30 years of Flame = 30 Autodesk swag bundles to give away! 🎂🎁

[ute]

One of my favorite memories is switching from Quantel Henry to Smoke - and the flame-shows at the IBC in Amsterdam back then.

[walter]

What a great thread!

I didn’t come to Flame from a facility – I was an Avid/FCP/After Effects freelancer, admiring all your big iron systems from afar. Marc-André recruited me, along with a number of other desktop video specialists, as early testers and influencers for the “changing everything” release of Smoke 2013. The learning curve was, um, steep — but wow, the system was so powerful and compelling.

I’ve been on and off with Smoke, and now Flame, for the last 10 years. I’m looking forward to working Flame into my studio more in the years ahead.

I’m so immensely grateful to Grant for his training, to Andy and Randy for their stewardship of Logik, and to this whole community for its willingness to share knowledge. Especially for someone like me, with a non-traditional entry point to Flame, your openness has been invaluable.

My first fun memory with Smoke was working on a crazy corporate greenscreen piece. On my MacBook Pro. On a plane. The idea that I could do all the work required in a single system on my seatback tray table was pretty mindblowing. I just had to make sure to shut down when they turned on the No Smoking light! [rimshot]

[andymilkis]

In 1995 I was at a job interview at a NY post facility called RVI. I was interviewing for an assistant engineer position, and the Chief Engineer was giving me a tour. We were walking down a hallway and on either side there were doors with placards that said things like, Avid 2, Edit 3 and so on. We reached a door with a placard that said “Flame” and the Chief Engineer showed me the only thing he knew now to do: Play a clip. He told me that the clip was uncompressed video and I called “bullshit”. He then took me into the machine room and showed me the Deskside Onyx that it ran on. That was all I needed to know. I took the assistant engineer job and 3 weeks later I was on my first Flame job. I never looked back. I think that was Flame 3.9.3.

My first big staff job was at Tape House Digital working on Inferno on Onyx and Onyx 2. After that I went to a small editorial shop and ran Flame on Octane. Then on to Broadway video and Smoke/Flame on Tezro. While I was there I beta tested the first Smoke on Linux. Then at Spontaneous/LVLY it was Smoke, Flame and Lustre, first on Tezro, then Onyx 3 and finally Linux.

Over the next 25 years I did it all. Movies, TV, Commercials, Music Videos…everything. I’ve done projects with Bono (who called me a genius), Mariah Carey, Julie Andrews, Michael Jackson, P. Diddy and the President of the United States. I worked the Super Bowl (the Janet Jackson year). I’ve been all over the world supervising shoots and even did a two week, around the world shoot. I’ve worked on spots for every brand in every category and in every market. I’ve made animals talk, babies fly and comp’d more screens and removed more wrinkles then I could possibly remember. It’s been the ride of a lifetime!

But the best thing about being a Flame artist has to be this community! Thank you to everyone who came before us (John Mont, Jeff H, Mike S, J. Schulte) everyone who’s ever poured their sweat and tears into developing Flame and every member of the Logik community!!!

[Lightningad]

and another really nice moment was doing a Logik Live presentation with Andy Milkis, and seeing great comments from flame artists i have always looked up to, as they learned something new from me!

[PeterK]

And I was nominated the Flame Award 2013!

[mikeroy]

I remember that Cheetah tracking demo too!

(Ever since watching it, on VFX Supervision gigs I always request “cheetah skin” to be applied to all surfaces to be tracked. For some reason I’m never asked to come back a second time…)

[andymilkis]

That’s what it’s all about, Adam!

[LucJob]

And still learing

[paul_round]

[tomothyhondrox]

I’m extremely late to this thread, but do me and Flame actually share a birthday? What’s the official release date? I can’t find one online but I, too, was born in the first half of 1992.

Also, thanks to everyone in this amazing community for making my life as a self-taught artist so much easier. Reading through all these comments, it’s clear y’all suffered a lot so I didn’t have to as someone who entered the fold circa 2012. I also appreciate the brief shout out on the commemorative website/matte painting though I feel entirely unworthy of it

[Steve_Beecher]

I’m curious about what kinds of tips and tricks are offered in March 1994 on page 6.

[paul_round]

I’m away for a week, but will be sure to let you know!

[ort]

i was a quantel paintbox/harry/k-scope artist and was the “go-to” guy for tough manual tracking.

we got our first flame (1993-ish?) and i had heard that it…. “auto tracked”.

i was very doubtful. i sat down with a fellow artist, pat portela (who later became a producer)… we read the manual and set up the 1 point tracker. clicked the button… and it tracked so quickly and accurately - we were literally gobsmacked.

i was so in awe… but that quickly sank into horror. this meant that my job, my specialty - was replaced.

a year-ish later, with literally 3 flame jobs under my belt, i was at ILM on one of their FOUR infernos. i was a “sabre artist” working on the re-release (sorry!) of the empire strikes back - planet hoth AT-AT shots. what a long strange trip it’s been.

thanks discreet*/autodesk.

[Jon-Jovich_66]

My first impression back in early 90’ when I got to test demo version without any documentation was “ What kind of junk is this “ I quickly changed my mind in next couple days and still think it’s best software out there. I used lots other software but nothing comes close in my books !