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63

All true.

To a senior Flame artist with a six figure income, $89/mo is almost not worth doing the math, just do it. You can pick up some tidbits and enjoy quality conversations with peers. And feel good that you supported your industry.

To a mid-level freelance Flame artist that took a job and ended up in over his head and needs a way to get unstuck after hours of trying YouTube, this is a no-brainer to save the day if you can ask at office hours on a topic that was already covered. If you’re stuck on something else, the kindness of the forums and a bit of humility may work too.

To a junior that has used up his 30 day trial license and has asked everyone and their dog for some time on a Flame so they can keep learning, that just raised their pain threshold by 25%. The literal ‘One day of a senior artist’ is not of much value to them, because they can’t make effective use of it.

You can’t learn Flame in a day, a week, or a month. It’s a long journey and you’ll need quality resources all along the way. And the questions you have, and the issues you get stuck on will be different every week and different for everyone depending on what you work on.

Pro is putting out a lot of content, but this is also a huge landscape. It will take some time to have coverage in all the areas folks need help in. There’s the basics of Flame, there are specific common workflows, there is the business side of Flame (staff or freelance), and then there are the special topics like the car replacement.

You can’t project your own situation onto everyone else. If it works for you (proverbially, not singling you out here @johnag), fantastic. You have to let everyone decide for themselves if that is the right answer and a good deal or not. And we can’t judge them for their answer or shame them for being cheap.

PS: There is a difference between the junior that has a job at a facility working on Flame and looking to have extra resources (there are some in the group), and a new to Flame artist who makes his living on Resolve/Fusion or some other work, and is curious about Flame and whether he/she should learn it? One has started making money with Flame and is hoping to super charge that, the other is working on likely relative low budget jobs paying rent in Brooklyn, and wondering if Flame makes them stand out from the crowd out there? Their incentives, comparison data points, and ROI considerations will be different.

By all accounts it’s actually the latter we were most concerned about in terms of growing the roster. The rest is already in the family, no need to worry there.

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64

if i’m understanding what’s on offer here (personal interaction/guidance with seasoned VFX professional; evergreen learning sessions as opposed to online tutorials that might be several years old) this is way under priced.

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65

Logik Academy is a great service and I applaud what is trying to be done here. I think the price is fair for what is being provided and I have no objections for anyone getting some cash back for providing a service. The thing is though, who is providing the tutorials for the next generation now that Grant is no longer at Autodesk and there doesn’t seem to be a replacement (please, please tell me I’m wrong here).

I look for Nuke tutorials online and find a plethora of free online tutorials and loads of cheap courses (as well as some expensive ones). Not sure about the quality of those courses but if I’m a junior or trying to get into the industry then I’m going to spend my time learning Nuke over Flame or Fusion as there are multitudes more learning resources, I can get my hands on a learning edition for free (with zero time limit) and there are way more jobs on offer. If the aim is to get the next generation wanting to get onto Flame then a pay wall for any recent tutorials is not going to help with that. When Grant Kay was making free tutorials on features for Flame then a paywall for more advanced tutorials makes sense. Now that resource is gone though…

This is not for one second having a go at Logik Academy or anyone on here. I certainly don’t have the time or the inkling to start making tutorials myself so I salute those amongst who so readily give up their time to do so. I feel that Autodesk should either be producing basic tutorials themselves or potentially paying Logik Academy to produce beginner (to intermediate level perhaps) tutorials and let anyone and everyone have free access to them. I mean, isn’t that kind of the point of a subscription based model? That you pay for R&D as well as support and user development resources?

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66

don’t forget that all Grants videos are still available and probably still relevant for beginners …its just he won’t be making new ones under the Autodesk umbrella.

I like your suggestion that Autodesk should be funding the creation of new content…and doing more to promote Flame in general. Always baffles me when talking to other editors how so many have never heard of Flame.

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67

Thanks everyone for chiming in. I really appreciate the feedback and the candor.

It’s an emotionally charged situation with Grant no longer at Autodesk and training and the future and legacy and blah blah blah and change is hard and we hate change and more blah blah.

Logik Academy Pro is not a paywall. It’s the early stages of a school. A school is not a paywall. A school brings paid professionals and hungry tigers together. It and its format could be the future of providing high quality education and fine-art-ish technical training of Flame to more people.

What Grant did at Autodesk was not training. It was marketing. Its sole purpose was to help sell Flame. Period. Sure, you learned stuff. And that’s great. But it’s not the core purpose of the Autodesk Learning Channel, and it’s definitely not what our community needs right now. Can you think of one other software product out there that has a singular voice as its ambadassor? I can’t. And neither can the bean counters at Autodesk. So don’t be surprised when someone who doesn’t know their gamma from their gain ruins our day by forcing change we don’t want because it’s not sustainable.

