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flame can import open EXR files with limitations right now. Autodesk is in the process of rewriting the application to work in 16bit half float. Many of the nodes in batch now are 16bit compliant with the exception of the Keyers ( master keyer and modular keyer). i think there are a few other minor nodes outstanding as well, but can’t remember them all. Right now flame cannot take advantage of EXR’s multichannel format. It’s no secret this is a big priority for autodesk , i think there will be a lot more coming with this stuff in the next few releases.

hope that helps

tim

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i’ve heard some weird stuff about tezros being end-of-lifed for some kind of technical reason. maybe its the kyoto thing. someone else mentioned it on the boards here…

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sapphire is good to go at 64bit as well

http://www.genarts.com

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patdawg wrote:

kalthans wrote:

i stand corrected. thanks, deke

it has been only a year since they have rebranded most of the discreet products with the autodesk label

More importantly though is the fact that Autodesk’s considerable R&D resources weren’t really shared with discreet until the name changed to Autodesk Media & Entertainment. This new mony is going to have a HUGE impact on the image science research going on up in Montreal.

well, we can argue endlessly WHY FFI has languished over the last few years, but i think we can all agree that it HAS lost a little bit of ground under that autodesk banner. Although there have been a lot of changes in the industry and tools over the past few years, i don’t think that’s the sole reason. FFI product line is a bit of a mess… desktop strategy is a bit of a mess… there are an abundance of sub $500 mac/pc programs that have functionality i would kill for in flame… cross platform integration (autodesk – discreet) seems to be vaporware and we all pay an insane amount of money to be in this predicatment. dont get me wrong, Flame is still one of the best-of-breed products out there and you’ll have to pry my cold dead hand from the stylus before i’ll switch to something else – but i can’t help but notice my tool of choice getting just a *bit* long in the tooth.

my 2 cents

tim

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how much r&d can you do to differentiate from the lower end market?

well, workflow is certainly a factor, but if you look at some of the killer new tools coming out of the foundry (furnace v3) i think there is plenty of R&D to be done. flame should be the place where these new tools debut, and then trickle down to the rest of the world. right now, it’s the other way around!!!!! from new tools comes new work flow also! to say that there really isn’t much r&d left to do is like saying you have no imagination.

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hi john

not sure this is such great news. flame has been owned by autodesk for quite some time and i think that flame r&d has fallen behind the rest of the world. what improvements have we seen in flame thanks to 3DS? where is mental ray? seems like it will just be more of a quagmire.

tim

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wow – looks killer!

did you do the soccer ball with one of danny’s techniques as well?

can’t wait to see more!

tim

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hey guys

just loaded up flame951 here in nyc. right off the bat – thank god for auto detect file extensions in ‘Import Image’ module – saves SOOOO much wasted time / keystrokes.
Also the import PSD file format and being able to keep individual layers RULES. ( i know it’s been around since v9, but we upgraded straight from 8.5.4) I was a little disappointed to learn i would need to purchase more RAM for both machines. We are running with 2.5 gigs and have experienced relentless crashing in batch due to insufficient ram (according to discreet…) How much is everyone loading up their boxes with? 3gigs – more? what is that buying me if i do more than 3 gigs? anything at all? also – now we have to upgrade ALL of the sparks, which is not a problem for sapphire but we were also using v1 of furnace which doesnt exist as a 64bit spark. that and the increased RAM means a bit more than we bargained for $$$$ – wise.

so, yeah it’s good to have a optical flow / motion estimation TW native to flame.Of course, discreet has to bury it in batch or in the editing subModule of TW on the desktop. why can’t it just be an additional setting with the ‘Progressive / interlaced’ buttons in desktop TW? It also seems to lack additional fuctionality that KRONOS has, but it seems pretty good so far and i guess judging by the ‘technology demo’ at NAB ’05, those things will arrive.

i have yet to dive into batch paint, however it seems to only be something that can feed a node – not have a node fed into it. huh. whatever. finally, i’ll never understand why discreet continues to change the interface in odd little ways everytime there is a major upgrade. who asks for this stuff? rearranging buttons in the play module AGAIN. rearranging the export queue buttons and placement? what a drag. Who actually requeseted that the system exit button be changed to ‘FLAME EXIT’ i would rather have that time spent on incorporating a true field based TW. or new particle system.

ok, to end on a high note, i will say that also having TEXT module in batch is really great. I’m sure there are a few other cool things… just haven’t got to them yet…

tim
suspect nyc

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ok, that’s very interesting about shake, however i’m more interested in some hard facts about 10gigs of ram in a Tezro. As Xavier says, it will definetly speed operations or at least contextual views in large Hi Rez batch setups, but is that all the extra $150K is getting me? Also, i’m sure it’s technically feasible to address 64 bits of ram in a PC, but is FLINUX optimized to do that? i read in another posting that FLINUX was a default porting (whatever that means) and hasn’t really been tweaked / optimized to squeeze all of the performance out of that Linux box.

any clarifications minus the usual shake/ apple rant is appreciated.

