I havent looked at it again in flame ina while but in nuke you can do a “pre-render” python action that can flip all the switch nodes to a certain position
Done this a LOT for swapping stuff for country and aspect specific resolutions.
whatever we do the client will be able to shoot us in the face
In Flame using Master MUX’s and using their selection value for linked connections works great keeping all resolutions and content clean and small in one setup. That might be some similar way as in Nuke.
yea but can I setup something pythony in a writefile node that changes this just for that writefile node?
think like you have 35 different screen inserts.
35 different render/writefile nodes.
i want to trigger them all, each should only change the mux on the screen inserts “for itself” like a “before render” python hook - I dont want 35 copies of the same comp
I made a request for something along these lines a couple of years ago, FI-02179. Would be great to get more support for this.
Just found out a new versioning issue the hard way.
5 year old projects with 10 master:
… : we cannot recall the name, but there had been a version with that special overlay we had, do you remember it for new reworks?
1 year old project with 300 master:
… : we cannot recall, but there had been a version with that special overlay we had, do you remember it for new reworks?
After everything was not hard enough, for much different versions there should be tags or sth. like that in these times. So trust me, when you can, do it, will do so in future, too 
Everything I deliver has a unique name or code. If they can’t provide that, it’s not my fucking problem. I love it when they send me something I did a few years ago and they have cut off the slate and given it a new name.
Don’t forget that when you are doing Czech, you also need Slovak, Hungarian and Turkish >_<
I feel your pain brother, but this looks like producer-client problem than VFX-online. What kind of client needs that many exports-versions anyway? It looks like typical client laziness (“we don’t know what we want so we need everything”) and incompetence of producer in your studio if he/she allows that kind work, or lack of oversight. You could argue with client that in this not typical job you should not only be paid pair hour but also per export (I bet that they will come to conclusion that they don’t need that many versions and one master is fine and they will make exports themself 
).
I don’t know, in Netflix land all of the wacky versions are definitely needed, and no amount of producer-ing will change that, although I wish.
Well, then get paid for it. Market changed, so should we. Our old fashion thinking about how to do postproduction is archaic, and we are getting abused by letting it happen. Our thinking about business side must evolve or otherwise we would be frustrated button pushers. Decision of one have huge impact in our very small market. If we don’t change it, no one will.
Sorry mr. finnjaeger if this is not on topic, I don’t want to deflect your post.
Its 2 things.
agencies selling MODULAR systems but instead of actually building a modular system they have us go through all the combinations that they might need
language versions, legal version, all the deliverables… its just part of the course now with dooh, pos, tiktok, instagram… and the list goes on, different length for different ad types, different aspect ratios, resolutions etc etc
no totally I am with you, i think its both , clients accepting that its a lot of work and us changing workflows and inventing new ones to make this easier.
You cant tackle new challenges with the same old ways
Language and legal versions are OK, but not Instagram/Facebook/tiktok/toilet paper/samsung/iphone/ipad/f_ck who knows what else. When I was doing mastering it was a time when TV stations started sloooooowly accepting dnx/prores on ftp, and I was hoping that times of making HDCAM/XDCAM/DigiBeta (oh yeah) were over - I was so naive. Now it is worse, I would not call that progress or good client relations when he is demanding export for every known format just to be safe and not pay for it. In old days every master/dub was paid, I don’t see any reason why it should be now free, it still require manual work, QC, add sound mix, reposition, regrade, send to client, make adjustments, send it to TV station (which is sometimes adventure in itself), you know the drill. When you go to bakery you have to pay for everything, there is no such a thing as free donut, I don’t see any reason why we should be any different (get paid, not to be donut).
The thing is, versioning is only going to get worse and it is already a nightmare… so yes, we are going to need specialised tools built on top of OTIO.
I would say that procedural timeline construction is the only way, be that via spreadsheets, variables and attributes (I rather not), hierarchical timelines, etc…
I think there is much to learn on how Photoshop has tackled their export and abstracted the document model to a “artboard” that allows you to create multiple crops and export en-masse.
From my point of view, templates are the best route, defined once, all material referenced, text coming from spreadsheets, etc… because it is kind of insane. I hope Autodesk have the will to add these advanced tools, they are going to make a killing for sure.
What do you mean? You just add a lot of jobs to the queue then hit render. Or do you mean across multiple projects?
Reading all of this, it makes me think about IMF mastering and versioning. Where you can have multiple versions sitting within the same deliverable using the same media where possible across multiple versions. For instance you could have multiple language versions (for both text and audio), different edits, different resolutions all contained within the one IMF.
I wonder if people shouldn’t be exploring IMF for TVC delivery, especially when you have so many versions. I also wonder if a tool like Transkoder, Myst or Vantage might have a clever way of versioning from a series of beds created? I am aware of their capabilities but am yet to have played with any of them.
Thinking about this some more and playing Devil’s Advocate here…
I kind of wonder if some of the suggested approaches may prove more time consuming and complex than having a whole bunch of duplicated timelines? Or using layering on a timeline and the show/hide functionality?
If it was me, I know I’d be QCing and checking each and every version fastidiously as it would be so easy to get a version wrong. I just think a more complex batch-like approach would end up requiring the same amount of work to be diligent so can’t see the benefit.
If there was some AI way to check them, then potentially there would be benefit but could you trust it?!!
Something along the lines of the output system of Scratch could be an interesting tool that could potentially help, but you’d still need to QC and check each and every spot. I’d prefer to do that as I was building it rather than after the fact, then just queue up a whole line of renders.
Just saying, is this a false economy approach to something that is just going to take a whole lot of time to get right regardless?