How do people feel about the ML tools in Flame?
Do you use them a lot? Are they helpful?
2 Likes
I’ve barely used them at all but would definitely like to start getting into them more.
I have used the ML body extraction twice in the last month to pull a roto. It got me about 90% of the way. A real time saver. Looking forward to trying out some more of those advanced extraction tools in 2021
I use them almost every day in beauty work, especially Human Face Extraction. And they’ve been a huge timesaver for look dev. I showed off some of the ML tools on an ep of Logik Live a few weeks back:
5 Likes
I have tried them in each beta version on non-production clip and found them very promising. So far the opportunity to put them to use in production has not happened (yet).
I find they’re great for grading but haven’t found a result good enough yet for VFX.
1 Like
I was pleased with how ML depth worked on a street scene.
I wasn’t adding much defocus, I could have achieved the same result with a couple of gmasks but it was satisfying to see it in action.
1 Like
Definitely for quick look dev ( I’ve used a lot of face / body extraction)
I’ve also used the body extraction for putting reflections in glass behind people.
I find it’s worth a quick try to see if it works well with your shot and have found that sometimes you can get better results if you pre-grade / filter your shot first to get a clearer extraction.
1 Like
Coincidentally, I watched this demo and 3 hours later I was handed a weeks worth of beauty work to try it out on. Really helped out, so thanks for sharing Andy.
2 Likes
In vfx work, we require a 100% perfect results, the ML tools offer nearly 90% perfect results, is this good enough, I don’t think so, the sometimes resulted flickering is almost impossible to tune down. As others said, it is perfect for devlook but surely not a perfect vfx work. Btw I am using the 2020.2
1 Like
they work amazing for certain tasks, you need to use them to find the strengths for each of them, beauty work they are amazingly helpful, certain grading task etc. to answer your question I use them a lot for certain shots with certain tasks.
Honestly, my expectations of it are perfection. Maybe it’s all those Disney research videos, but I expect it to be very good.
I feel the ML laser should be pointed at more obvious targets like keying and match grade. Like what if there was an ML “shitty wrinkly greenscreen fixer”, or a “remove tracking dots” one? What if the an ML keyer would actually take the BG into account and alter the fill color of semi-transparent pixels correctly?
And what if there was a smart, one button “match grade”?
and while you’re here, please listen to my soundcloud.
2 Likes
I was really looking forward to listening to your Soundcloud 
2 Likes
@tpo aka Thiago & others have been posting some great examples of AI research into things like noise reduction, smoother motion estimation and ways to use things like a depth pass and motion vectors to improve the results of other things. I think it’s gonna be a very good year for AI in VFX!
1 Like