Shotgrid support scrubbed of Flame?

We’re doing the yearly “is the grass greener” thing with pipeline. We got our demo site going and I was browsing the Shotgrid support site, as the Shotgrid desktop would to load every ap with the SG toolkit from the launcher, except Flame (which just errors) and low and behold, not one mention of Flame anywhere.

Links about publishing and integration are broken and nothing in the contents regarding Flame anywhere. Did I miss something?

Are you saying your Shotgrid install will not launch flame for you?

I can’t speak as to why the links are broken but we have no intention of retiring the integration already in place (the Advanced Setup integration using the ShotGrid Desktop application and the ShotGrid Plugin).

Be aware that there are some known issues like ShotGrid Desktop is not supported on Rocky Linux, Flame doesn’t properly support the web authentication, etc. We are aware of these and are planning on fixing them at some point.

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We use SG integration in Flame everyday. Thankfully we switched from Advanced workflow to the ZeroConfig/Basic about 2 years ago. This is great if you are only using Flame, but if you are using other apps, it probably won’t be good enough. There was just way too much overhead for us with the Advanced config. We also stopped using SG Desktop, as with Zero/Basic you gain no additional functionality and it just adds complexity.

BUT… right now since the switch to the horrid ADSK account in SG, the login mechanism with Flame is a bastardization of old and new way, and it is sort of poorly documented.

I’d love to move off SG as the web UI and workflow is wretched, but there are so few alternatives. We’ve looked at NIM, and while it has some interesting feature sets, it is also kind of rigid in its workflow and UI, plus its Flame integration is rather old and does not leverage any of the new python API stuff.

F-Track seems to have a modern UI, lots of original SG people there, but they don’t have any Flame integration as far as I know.

So you are basically stuck with SG which development moves at a glacial pace. Literally “dark mode” was in beta for like 5 years. UI is horrid, built like a spreadsheet from 1995. Then they made this whole separate app call SG Create which we’ve never been able to get to work.

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Correct, Shotgrid desktop won’t launch Flame on Mac and if we won’t be able to get it running currently on Rocky with publishing workflows there seems little point in moving over right now I guess.

Beyond that, when I went to the Shotgrid support site there was zero mention of Flame.

Literally no where.

This morning though I checked Flame support and there are a few mentions of it there. There really isn’t any documentation for publishing workflows that I found.

Thanks for all of this man. We’re currently on NIM and while I have issues it does what it supposed to with some coaxing. I do like it for it simplicity but also want it to go further. Anyway, a regime change in 3D is pushing the initiative… we’ll see where we net out.

Thanks @fredwarren, unlike the Shotgrid site the Flame support site had some limited articles, but nothing that seems to mention publishing workflows so I’ll keep looking. Seem to remember Grant doing one a while back I just thought there might be some more modern info out there.

Now if I could just get desktop to launch flame correctly. When I’m at the machine I’ll update this with the specific error.

It sounds bleak. Ftrack was at the mill since 2014/2015. When I left at the start of 2022 it still didn’t integrate. I was hoping to start over with SG and forget about all the pain of ftrack.

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I’m in a quandary. I want to setup a shot mgmt software. We discussed Shotgrid vs NiM. We went with Shotgrid.

It’s still early days and we could swap without too much hassle.

We want the software to manage media. Push setups and media around. Automate outsourcing. Have publish of media to colour and links for review.

And ingest review notes to ops and their software (flame, nuke, Maya).

Oh and probably do some producer type scheduling billing.

Is it wise to stick with Shotgrid?

Do you have a dedicated full time Pipeline devloper/s? Because your wish list is quite in depth. With SG you can create custom code to do almost anything. I don’t know NIM enough to state how extensible it is. I don’t think any of the things you want to do are native capabilities.

We do have a pipeline developer. I’m not expecting everything at once. I was wondering/hoping there might be code shops kind of like with Wordpress. I imagine that’s just naive.

Replied to you privately with some more info but the short version is that NIM can do what you want but as @ALan pointed out it’s a bit strict with how it works and a bit dated in it’s support for Flame. The lack of a real asset browser on the Flame side also just irks me to no end.

On the flip side, it’s super non-intrusive and allows you to use as much or as little as you need.

A lot of the functionality in Shotgun is pretty straightforward, especially if you accept using Sequence Publish for all exports aside from batch. Once the shot entities are setup the batch nodes will also publish linked. Haven’t worked much w Shotgun Create but otherwise it’s really become an indispensable tool in my workflow.

Hit me up w a DM if I can give any info.

-A

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Hi @fredwarren finally having a chance to revisit. The Shotgrid desktop ap spits out the following when I try to launch any version of Flame.

