What would you like to hear more about?
Any artists you recommend that might want to chat on any episode?
Want to hear more from non-Flame artists? Like colorists and producers? Maybe some people at Autodesk, Nuke artists (….did I just hear a hiss?) and/or After effects artists?
Any specific areas in Flame that you’d like to hear more about?
@glennteel and I have more podcasts lined up and also want to hear from YOU and what the community wants more of!
Let us know in the comments!
AI
Different ways people are incorporating AI in to their projects. Also techniques for efficiently working with all the different external AI services, i.e. how you export and set up the file systems, do you have a way to automatically import the resulting AI renders back in to Flame? What’s the most seamless technique to roundtrip to each of the AI services?
I have sort of accepted that the cutting edge AI stuff is going to happen outside of the flame environment, so I’m constantly trying to create the best techniques to efficiently pass stuff out and back in again, but would love to see how others are doing it also.
On set VFX supervision - (Tips, tricks, stories and advice)
Loan Wolves - independent artists doing it all themselves
Heads of VFX departments - supervisors, inspiring juniors, training
Company owners - finding the work, keeping the clients satisfied, delivering the near impossible.
Developers - the designers and programmers making this stuff.
Three way chats between people who tackle different types of deliverables. Commercials, long form, experiential.
Entrepreneurs - creating a business
Instead of doing “Flame Battles” where there is a time crunch, I think it would be very interesting to have the community all do a common task their own way, and then we go thru and analyze the way people did it and look at the differences and optimization of the approaches we all took. This is how we can truly learn from each other instead of doing dumb shit stupidly just to fit it within 30 minutes.
I agree that this approach would be very valuable.
I’ve thought about this for a long time so I’d like to present a rough framework of how this could work.
The idea is to present the community with stand-alone tasks, not a full fledge shot.
Examples:
1a. Key this fine whispy hair retaining detail
1b. Stabilize this multi parallax shot
1c. Remove this sign
1d. Add this tattoo
Singular tasks that can be done in a few hours, not a demotivating complex shot that feels like work after work.
Ability to use any tool, any plugin.
2a. Why not limit plugins to create an even playing field? This is not a competition. There may be plugins and tools that people don’t realize exist. This is a way to get exposure to new ideas.
Time-to-complete should be somewhere in the 2-3 week range. Again, this is NOT supposed to be work, but fun knowledge sharing and something you could do in a few hours after dinner.
Evaluation of techniques:
4a. Image quality of end result. Does it look good?
4b. Simplicity in getting there. Is the batch a spaghetti recipe?
4c. Novelty of approach. How cool is the technique.
4d. Bus factor. How well can someone pickup this batch if you get hit by a bus. This is relevant in a studio environment.
4e. Render speed. This really is the least important factor. The difference between 30s and 1m is negligible. 1m vs 5m is excessive.
Batch Archive must be provided. There is a challenge though if a plugin is used that the evaluators don’t have. Maybe Boris/etc. would give temp licenses if needed in this case.
Where do we get sample footage and elements. Maybe FXguide guys could help with this?
Anyway… this is a start if people are interested. If not I’ll just go back to making angry You’ve Been videos.
Love this idea. I wonder if it will be a true contest style like OFOW where the submissions are sent in and then reviewed privately and only the top ones are revealed, or like LogikFest where all submissions are public and then the results are voted upon publicly. And I wonder if each submission should be tutorial style where it’s the finished result and then the artist walking us through step by step how they achieved it or if it should just be the finished result and then their batch archives are submitted alongside the finished video. Lots of pathways but I love the idea.
I for one am in favor of it not being a competition whatsoever. I think that stifles people who might otherwise be willing to submit something interesting but don’t want to end up labelled worst flame artist based on some panel of judges and rubrics. In my opinion, We already have competitions. They’re called bookings and pay rates. We don’t need more trophies and name tags. In order for us all to improve, we need more free flowing information from artists, especially in the age of remote work.
I like the idea of marking your peers work. Rather than a handful of selectors looking through all of the submissions, if you submit a setup for the challenge then you receive another complete setup from someone else for you to mark and find interesting techniques.
We all submit our own setup and we all mark and summarize someone else’s. That way the select few can read the peer graded summaries and then pick a few to show the whole group 
I don’t know if this works as an audio podcast format but I like where this is going.
Like @BrittCiampa , my thought was not to be a competition, but more knowledge share. I was originally thinking there would be a group of “evaluators”. Not for winning, but more unique/interesting approaches. But I also like @PlaceYourBetts idea of a full peer review. Anyone that wants too, can review it all. So we may at least need a “curation” committee that takes the opinions of all reviewers.
