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hi there,
today our exec mentioned they may replace our boxes with Nuke machines, oh no!
we are a 100% commercial shop, we online all types of commercial projects big and small and interact in all sessions very closely with our clients the ad agencies.
I am not familiar with Nuke or Fusion for that matter and over the next few days I’ve been tasked with finding out if either piece of software could replace our client friendly Flame suites permanently (I’m assuming we are going to keep one box around for tape I/O and final finishing). all our senior guys would have to learn the software and this moving software idea is based solely on the cost of replacing our current boxes (oh and agencies are all abuzz about doing 3D work, you know ‘stereo’, and Nuke and Fusion seems to have that down already from what I’ve read)
I’d love to hear the pros and cons, what can Flame do that Nuke/Fusion can’t and vice versa?
What are the major pros and cons of using Nuke/Fusion vs Flame in commercial work?
How is the learning curve from FFI to Nuke/Fusion?
What makes Nuke/Fusion better than After Effects as a cheaper option?
Let’s talk and thanks in advance for any responses/input/slags/praises, I know that you guys will give me the straight goods.
The entire time I’ve been working on the Flame I’ve sensed this day coming and now it’s here.
-rand
Hey Rand,
Since you’re a Flame guy I would highly recommend checking Toxik/Composite. I switched to Toxik from Flame a few years back after being on Flame for 6 years. Coming from Flame you’ll feel WAY more at home than you would with Nuke or Fusion. The learning curve will be pretty minimal. Things like the color corrector, tracker, masks (with the exception of the way edges work), keyers, grain, and paint (except for the new vector paint) are all a lot like they are in Flame. You can also use Wiretap so getting clips in and out of Flame is a piece of cake.
There are probably some workflow things that will be frustrating at first, but you’re probably going to run into that no matter what you end up going with.
If you guys are using Maya, you’ll love the way it handles the import of render passes. Also once you have your comps built you can update them with new cg renders with the click of a button. That feature alone can save a TON of time. It also has killer support for bringing in Maya scenes/cameras through FBX.
One thing you also get which I don’t believe you can do with Nuke or Fusion is hook up a playback monitor for clients to watch shots. I’ve got a 50″ Plasma hooked up to mine. Clients love it. You’ll find that you can also do a lot of tasks quicker than you can in Flame and in my opionion a lot quicker than either Nuke or Fusion. Which is pretty important with commercial clients. I’ve got Toxik and Flame on my desk and the only time I go into Flame is for i/o, edl assembly, and playback of spots with audio…. other than that its collecting dust.
I’ve had a lot of clients looking at my monitor confused and they ask what version of Flame I’m using because they’ve never seen it before. After I tell them its not Flame they’re pretty amazed.
The days of using Flame for compositing, especially CG compositing are over. Its too expensive, and too slow compared to whats available in cheaper apps like Toxik, Nuke, and Fusion.
Given how powerful Toxik/Composite is, I find it hard to understand why they don’t market it more. I can only guess that they’re afraid it would hurt the sales of Flame/Flare… but on the other hand how many Flame sales must they be losing to Nuke/Fusion.
If you guys have Maya 2010 or 2011 you should have Composite as well. Its definitely worth checking out.
Michael
http://www.giantsteps.ustoxik is a good option.
Flame and Smoke are not dead. If you are a commercial post house, you will need Smoke and/or Flame. For certain large commercial jobs, implementing a film style workflow with a single Smoke or Flame feeding several Nuke or Shake or Fusion compositors makes sense. Integrating live action with CG and doing 90% of the cleanup required in most commercials just isn’t feasible in Nuke. If your commercial job is less than one week, using Nuke really isn’t going to help. You’re gonna need a Smoke or a Flame to knock it out. Now, if you have 75 shots in 4 weeks, with tons of CG, then, Nuke will be an integral part of your pipeline.
Anybody out there replacing Flames or Smokes with Nuke for commercial work has no idea what they are doing. Nuke can’t play anything in real time without caching, has no editorial functions, and is not interactive enough to satisfy 99% of all the frame and font fiddling that happens in a finishing session.
How are you going to import an EDL, de-x it with the rough cut, knock out 6 screen comps and dust busting by lunch time, including slates, a posting, and a digi downconvert with Nuke?
Nuke definitely is an amazing product. I am learning it, and maybe someday will use it professionally. But, for the kinda of jobs I’m working on, Smoke or Flame is the only tool that will get it done in time.
