There is also that issue of finding the talent to use anything but Nuke. There are hardly any Flame/Fusion artists, and Flame Artists are significantly more expensive for a similar level of talent (comparing a senior to a senior, a midweight to a midweight, etc;). I guess supply and demand is a factor in that.
It would be much easier to train a Nuke Artist on Fusion than it would Flame/Flare I guess, and the ongoing costs would then need to be factored in. So I guess if one of the VFX houses were to switch, it would likely be to Fusion over Flame anyway. This is all if Autodesk maintained the Status Quo of course. If Autodesk were serious about Flare as a product then more time would be spent fixing the issues such as Burn, and you could get away with a less powerful base workstation (How they originally marketed Flare as well from memory). All of that argument is mute of course in the current state of affairs.
@ALan Burn sounds like it is being a complete PITA for you?!! I havenāt got it set up now but have in the past and I never found it to be any worse than any other rendering system. Is it just the last few versions that have been problematic?
I know why you say that and understand where your coming from, but your forgetting that the average flame artist work pace is a lot higher than an average Nuke op. This is the result of working/leading in commercials, and software development with speed/feedback as a priority.
The term āspeed compositingā is only related to Flame right? never heard it in relation to nuke or anything else, Have you?
Agreed , ā¦the gap is getting smallerā¦ and is getting even smaller as hardware get faster etc but I believe Flame still has the edge when it comes to turning something over quickly.
I have to agree with @ALan here. I can say that working with talented Nuke and Flame Artists. For the quick bash them out quickly shots then yes, Flame has an advantage in terms of speed (maybe twice as efficient at best). But once you are beyond those simple, quick shots then I really donāt find that to be the case. Iāve seen both sets of Artists churn out work in a similar amount of time with a similar amount of quality. Some Nuke Artists prefer more regular direction/feedback because that is what they are used to. Once they realise I like to give VFX Artists their own creative freedom then those same Nuke Artists are just as efficient as the similar level Flame Artists. Then it boils down to the talent of the individual, not the speed of the software.
Having used both, I canāt say I found a noticeable time overhead in using Nuke over Flame for pure compositing work. For client attended sessions where people wanted to see things in context then that was the main advantage of Flame over Nuke (because Nuke Studio really isnāt in the same league).
We have good reasons for utilising Flame/Flare as part of our VFX offering but efficiency isnāt a major factor in that at all.
But in the large Feature Film studios that @AdamArcher originally mentioned, that commercial style lookdev, is not happening with a client in a room. The immediately back and forth feedback doesnāt matter as the lookdev is taking place over weeks/months in conjunction with CG. It is a much more methodical process, than ājam it out in a couple days plugin magic will only be on the air for a few weeksā style commercial work.
it happens in episodic and features for the big streamers, remotely (zoom etc) even, in mins or hrs or days if its pure 2d. Ofourse it depends on your skilz and a little bit of luckā¦
errrā¦ says who? Considering Iāve been working on quite a few features that have these big VFX studios proving a huge number of shots and it is definitely post-COVIDā¦
And can you please explain what your idea of what look development is? I know quite a few look dev artists and I can assure you that none of them are using Flame.
Interesting. Look Dev can be used as a pretty broad term. You and I may have very different ideas of what constitutes as Look Dev and the processes involved.
I work almost exclusively on tv shows. There are quite a few shows that are a very fast paced environment. In terms of 2d work (talking blue screens, driving comps, 2d matte painting work), deadlines are very tight even when the show is not premiering for months. When EPs have notes (no matter how broad in scale) they want to see something the next day a lot of times. I find flame to be ideal for that environment. But to each their own and everyone is going to have their own pipeline and means of navigating that landscape.
āJust seems like one of these things that sounds like a fantastic idea in the board room, but once you get boots on the ground the reality is utterly ridiculous.ā
Donāt get me wrong @BrittCiampa, I love Flame in the mix for both the episodic and feature VFX work we do (longform is all I have done for the past decade) but I still think that there is a misconception with a lot of people on here that Nuke is a lot slower than Flame. I get revisions on Nuke shots in a similar timeframe to those in Flame.
I wouldnāt be agitating for Flare if I didnāt see the advantages of it for certain types of shots. and speed for those shots is definitely part of the equation. However, there are plenty of shots where Nuke has been considerably faster due to its toolset too. And there are a plethora of shots where speed between Nuke and Flame are similar so it is more down to which artist is best for the shot. Some Flame Artists are better and faster at certain things than the Nuke Artists we use, but the opposite is also true for others. I find that the artist is a much, much bigger factor in speed than the toolset.
Everyone has their own experience though and is entitled to their own opinion based on that.
While my use cases are on a much smaller scale, I find that there isnāt a clear winner and I flip back forth frequently, and sometimes use both on the same project, just because one has a better tool for something than the other. I rather mix and match rather muddle my way through some convoluted setup to stay on one.
In some ways weāre spoiled to have so many great tools at our disposal at very affordable prices.
