Just picking up the OP, and switching teams for a bit. I was also recently forced to use AE by a client. They didn’t want to pay Flame rates. But in the time I spent forcing After Effects to behave like a real compositor I could’ve finished the shot in Flame. Just the lack of proper match grain for starters is infuriating. There is an effect there, but wow is it slow and bad.
And no high quality way to do projections. You can shine a light through a textures, but it’s always low res and mushy.
This rigidity of thinking on the part of clients reminds me of the times (long ago) when they would send you a jpg inside a word document. They were just wired to think in terms of pages rather than files.
I’ve had the reverse too, where we used Flame for a streaming platform mnemonic basically on request because the branding agency wanted a ‘VFX look’. It was partly why they came to us as they couldn’t do it in house. So we obliged. And then, of course, the end client asked for an AE toolkit…
I’d like more trust in the artist to use the tools that suit the job.
I love a MUX node - Fusion could do with something similar. In fact on that note I just had to do some shots in Fusion - mainly as I needed the magic mask thing as part of the comp. A - it was pretty good. B magic mask is really good. Anyway to get a magic mask in Flame?? and C - how good and simple is the render outside the frame option. much simpler than the action equivalent. all the blurs you can just blur properly. really good.
There are definitely options to do MagicMask equivalent in Flame. SammieRoto (search forum for details) is one. And various combinations of the BorisFX ML mask tools also.
Are they as easy though - im sure I looked at the sammie roto thing and it was tons of python etc etc. the fusion one you just draw a line and track. Boom.
SammieRoto is not that complicated, but it’s more than just install an app.
But BorisFX is easy to install and use, and you get a lot of other features along the way. Of course it costs more than a free version of Resolve, but you’re also supporting the folks that value having software choices in our market instead of undermining the market.
I’d certainly start there before you spend the time getting fluent in Fusion. Plus if you use Mocha as multi-host, you can use it in all these other apps - need masks in AE, you can keep using Mocha there too. So you leverage the muscle memory in multiple places.
Im fluent in Fusion. One of my fave apps. But mocha pro seems to be the best way forward. Would however like to see a decent roto assist with ML in flame.