PROREVIEW
options directly inside the software. One of the main problems was the cost of third party plugins, more than the software in many cases. One big issue, though, is that Smoke and Flame are no longer compatible with each other. This may have huge implications for freelancers who originally purchased Smoke so that they could share projects and setups with the facilities that they were doing the work for. I imagine this may cause many original Smoke users who work in this way to move away from the software altogether and look towards other ways of working closely with Facility Houses. Personally I think this a bad move on Autodesk’s part. I already hear a lot of people saying that they are looking at the prospect of changing to Nuke Studio from the Foundry in order to have affordable compatible software that they can use to share their work and projects. That said, Smoke 2015 is a fantastic finishing tool and although compatibility with Flame is restricted it stills offers first-class Keying, Tracking and Grading tools and in my opinion still has one of the best interfaces of any finishing system available. Flame Assist and Flame Premium Presently Flame Assist is virtually the same as the Smoke 2015 perpetual licence, with an almost identical toolset. As with the Smoke 2015 perpetual licence, Flame Assist can share projects and can be networked together with other Flame systems. Flame Premium consists of Flame alongside Lustre, allowing for a seamless round trip of Finishing and Grading. Conclusion Many people were initially surprised with the new updated line of products available. There was a lot of hype before the products were launched,
with many people like myself hoping to see something very different from what was actually released. I had envisaged a new product line-up consisting of two products only: Flame/Flame Assist for Mac and Flame Premium on Linux. Flame on Mac could have been a little brother to Flame in the same way Smoke Advanced has always been a little brother to Flame. I didn't imagine that there would be any restriction on purchasing products, and I certainly didn’t imagine there would be functionality removed from existing products. It looks like Smoke on Mac is now being targeted at FCP and Premiere users who want to be able to add that extra magic to their projects, and put in the hands of the right person it remains a high-end finishing tool. The Flame family has now become a more exclusive set of software aimed at high-end finishing and FX work. It still boasts some of the best tools on the market and will continue to be a favourite of designers and compositors alike. Unlike other compositing software like Nuke the Flame interface allows for something more than straight A, B compositing; it is a limitless creative environment which allows the user to take a project in any direction they choose. Flame still has no direct competition on the market. It is still the best standalone Creative Finishing, Compositing, Grading and Editing system. This may change with the release of Nuke Studio. As I said earlier, Nuke is a great A,B compositor and certainly has a few more advanced compositing tools in its arsenal. However, up until now it has seemed like a very mechanical process compared to Flame's unlimited creative workflow. Also, most Nuke artists have to work across a variety of programmes in order to complete the job. Perhaps Nuke Studio will become a challenger in the near future. As we know, the Foundry is a very proactive forward-
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thinking company that takes on both client and user comment. Other competition may come from Mystika, which seems to have cornered the stereoscopic 3D market at the moment. Mystika's big issue is lack of customer support, which is a major issue. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, if it breaks in a client session it is imperative that support be on hand. This is an area where Autodesk excels, with 24-hour support via the helpdesk and in situ support via the local reseller. PRO
Review at a glance The good Dual Monitor support, Background Reactor, Matchbox enhancements, 3D shapes, enhanced performance. The bad Flame and Smoke still suffer to some extent from the lack of a true 3D contextual menu as used in 3D modelling software. The ugly I was extremely disappointed with the loss of interaction between Flame and Smoke on Mac. Many customers bought a piece of software to be used for a specific purpose and are now being told that functionality no longer exists, and unless you own a Flame there seems to be no way around this.
Alistair Rankine is an editor/ VFX specialist and workflow consultant with more than 25 years of post production and broadcast experience.