Autodesk has released update 3 for its Flame 2018 3D visual effects and finishing software. Autodesk believes that Update 3 will empower creative professional to “explore new, more efficient ways of working in post.” The update is reported to offer features that improve pipeline flexibility, speed and support. The entire Flame family will benefit from the update, which includes Flame, Flare, Flame Assist and Lustre.
“Flame continues to be the top editorial and VFX solution out there, and 2018.3 is one of the best releases yet. Vector-based tracking will be transformative and has the potential to save hours, even days of work,” says Out of House VFX Artist David Stern. “The new release also includes more advanced selective tools that increase options from lightbox effects and keys through lightbox; it’s amazing.”
Some of highlights of the update include Action Selective, which allows you to apply FX color to either an image surface or the entire scene, and Motion Warping Tracking, which lets you to organically distort objects with 32-bit motion vector based tracking. With the update, there is now also a 360 degree VR viewing mode that enables viewing LatLong images in a 360° VR viewing mode in the Flame player or any viewport during composting. You can also manipulate the field of view.
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The new Update also brings improved organizational tools: “The new standalone Python console in Flame 2018.3 is a great; together with pybox and Python hooks, it gives us everything we could possibly ask for in a piece of software while allowing us to get better organized and keep our workflow moving,” says Treehouse Edit Finishing Artist John Fegan. “We’re also excited about the enhanced FBX export with physically based renderer (PBR) for Maya, and motion analysis updates, which are huge. Using motion vector maps, we can now achieve things we couldn't with a planar tracker or 3D track.”
In addition, Autodesk’s update 3 includes HDR Waveform Monitoring that allows users to set viewport to show luminance waveform and a shotgun software loader that lets users loads assets for shots and build custom batches and filter search views to show individual shots.
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Lastly, Autodesk says that there’s been “user-requested” improvements for Action, Batch, Timeline and Media Hub.
“One of the great things about Flame is that Autodesk is continuously delivering features through extension releases like 2018.3 that introduce new problem-solving tools and ways of working, like the Python API integration, which is a huge step forward for Flame,” says Freelance Compositing Artist Marcel Lemme. “It brings another toolbox inside to an already great toolbox that I can use to build new solutions and automate processes, rather than do everything by hand, saving days of prep.”
The Flame Family 2018.3 is available now and doesn’t have an additional cost to customers that already have a Flame Family 2018 subscription. Go to Autodesk’s website to get more details and pricing.