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dekekincaid wrote:

really? Where have you been? Most studios are still using Shake just fine on linux. Apple has been updating it right along with the mac version just fine. Dreamworks, Cinesite, R&H, Weta, Framestore/CFC, etc… are all still using it on linux. The time for Apple to kill it on Linux has long since past(Irix version is even still being updated even though they don’t advertise it for sale)
-deke

ok, looks like time for me to eat some humble pie! 😳 my info is outdated i see now… apple DID bring the price down from 10K to 5K for shake on linux with the release of 3.5 and continue dev altho i think that you have to admit even in light of the new pricing strategy and their (apple) other sales incentives to move to OSX the outlook is questionable for linux/irix down the road… i DO know for a fact that toxik will be replacing shake at a high profile efx (feature film) house that uses PC vers. of shake currently and the who knows with the future…

i

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Jonas wrote:

Now you talked alot of toxic as a shake killer – but it will still be a version one, and we all know it will take a hell of a long time to get useable – most applications is first worth looking at when in version 3 or something.

really? seems like combustion v1 had some problems but it was a usable product right out of the box. Also, a lot of what will be in toxik is inhereited from the rest of the product line, not written from the ground up. I’m sure there will be some rough spots, but i’m sure they will get worked out. A major fact i think everyone (eltopo) is overlooking here is that shake is ALREADY DEAD ON ANYTHING BUT MAC. gee, last time i looked not a SINGLE large scale efx house (DD; WETA; SONY IMAGES WORKS; ESC; ASYLUM; ILM ) has a pipeline built on macintosh. that’s laughable. dont get me wrong, i love macs and im typing this on one now, but to discontinue shake PC development so quickly is a major strategic error on apple’s part. What do you think any efx house is going to do? junk a pipeline after years of perfecting & investing in it and spend major $$$ to retool everything for apple shake? or just plug the very capable competition product for barely a FRACTION of the cost into the existing PC/linux-centric pipeline?

seems pretty obvious to me…

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S-H-A-K-E-K-I-L-L-E-R

😀

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i’m not saying the thing didn’t have potential, but there were several issues…
v2 did help with some of the problems (no archiving!) but basic workflow
issues like the “map view” which was an ineffectual schematic didn’t help…

had some nice plug-ins though! javascript:emoticon(‘:wink:’)

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joe44 wrote:

renderizer wrote:

sidewalksurfer wrote:

(snip)

Cost aside,(Discreet paid next to nothing for the 5d assets), they could have had the technology on the street in months as a Discreet Cyborg*,on a PC platform, expanded their base and kept the Cyborg people on board, for a lot less than $100,000! Combustion started at what $9,000….now it almost free! don’t get me wrong…love the package, for what it does….would be great with a little “Cyborg” added!!! know what i’m talking ’bout?
jpitts

from what i understand, discreet did NOT buy 5D assests wholesale. (ie Cyborg in it’s entirety) they did acquire certain technologies which will probably make their way into the product line in some form or another…

Cyborg was most notable for it’s mixed resolution workflow before flame and its agreeable pricetag. I’m not sure what else there was worth buying. some of it was a real mess.

ss

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although i didn’t see it, toxik was being demoed at NAB this year in a “whisper” suite and from what i understand, it has changed course a bit since first being introduced as a FFI replacement a few years back. It seems to be aimed at larger
houses (a la weta; sony imageworks; ilm) and is a modular system in that you can purchase all modules (paint; particles; action; keyer) or just some of them. i guess the thinking is that if there is tons of roto work to be done on spiderman 5, you can purchase ONLY the paint module for 4 months. i guess they are positioning it as a “shake killer”. There was absolutely no mention of it whatsoever at the UG mtg to my disappointment. Kinda makes you wonder what’s going to happen to combustion….

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