@Codekayne
Iām kind of in the same place. Transitioning my career one step at a time.
I saw flame for the first time as a result of buying a Combustion 2 book. Then Smac and then Flame trials.
Every year, about this time, Iād start hammering autodeskās flame website to see if they had updated their demos. Then I would try to jam as many Grant Kay videos in as possible and make projects for myself. Not the best way to learn as in the following 11 months I forgot most everything. But some things stuck.
These days I practice as often as Iām able while keeping my day job until I can quit and work flame full time. I often donāt get as much learning done during the week as I would like, but @randy and a couple of other awesome folks are keeping me honest and being incredibly supportive of my goal. The amount of time that everyone spends of supporting each other is just incredible.
This place is an awesome, welcoming community that just happens to be about a piece of software that is voodoo.
Best flame related memory is seeing this showreel Discreet Logic Flame 4.0 & Flint 4.0 Demo (1995) - YouTube in 1995 at the same time the place I was working at buys a Flint. The pictures and work in this showreel left a massive impression on meā¦ ANYTHING was (and is) possible on Flame. I have never looked back. I feel very, very lucky to be doing what I do on this bit of kit.
I attended in the mid to late 1980s the CeBit convention in Hannover, Germany. There I saw SGI fridge size workstations showing a flight simulator with amazing graphics. I said to myself, I want to work on these kind of machines. Fast forward around 10 years I started to work on flame 4.4 on a desk side Onyx and I was happyā¦
ā¦next station: Las Vegas Discreet User-Group meetings where I met so many great people and watched Martin H. showing off the next features in flame while falling asleep because of the jet lag
straight to the point company names: āVCCā ā Video Copy Company Used to be a big Postproduction in Germany that started as a video copy facility.
One of my flame memories that I will never forget was one day early on at Post Perfect, having had about a year on flame at that point where I was doing a 2 point track using position and rotation - YUGE, when all of a sudden the door opened and in walked in the head of the 3d department (incredible genius) right as I was attempting something a little outside the box - to scale the ārotation curveā of a tracked-in element, nope - the element went spinning like a pinwheel, undo - no biggie, sticky pen maybe, not sure. Anyway - I turned to see who had just walked in and there was this very important person from the amazing Post Perfect staff, eyes open wide, lips pursed in shock from seeing the obviously āwrong-stuffā happening on the screen. I wasnāt phased, kept my cool and tried to give off an air of confidence, āI am goodā was my vibe, his face was saying, ānope, you are definitely NOT good broā. Neither of us said a word, he was only passing through, but I will never forget the look on his face. Lololol. I gave up on the manual tweak on the rotation and found better tracking points. Laughing the whole time. Life was so good, and still is - to this day, loving every minute of this amazing software. FLAME ON!!!
Only ONE memorable experience? HA! My Flame life is flashing before my eyes!! One of my missions has been to work at (or see the inside of) as many post houses as possible. At last count Iāve worked with teams at 88 post houses across the US and Europe and worked on 40 feature films and thousands of commercialsā¦what an adventure. Here are a few highlights:
1994: As one of the early crew at Digital Domain, my first mission (after answering the phones) was to build the Input/Output department. Fred Raimondi, one of the first Flame Artists, didnāt sit with the rest of them, opting instead to sit with us misfits in I/O. He was entertaining and fun to be around, and would regale us with stories or play guitar between renders and I got to watch him work on cool shit with David Fincher like The Rolling Stones, āLove is Strongā or Nike āMagazine Warsā.
Steve Scott would invite me over to sneak a peek at his screen and give me mix tapes of cool dance music. He was always encouraging me to learn even though it was totally off-limits to non-Flame artists. Naturally that made me even more determined to figure out what it was all about. I spent late nights reading the manual and I was off to the races.
1996: First Staff job as a Flint artist (thanks Steve!) doing FMVs on Parasite Eve (video game). I was the only artist using Flint so devoted all my time to teaching myself the software.
1997: First BIG Flame Flame job, back at DD, on Bjorkās āHunterā music video working directly with Paul White (favorite musician, artist, and all around super exciting!)
2000: Riding my motorcycle to my night job to work on Super Bowl XXXIV Mountain Dew āBad Cheetahā and Music Videos for Prince and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
2003: Working on X-Men 2, I got to design Gene Grayās stormy eyes, the Cerebro effect, and crawl veins along Icemanās face when Rogue kisses him. Oh and I got to meet Madonna, by herself, in the parking lot as she was leaving a private screening with a friend.
