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i believe smoke on mac (2011) has the stereo tools as well. not as robust as NUKE or toxic, but it’s an option.
best,
tim
SUSPECTi think if you have 10gigE or IB network speed you can now archive in the bkgd with smoke on a mac. might even be able to do it (with performance issues) at regular gigabyte ethernet. i think that’s why they scrapped backdraft.
best,
timwow – it’s beautiful! nice work… how was the interactive lighting from all the CG lamps handled? it looks so good – esp the shot of the lamp hopping down the stairs. bravo.. looking forward to the before & after!
regards,
timshooting on lowcost equipment may be a false economy if you aren’t careful. if you shoot on something low cost you will have to deal with all the problems that come with rolling shutter ( could be a nightmare for tracking) and compression ( causes lots of problems with getting good keys) so what you save up front you pay in man hours / more artists on the backend. They only thing you may get lucky with is if the project you are working on is highly stylized or treated so bad mattes are easy to hide and the shots have minimal movement. additionally, not sure if it’s even an issue for your project, but i don’t think 5D has proper audio recording abilities. (could be wrong about that tho…)
if not and you need to do photoreal compositing, you may be better of shooting greenscreen stuff on something higher end like the red camera. if you light properly, you can get really good keys, and with proper measurements and tracking markers, match moving will be a breeze. for software if you are really on a shoestring budget, download the mac smoke demo for free for a month and do all your work. you can download it once per machine so you could have several people working on it that way. it has all the tools you need to cut mattes, tracking CC, conform and finish. what’s better than that?
best of luck!!!!
tim
i’m not sure this thread is pointless. The original author of this thread is facing a forced migration to Nuke due to $$$ issues, and that’s a real concern. There is also another major post house here in NYC i know is also not upgrading and trying to switch everything to Nuke with frame cycler. (uh, yes – you can play back HD in real time). I cannot speak for other markets, but the here in NY clients don’t care to much about flame/nuke/blah blah blah. that used to matter but no cares anymore, they just care if the work is great and can it get done on time with their TINY budget. we have seen client attended sessions drop off drastically from 5 years ago, so having a cool office with a roof deck isn’t the biggest deal anymore either. Combine that with the reality of Flame still being VERY expensive, even in light of recent price drops. will it be easy for these guys to do it with nuke? hell no, it will be painful, i’m sure there will be some very awkward client sessions, but frankly if you have nuke side by side with Smoke on the mac, well… i don’t know that’s a pretty powerful combo. you’ll need someone who’s good at both, but that doesn’t seem like such a hard thing to do.
it may not work out, but don’t kid yourself the $ savings are significant for some places. people are def trying to replace flame with nuke.
-tim
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
@muton234 30040 wrote:
really? it is officially discontinued? last time I checked about 6 months ago I think you
could still buy a flint from a reseller for about 140K euros…Oriol
no, it’s not discontinued. several broadcast places, network stations use it here in ny.
yes, sorry. it’s still tethered to flame. you can’t have flare without owning a flame.
yeah, it’s USD. sorry ’bout that.
keep in mind also, the ‘hidden’ costs. you still need to build a half-way decent PC and stock it with the same amount of RAM your flame has. that’s gotta be in the 8-10k range. (that’s still better than buying it from Autodesk) and then you’ll prob want sparks – i don’t know what sapphire wants for Flare licenses… i’m guessing you should budget a few grand for that. you’ll also have the cost of subscription, while not 10K a machine like flame, again, prob 2-3K / year.
that beings said, 90% of the power of flame (no video i/o; no desktop) in flare for 15K isn’t bad. i just wish we didn’t have to build a PC for it and that it could run on mac like SMACK.
i can dream, can’t i?
-Tim
just heard from one of our resellers that they dropped flare to 15K. about time. besides whatever might be new features in 2011 – i think that’s the biggest news. hopefully i’m wrong.
😉
you can upgrade the HPxw9400 from the FX5500 card to the FX5600 – that is one of the few avenues possible for HW upgrade. i think it’s 7K to do that. we are doing it with one of our machines. as far as flame on osX… yeah, i don’t think so. no inside knowledge here, but the whole industry is trending towards these GPU enabled cards and the amazing things they can do. i don’t think the mac ships with that kind of graphics card. (at least not the same one that comes in the new HP Z800 systems) plus, Autodesk doesnt exactly have a history of rushing their products to market on the cheapest, most available hardware. that being said, with the abject failure of properly marketing Toxic… they need to do something to shore up the low end (ie NUKE) segment of the market. makes you wonder if they don’t just buy the Foundry.
i guess we will all see soon enough..
😉
tim
hi John!
as an owner/artist, yeah the subscription thing is waaaaay better than it used to be. the thing that is still tough is keeping up with the Nvidia cards. Autodesk doesn’t let you upgrade JUST the grfx card. our 3D guys do it by themselves! machines that are routinely 2-3 years old can usually accept whatever the new card is.
under their newly announced HW upgrade program, it will cost us $28K to upgrade from the HPxw8400 to the z800. now multiply that by 3, and it’s still pretty rough. They really need to standardize that portion of the plan – we should be able to just swap out the grfx card if we want. clearly, in my case these machines are 2 old to fit the new FX5800sdi card, but if you own a HP9400 or HP8600, why can’t you!?!?!
as another owner/artist i’m curious to know your thoughts on it…
hope you are well…
Tim
SUSPECTthat’s right damit. rub that stylus on your boo boos and keep going.
great quote!
i think your observations are more or less accurate, however i believe your conclusion to be flawed. the Job of crafting electronic visual effects is inherently a collaborative, process art. Although working in a supervised session may seem annoying, difficult and sometimes frustrating, ultimately it makes you a better artist. You will learn to manage difficult situations with many complex factors and personalities. You will be forced to learn how to work faster and more efficiently. More importantly, if you develop the skills to negotiate these client situations while managing the technical and artistic aspects of the job, you will ultimately be more able to guide the jobs you work on to a more satisfactory conclusion, instead of sitting in a closet just taking orders from someone who does not understand the art or the process.
my 2 cents.
tim
wow, that is just fuckin unbelievable. over the holidays as well. it really takes the “ebeneezer scrooge” fable to a whole new super scumbag type realm. shame on Canada’s government as well for not acting on behalf of their own artists. all we ever hear about in the states is how great Canada is for supporting the arts (unlike the US ). my heart really goes out to those who got robbed.
i love this aspect of the fxguide website as well – reporting on the state of the industry in addition to the technical genius featured here regularly.
thanks guys – keep up the great work. i’m forwarding this to everyone i know!
tim
suspect vfx & design