Stereoscopic certainly adds another layer of complexity. We all have to have the following mentality: in the short term, provide our clients with the highest level of stereoscopic services when necessary. But in the long term, see where stereo goes. There is no certainty yet. This could be a flash in the pan or the monitor makers jumping the shark.
To retool a facility on an unknown consumer-driven technology? Not for me.
randy
“Anybody out there replacing Flames or Smokes with Nuke for commercial work has no idea what they are doing.”
haha I like your way of thinking Randy! I think that in actuality they want to keep our Flame suites around, just not update them to version 2011 as it would require two sets of new hardware and like you said we are just trying to accommodate people who want to jump onto the stereoscopic 3d band wagon in the short term and then see where things go in the long term.
Toxik doesn’t have a stereo workflow does it?
and
What are people using predominantly for a stereo work flow, is it Nuke, and I haven’t looked into the 2011 stereoscopic work flow for Flame/Smoke, does it look comparable, or better than what is provided in Nuke?
Has anyone given it a test run?
hiya,
Toxik/maya composite has stereo workflow support.
Flare is good option for real compatibility with flame.
Flame has great stereo tools now.
Alex
the flame/smoke stereoscopic tools are great. im in the middle of figuring it all out now.
there are no “disparity” tools, though, or, basically, no way to copy work from one roto/paint eye to another.
but, the new FBX camera, the new multiple outputs in action, better rendering, gateway import…..definitely an amazing release.
thanks for the responses thus far!
hopefully this 3D TV thing will hurry up and die!🙂
“To retool a facility on an unknown consumer-driven technology? Not for me.” = the best reply 🙂
flames stereo workflow is new, quite a few things missing that nuke uses ocula for..though ocula is crap when there are extremes in a shot…am sure discreet will continue to develop the stereo tools in flame in the coming months/year.
ive seen post facils in se asia that use nuke with FCP and artists work with directors and clients, clients with budget issues LOVE to compromise [ unfortunately ]
i would keep 1-2 flames, and switch to toxik, and setup a python pipe..but then again there is no ocula for toxik…and its painful to have to repeat work for both eyes..nuke/ocula really nailed that “upto a point”
http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/ocula-raping-my-footage-t24185.html?t=24185&highlight=ocula
for what it’s worth, we just finished a stereo music video (can’t post yet, album will break next week sometime) but nuke didn’t touch it. we shot on red with the quantum rig, worked off the raw footage – pulled right into flame 2011. (btw, being able to just go back to the red files and pull in a 4K plate whenever you need it FUCKING ROCKS) knocked out over 100 green screens, comped live action into CG environments, corrected shots, conformed the whole thing, etc etc etc. yes. there are some things that ocula has over flame currently, but this is the first generation of stereo tools for flame. if i was a gambling man, i’d bet extension and next full release will see more and more improvements. the schedule we had was insane, can’t imagine using anything less interactive – esp when the director came in and we re-graded the whole video, played in context, tweaked timings, slipped shots, etc. not knocking nuke, it’s an awesome tool and we use it on other things, but yeah. flame came through big time.
my 2 cents.
tim
exactly, flames stereo workflow is still new…am sure theres loads more to come
@kryptic 30219 wrote:
One thing you also get which I don’t believe you can do with Nuke or Fusion is hook up a playback monitor for clients to watch shots. I’ve got a 50″ Plasma hooked up to mine. Clients love it.
Both Nuke and Fusion allow that, even C* and AE allow that too. And for what I remember Fusion even has some pretty basic I/O. At least I remember having it while working in a Velocity HD with Digital Fusion 4 installed years ago.
but ive never seen nuke playback 2k or hd realtime on an external hd monitor.. ? can nuke do that now ?
never has & probably never will. I love this debate as it’s so pointless. Flame is the undisputed market leader of client attend sessions. Hell you can spend a week in the audio module if you so wish. It is the master of the commercial world. Talk of Nuke replacing Flame in the civilized world is pie in the sky. I think the 2011 release is the best yet. Take client attend out of the equation, factor in time to bring a complex shot in, to stay on Flame would be madness. The Flame market is alive & thriving, & there is a clear reason for that! I think it will continue to have a place for many years to come. The most complex comps went elsewhere a long time ago & Flame is not chasing that market.l
In general currently Nuke’s playback speed isn’t that reliable when it comes to real time. But one option if you already have a array to cope with the playback for the desired resolution is to upgrade/buy FrameCycler to the DDS version which supports SDI out.
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