Autodesk Flame Premium 2014

A few days ago Autodesk introduced the Flame Premium 2014 update, which combines the creative capabilities of the previous version (Flame 2013 20th Anniversary Edition), with advanced features of the Smoke Advanced and Lustre software.

The company has gone for a new unified workflow that integrates visual effects and editing finishing. It was first introduced for Autodesk Subscrition customers (in the previous release) and links the dynamic Flame desktop application, with its effects and editing timelines, batch processing compositing environment and Action 3D compositing to provide a more efficient method.

The rest of the improvements have been introduced based on input from the user community. These include new tools for creating 3D visual effects, such as support for 3D Warping in Action or improvements in tracking accuracy for tracking complicated elements.

With Reactor 2.0, GPU batch pipeline is extended, providing 16-bit floating point throughout the application to improve interactivity in the workflow. It is now possible to preview effects in the timeline during playback and access more effects tools, including GMask and single-layer Action. It is also possible to directly convert timelines from compositions to batch trees, helping to automate repetitive tasks.

Finally, the real-time color correction functions have been improved thanks to the new Lustre ShotReactor, which benefits background processing and speeds up the overall color correction.

All new features have been added with the intention of simplifying and speeding up complex production tasks since, according to Autodesk, bottlenecking is unacceptable for VFX artists. Flame Premium 2014 is scheduled for release later this fall.