2022-09-06 21:36:49,063 [   ERROR] [PROXY] Error calling __commands::flame_2022.3((), {}):
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Applications/Shotgun.app/Contents/Resources/Desktop/Python/bundle_cache/app_store/tk-desktop/v2.6.3/python/tk_desktop/desktop_engine_project_implementation.py", line 210, in _trigger_callback
    callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/cnoellert/Library/Caches/Shotgun/afx-creative/p122.basic.desktop/cfg/install/core/python/tank/platform/engine.py", line 1083, in callback_wrapper
    return callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Applications/Shotgun.app/Contents/Resources/Desktop/Python/bundle_cache/app_store/tk-multi-launchapp/v0.12.2/python/tk_multi_launchapp/base_launcher.py", line 138, in launch_version
    **kwargs
  File "/Applications/Shotgun.app/Contents/Resources/Desktop/Python/bundle_cache/app_store/tk-multi-launchapp/v0.12.2/python/tk_multi_launchapp/base_launcher.py", line 405, in _launch_callback
    software_entity,
  File "/Applications/Shotgun.app/Contents/Resources/Desktop/Python/bundle_cache/app_store/tk-multi-launchapp/v0.12.2/python/tk_multi_launchapp/base_launcher.py", line 190, in _launch_app
    app_engine, app_path, app_args, context, file_to_open
  File "/Applications/Shotgun.app/Contents/Resources/Desktop/Python/bundle_cache/app_store/tk-multi-launchapp/v0.12.2/python/tk_multi_launchapp/prepare_apps.py", line 51, in prepare_launch_for_engine
    launch_info = launcher.prepare_launch(app_path, app_args, file_to_open)
  File "/Applications/Shotgun.app/Contents/Resources/Desktop/Python/bundle_cache/app_store/tk-flame/v1.17.3/startup.py", line 190, in prepare_launch
    return LaunchInformation(python_exec_path, args, env)
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'python_exec_path' referenced before assignment

Of course Nuke and Houdini launch no problem. This is on a Mac. Allow me to chuckle when even AE and Photoshop launch with no issue.

If you don’t use the desktop app, does it work?
I don’t use it, but will look into troubleshooting.

Run thru for clarity:
Steps that should work:

  • flame is attached to shotgun account and project.
  • conform at least one seq. Clips on flame desk should be named SEQ or RND etc.this is important. Dont name SEQ_conform or SEQ_date. ONLY SEQ or RND, etc. otherwise shotgun will think you want to create other sequences.
  • use track name as a token for asset type. Ref, plate, gfx etc. if you have two layers of plates, both would be named plate.
  • select all segments and name all shots
    clip name_background index###0
    Select all segments and rename. Start with shot name>_. If you need to add L1/L2 or FG/BG it’s best to do on the segment.
  • export with SeqPublish.
    Example token setup:
    /JOB/shots/shot name/track name/segment name/segment name…####.exr etc.

When it exports all the shots, it should create the entities on the shotgun project automatically. Seq, shot etc. and the elements will be correctly linked.

  • save the reel of all sequences to library called date_shotpub.

Changes to cut:

  • If you get updates later to SEQ:
  • open up previous shotPUB of SEQ,
  • add/adjust shots and sequences.
  • save to library on a reel called shotPUB_newdate,

Once saved to library, delete everything you don’t want to export (color coding is helpful to signify what is new).

  • export with sequence publish as before.
    Delete the clips on the desktop since you’ve already saved the complete shotPUB to the library.

All of this should work without needing the shotgun desktop app.

I’ve found creating batch groups automatically can give unexpected results so usually build manually from openClips or elements exported, for sake of clarity. You can script this too.
At end of batch, use a write node to publish.
Shot name is important for the entity to link on shotgun.
Example token setup for batch export:
/JOB/shot/shot name/comp//version name###//shot name_comp_version name###.exr
Once flame is done exporting, a shotgun publish window will come up for any notes artist want to add.

I’ll look into shotgun desktop to troubleshoot,
But the methodology above I’ve tested on thousands of shots, Mac and Linux.
I’ve built pipelines at facilities w it and use the same at home.
No code, only thing custom is the token paths preferred by facility.

Once you accept that clip names on desktop are the unnamed token for Sequence, which is why you need to be rigid w naming them,
Then It’s all really easy.

Hope that helps.
Andy D

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Great info @imag4media. I can get the plug-in working, logged in against a test bed project, but, I was under the impression that I couldn’t pub against Shotgrid without launching from the desktop app.

Based on all the info here it sounds like the plug-in will happily publish no problem, which brings me a little full circle documentation-wise—or lack thereof. Now, I will be the first to admit I haven’t given the documentation search the time it requires so this may all be out there, but shouldn’t it be readily accessible for the Shotgrid uninitiated?

Glad it helped.
Honestly I didn’t look at any documentation.
I’m one of those guys who just tries things to see what they do.
Sequence publish was already full of tokens, but it was recognizing that SEQ is an unnamed token that was surprising. But then again, it seems really obvious in hindsight.

There’s really no plug-in. If flame project is linked to shotgun project, and you use SeqPublish and pay attention to naming, everything quickly falls automatically into place.

The Desktop or Create app are another way to add to the project page, but don’t need anything but flame to get it to hook up.

Cheers-
A

I’ve been kicking around a demo of this workflow, but I get bored listening to myself. Especially when it’s really very simple.
I’ll see if I can dig it out and get it out there to help peeps walk thru the process.

It’s basically the same workflow I’ve used for regular unmanaged publishes and nearly the same as what happens with NIM pubs so there’s a certain familiarity with it all. Regardless any and all info is welcome.

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Agreed. It’s actually similar/straightforward once you know what to do.
The workflow demo would be more helpful to the uninitiated who don’t understand Shot Publish workflow.

If you hit a wall, feel free to hit me up.

A

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