Hey Logik,
As part of the continuous modernization of Autodesk Flame Family products, Sparks plugins support and API are being deprecated and will no longer be available as of the next major version of Flame Family products.
For more information, refer to the official FAQ on AKN: Deprecation of Support for Sparks: Questions and Answers | Flame Products | Autodesk Knowledge Network
Hey John!
What are you missing exactly from furnace that’s not in sapphire or a matchbox filter?
Hi Brian
From memory (since I’m no longer at the mill and don’t have access to it):
Kronos but then this is a much bigger subject especially with Talosh’s script.
match grade was always quite handy but I am pretty good at grading by eye.
pixel/block texture this was an awesome timesaver.
steadiness (gets better results than auto stabilise but not as good as after effects warp stabiliser). I don’t know if it’s within your remit to create warp stabiliser in a spark though.
De flicker I think was better than sapphire which I can never get to work. Perhaps I’m an idiot though.
RevisionFX has a Deflicker OFX that is quite good.
375$ for a deflicker!!!
s_glow is still the best glow there is, and that alone is worth paying for the ofx boris.
Furnace’s “Match Grade” spark did an amazing job.
two more that were pretty good were the repair it which was basically freeze frames with Kronos in between.
And F_Align. This was great for matching up two plates slightly different racking.
Furnace rig removal and dirt fix were both great optical flow solutions to painting out flashing garbage or things moving quickly through a frame (a fly, for example). I have been able to replicate them somewhat with speedup-> paint-> MLTW slowdown, but that’s kind of cumbersome.
Plus it’s never fun when something was less complicated to accomplish 15 years ago than it is today.
I took a swarm of flies out of a closeup of a cow for a milk commercial years ago by with 20 minutes of paint revealing the furnace film dirt removal spark. Would’ve taken days of patching to do otherwise.
My dreams of 5D Monster coming back has been dashed.
Unless I’m misremembering (always a possibility) Discreet/Autodesk purchased the 5D IP, along with the announced but never released Cyborg, so technically not all hope is lost for a revival of the Monster plugins. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Did you ever use 5d monster on a Henry ? It was a joke LOL
I did a series of Farscape using Henry and 5D Monsters on the 5D Masher… It was a little temperamental.
Cyborg was released and killed. Like everything else 
… made it longer than Tremor and Socrato though.
100% for F_SmartPlate.
