I was comparing notes with a compositor to line up our work: sharing screens over the internet, I went through my batch. Then he showed me his script and apologised for using nuke because he was too young to know flame.
Thoughts?
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I say never too young or too old to learn Flame! 
How was his Nuke script?
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Is he saying that Flame is from another time?
Not sure it was ever from an early time. It is quite obscure/specialised.
Hard for me to know really. My opinion is warped from have been on Flame for the last twenty odd years.
You are getting quite old though @johnt maybe he was just having a dig 
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It was great.
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Depends. Did he require all communication via TikTok dm?
Nope. He’s worked in the business a while doing Rogue 1 and lots of other good stuff. His comment just seemed very curious and it made me pause for thought.
Seriously though, there is an age gap. Feel like we all know it’s there… just strange when it shows up sometimes.
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I know not the point, but, there is one Flame artist out of Thailand who posts on TikTok. Interesting look into another market.
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How old was he if you had to estimate John? Twenties? Thirties? I’m 32 and I often feel that I’m on the younger side of the flame artist world, and not sure if I would be on flame, as opposed to Nuke, had it not been for my particular and odd situation. I will caveat though and add, that most flame artists seemed to have ended up flame artists because of a particular and odd situation.
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Most Flame artists end up Flame artists because they are particularly odd.
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He’s 31.
I’m 29 and now feel young af. But that also means that he def. is not to young for it to know&learn.
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Did he ask you to partially digest his lunch for him as well?
But seriously. Did you ask him what he meant?
Yes I did. He had never come across it. Seen it. Or used it in all his career this far. He’s come from a feature film and tv background and honestly wasn’t sure anyone ever used it anymore. Though he had heard of it.
Nothing derogatory.
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I mean the kid is not wrong.
It’s damn hard to get yourself into a situation where learning flame is viable, and I’d wager that the reason many of us got into Flame vs Nuke is because back when we were getting into things Nuke wasn’t ubiquitous. Twenty years ago it was about as easy to learn Nuke/Shake as is was to learn Flame. There were no home versions; you had to get a job inside a shop to learn any type of pro VFX software.
This made the distribution of people learning flame proportionate to those learning other compositing apps.
For the next twenty years Nuke has been easier to install and has consistently offered a free learning version. It is also easier to pirate since it would run on most any computer. Anyone who wanted to learn it could, legally or otherwise. Flame is harder to pirate (need specific hardware just to fucking RUN it, pretty much need a drive array too…) and has been inconsistent with learning versions of the software. Sometimes there’s been an outdated “learning” release, sometimes it’s the 30-day trials. It’s all harder than throwing the PLE of Nuke on your machine.
The old system of, “get into a shop and convince them to teach you flame” still exists, but it’s like using a rotary dial phone in a world of iphones. You can forgive the kid for not even thinking of that as an option.
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Never too young! I was making disclaimers on a Deko? something something and making slates and laying masters to tape and starting conforms when I was 24! and before that started as an editorial assist from 20-23yo.
But then, what happens when a 30 something Nuke Artist starts using Flame? Do we have any success stories? Love at first sight?
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I can understan the “too young” but would refrase it to “some things in flame seem stuck in the past”. I undestand the reason. I am still junior in flame. I am a senior Nuke artist.
It is all a wee bit - mac vs pc.
(I leave it up to you to decide which is which).
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