In reality, we can’t have a 20 hour podcast going over everyone setups, so in any given “challenge” maybe we could highlight top 5 approaches.
Something like that.
I like the ideas too. I also think that submissions should be anonymous. That way more people will give it a go and not feel ashamed if it’s not up to scratch.
i like hearing the experiences of those who have been using Flame for a long time.
I find them more interesting and learn far more from those podcasts than i do from hearing how a runner got their start three months ago.
Experience over enthusiasm every time!
HDR
Would be great to have a “getting in to HDR” session, for those of us that are HDR curious.
Most of what we talk about here are really visual experiences, since Flame is a vfx platform. I don’t know how these would play out in a podcast, they are more suited to LogikLive sessions, IMHO.
On the other hand, I would love to hear historical anecdotes, like what the first version of Flame looked like, what it could do or couldn’t do. Or how a technical challenge was handled with the tools at hand.
Even if you didn’t work on something, but have stories or tidbits, like how the rendering of the CGI sequence of the Star Wars trench run was only completed on the last day, after shutting off the air conditioning systems…
Or what other Flame artists do with their free time. Hike, read, video games, RC vehicles, …?
I love this idea! I agree it’s not podcastable, and it could be an amazing repository of shared knowledge. Let me give this a think. Thanks Alan!
Actually, Junior flame artists was a podcast request!
I think if you give them a try you’ll hear some really great stories, also depending on what the listener may be into. Check out Aardel’s if you want to hear more of a tech angle. Listen to Krystal’s to hear more of an emotion filled side of flame and also some struggles, especially as a women that I can relate to, in this industry. Listen to Noah’s or even Remy’s (coming out this wed!) to hear a more fun approach to their journey into flame. Remy has a genuine passion and love for learning new things in flame and also gets very excited about learning a new hot key!
Listening to these podcasts not only gives you a fun perceptive of what Juniors are going through but also could give you some insight on how to help your future junior artists and if you are mentoring any right now! Logik is a very diversified platform and everyone has a place here, especially juniors! The good news is that we have a variety of other ways for you to check out advanced material by means of discord, Logik YouTube videos and other means. So if a certain podcast doesn’t suit your fancy, then you don’t have to listen to it and find something that you do like!
I think rather than taking away from a platform let’s add to it. Juniors are our future. They listen and watch everything seniors do. And will one day even take my place!..as well as yours. If I was a producer that happening to be listening to these podcasts and hear Remy talk about flame the way he does, I’d say hire them immediately! I was hired at 20 years old at a post house because I was “so excited” to be working there. So experience over enthusiasm doesnt work every time.
Everyone is different…and thats what I love being able to showcase these amazing individuals. Give them a try, you might actually like it!
Hi Amanda, I have…I listened to all the podcasts and enjoyed them, i just feel that I get far more from experience than I do from enthusiasm.
It was not a criticism of the existing podcasts, just an answer to the question “what would you like to hear more of?”
You make a really good point with this. At the very beginning of Renderdome there was a light idea of this just being fun. NOT like work. I had some ideas of adding in dumb stupid stuff to distract the artists and just have overall fun. To show off new nodes/tools they know and just have it be a very light fun way of showing everyone soemthing new. If you watch the first episode I tried to incorporate funny things but it didn’t really fly and then others commented after the show that they wanted more serious and to just “let the artists work”, when originally we didn’t want it to be a work situation. But alas majority wanted to more work style competitions. The original ideas were for these “competitions” to NOT be taken seriously. It was just to have fun and do dumb stuff and to hopefully see the fun playful side of what flame has and what the community is about and to even learn the fun sides of the artists… We could try and go back to that original idea of just having fun and not really any real prizes like “Who’s line is it anyways?” and just fake points…more of a relaxed comping show where I occasionally mess with artists to throw them off guard?. The original idea overall was comedy. And then comments made it more serious…and now comments again now are saying not to do serious. So you really can’t please everyone.
We can also take a look at the other view points mentioned by you and @ALan to and see how to tie all these together.
Can I name some names?
I would love to hear an interview with @Jonhollis
He is a genuine leg end and a bit of a curiosity to me. He had left The Mill (London) before I joined but I frequently heard his name mentioned by the senior artists. I know he is very active in these forums but he has been on Flame probably from the start.
I recently caught back up with @daniel_morris (bumped into him in the Patron chat after Logik Live #114). We were runners together at the Mill (London) and worked together for a long time learning the tricks of the trade. He went on to other companies across the ditch in NYC and helped set up Blacksmith VFX and would be a very entertaining subject of a podcast.
I don’t know if either of these would be keen but they would be a couple of excellent interviewees in my opinion.
Nice! I’ll reach out to them to see if they would be interested. Thanks @PlaceYourBetts for the names!