We also have the opportunity of a lifetime here. We harness the experience and expertise of the community here that gives a shit, we hone it, we share it. And yes. We will charge for it. There is no such thing as a free lunch people. Learned that in Freshman Econ. Everything. Costs. Something. And @finn taking a few weeks off and printing out stickers and attaching them to his car and finding a camera to rent and shooting some shots and cutting a spot and then 3d tracking everything and comping it all whilst doing his day job and raising a family and then teaching all of his findings to students? If you don’t think that’s worth the price of a family trip to Chipotle, well then I guess we’re all doomed.

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68

Here for it. The cost of Pro is insanely reasonable when considering the expertise and talent on board. I’ve done flame for 20 years. The software is deep, and there’s always something new to learn. The possibility of learning how to incorporate CG into flame is my Everest. I look forward to the contributions of those who offer their time to teach.

This is a great time to be a Flame artist, IMO. I don’t recall ever seeing a Flame forum that’s been so supportive and willing to share it’s knowledge.

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69

Actually, it was both and that is exactly the point. You want educational resources out there that really sell Flame as a tool. No point having tutorials if nobody is excited about learning them. There is as much noise about lack of marketing as there is about lack of training so why not kill 2 birds with one stone?

As I used the word paywall, I’d like to add that there was no negative connotation implied. Semantics but isn’t a paywall simply content that you need to pay for to access?

I’m assuming that the rest wasn’t directed at me as I was totally supportive of having the people making the tutorials financially supported. I’d like to see Autodesk chip in a whole lot of money though to get more entry level content available for free and potentially subsidising the cost of entry for the more advanced stuff.

I love your passion Randy as shown in your post. What you’ve helped create in Logik is incredible. I also think some of the comments with differing views also show passion for the product and the community. The best thing about it is, you never really see bickering or nastiness on here, just the occasional well argued opinions.

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70

I bet the community keeps the Logik style. So when there is a problem and it’s asked on Discord or the Forum, a Logik Pro teacher (at least when he/she’s being active in the community, too) will answer it, even if the problem got solved in some pro course already.

But the arguments against all of the advertising for pro def. are valid, as they are annoying and literally everywhere.

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71

You have to get the message out if you want people to join.

It would be nice if it got to a level that could be considered too popular or maxed out

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72

As someone who’s dipped their toes on the marketing side of things, I’d like to lend my perspective…

Some of these “big red banner” objections are a natural response to when people are given stuff for free for a long time and then they see a paid offer. Those objections tend to fizzle away when they become accustomed to seeing them, and they are probably fully capable artists in no need of further training, and so not the primary audience for the ad.

On the other hand, any mature, fully developed community should have a way to share information in a “premium-style” context. These teachers and presenters should be paid what they’re worth, or at the very least cover their costs while they generously give of their time. And here on Logik is a perfect on-ramp for that.

In a grander sense, I’ll go so far as to say that this is essential for our future as Flame artists. It’s been talked about at length that the old ways of sitting at the feet of a senior flamer to learn flame isn’t as practical or as common anymore. It will take a “premium” level of personalized training to remotely even come close to that. I think we can all agree that YouTube videos can only take you so far.

And as has also been mentioned, other apps/communities have this… adobe, nuke, etc… when I was trying to learn Houdini a few years back I was referred by a pro to Steven Knipping… he had some freebies out there, but to get all his stuff is an investment of thousands of $$$. Is it worth it? Well, it’s the difference between learning from someone randomly plinking around making CG goo… and learning from a master, who’s worked on movie shots for ILM. Worth it? You be the judge. As with Flame, there’s not a ton of Houdini stuff out there.

Also, it’s not just for noobs… as an experienced artist I’ve been feeling like I need to brush up on my skills, and even just learning a different way of doing things.

For what we get paid as flame artists, I think the cost is negligible. (And if you’re a flame artist NOT making at least six figures, then i hope this doesn’t sound offensive but you’re probably doing something wrong. Seriously, message me, I’d love to know what it is.)

So anyway … my TLDR, for what it’s worth … keep the banner, Logik, red or otherwise… advertise all you want … heck I spend so much time making ads for stupid crap, it’s nice to see an ad for something I actually care about.

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73

A very good take overall, in particular from the perspective of full-time Flame artists. The math gets a bit more complicated for multi-platform artists. I just did my taxes for last year. Total spend on subscriptions (software, communities, education, infrastructure) came out to $34,714. It’s hard to argue against cost when you look at one single subscription in isolation. If you look at your total P&L the picture gets more complicated as it adds up super quick. How many of us have an accurate accounting of all the subscriptions you pay? The cost of a small car per year perhaps?

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74

I’ve discussed with the team and we think the red banner is great… but… it would be even better if it was flashing! Can we see a version of that? We’ll decide then.

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75

I wonder why I have never seen the banner. Adblock?

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I only enable it for those that I know really hate it.

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77

Right. :+1:

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Can I just note that I find the current black banner a lot less obnoxious than the earlier red variation.

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I still have the red one lying around and will be deploying it when necessary.

Austin Powers Movie GIF

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80

please make it so the red has negative green and blue so even desaturating it doesn’t work.

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