative freelancers and boutiques that need to have access to a seat or two and scalability for the shops that can afford more. The 'low as $500' is a bit of bait, as Flame requires + slave(s) get it out of 1st gear. Its DNA is not a single box machine. So the pricing equation can quickly escalate.

My brain tangent - Early versions of Mac Smoke were allowed to migrate projects upstream to Flame. That feature has since been neutered. Flame Assist and Mac Smoke are nearly identical in functionality with that single exception of Flame project migration - for Flame Assist $400/mo. or Mac Smoke $185/mo.

With that being said, all in all, it's refreshing to have the AD toolset available for the really complex jobs.

<hijack> For the longest I had trouble figuring out why Blackmagic invested in Fusion, it seemed like an odd appendage. But zooming back after BM's release of Resolve 12 edit features, it became clear - it's the same end to end workflow as Flame (compositing, editorial and color), but for pennies on the dollar </unhijack>

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Lustre with Flame Premium 2015 Ext2 has now native ProRes XQ and DNxHR Import and Export on Linux.

Thanks, Jake! Will investigate.

Hans