First travel for Flame - Supervised a shoot for Heinekenās Brand Bier ad for the Netherlands in Palm Springs, then flew to Amsterdam to lead a team of artists for finishing.
2004: Worked alongside @GPM learning from the master how to design from nothing but thin air and Flame.
2011: I was working on a Super Bowl spot when Steve Martin walked in wearing a cool colorful suit and just strolled around the facility playing the banjo.
2012: @Maurypb & I started our ritual of āshow me something coolā to share tips and tricks between renders.
2015: Worked on a commercial with the most deliverables Iād ever done (80 countries and hundreds of versions), and the most clients Iāve ever had in a room at the same time (20!).
2016: Shared a room, Flame tips, dog kinship, and hours and hours of female camaraderie with @Mbemigh. Also did my first āat homeā job with Gray as a test for future things to comeā¦
2018: Kate Hudson walked in, saw Indy (my Frenchie) and shouted āoh heās so cute! And heās got great BALLS!!ā. She ate my sourdough while we chatted about pie.
2019: after 25 years in LA, I moved to Michigan to work remotely thanks to Flame on Mac!
Since working remotely Iāve made new friendships, new client relationships, and worked on some of the most fun, diverse, and challenging projects on Flame. Thanks to the Logik community, I continue to grow as an artist and stay more on top of the software than ever before. Keep it up!!
Wowza, you are deeply marinated in this Flame business! Someone needs to interview you from Autodesk and do both a historical-survey of your experiences, and a cool marketing gizmo-jig.
Just catching up on this thread and reading all these amazing posts. That hall of flame page is a work of art. Iām honored to be a small part of such a vibrant community.
My favorite moment in Flame is right now. Working from home on a machine that when I started, most people would have to get a second mortgage to getā¦
Some of my favorite memories of Flame were being introduced to one of the Inferno suites at Imaginary Forces and being told by one of the guys learning Inferno, āTHIS is the room you want to be ināā¦ Working on an Onyx2 that my iPhone could possibly run circles around today. GIANT wacom tablets. Horizontal reels. Vertical Reels. Setting off multi-hour 2K renders in the middle of the night on different machines to make a deadline and praying nothing shit the bed. Working on projects that were nominated for, or won Emmys. Did I mention working from home?
Countless memories and lasting friendships and new friendships and mentorships and being in the trenches together and tips and tricks and long nights and figuring shit out and facepalms and laughter and eyebrow raises and oohs and aahs and SHITs and GODDAMNITs and FUCKING FUCKs and holy shit that actually worked and becoming a pro at eating while working and debating with and earning the respect of ādifficultā directors/DPs and the satisfaction of delivering your best work and the nagging guilt of not being able to fix that one tiny little thing and wrap parties and tears and goodbyes and slamming the stylus repeatedly in frustration when flame wasnāt responding (those pen tips were pretty durable btw) and hey nuke is available to download and cocky nuke artists and flame is dead and flame was never dead and damn anniversary edition sucks and hey this timeline thing is actually usable now and digibetas and HDCAMSRs and Sorenson3 and ProRes deliveries and feature requests and matchbox and WEEEEEEKEND!! and flame on mac and the logik community and a whole goddamn truckload of gratitude to do something that not many people can wrap their heads aroundā¦
And an awesome community of generous and colorful craftsmen/women to share it all with.
We used to have a little red Discreet pillow on the client couch that read: āYou never forget your first flameā. Iāve slept on it more times than I can remember.
The year 1997ā¦ When I saw the ATM machine, fall in love.
Very first time I could see the picture Full resolution playback in REALTIME! And Frame by Frame!
I remember delivering a digibeta deck to discreet on Beak St in London only to discover my mate, Steve Holyhead, from university was working there.
Whatās all this then?
Flame and stuff he says.
Looks interesting says I.
He then talked me into learning discreet *edit. And so began my meandering pilgrimage to somewhere interesting.
finding flame right after schoo (1998)l. Living literally on a futon in a flame suite for 6 months working for free to learn it. Meeting Bill Enis for my first demo in Miami. Then meeting the Discreet sales and demo team at NAB in 99, camping at the booth to learn all the players and make friends. Moving to Los Angeles seeking out Jeff Heuser and getting advice on how to make it in LA. Years later being an owner of a flame myself, Its been an amazing run with all of you amazing people!
and I was happyā¦ 
Used to be a big Postproduction in Germany that started as a video copy facility.
Iāll keep his word in mind~
