Question about Nuke and Flame

[jbantly]

So lately I've been wanting to learn Autodesk Flame more than Nuke, but someone told me that Flame is going out of popularity...this true? I mean I'm a visual effects major but I'd rather learn Flame more than Nuke.

If anyone has any input to this question I'd love to hear.

[Steinz]

Well one of the things it comes down to is which side of the industry do you want to work on?
Film uses Nuke alot whereas in Commercials Flame is very common.
Thats not to say it doesnt go both ways. Flames used to be used on film (the mill certainly did) but it is not really financially viable to do so now (perhaps it never was?). Similarly Nuke can of course be used to do shots on commercials whether in a support or full comp situation.

Essentially they are used for different things and so depending on what you want to do may influence your decision. Flames were very expensive , like hundreds of thousand pounds. They were a full hardware solution so you couldnt build your own on the cheap there was only one place to get the from and that was Discreet (autodesk).
They were very advanced for a long time and offer not just pure visual effects tools like Shake / Nuke but full project management and editing. So it was vfx and online editing in one. The point is that they were / are very good at what they do so companies invested in them like The Mill , Framestore , MPC etc. These companies have invested millions in these boxes and are not just going to let their investments grind to a hault. Flames can make alot of money because they are client friendly. Their real strength is in the way you can have a room full of clients trying out different ideas and its very quick to put stuff together , render very quickly then play back in real time. Also full I/O to tape decks etc so you clock all the commercials with the client sitting next to you in the flame suite.

Now Nuke as a Compositing programme is probably more advanced than Flame. Things like Camera Projections and the way it handles 3d are simply better at the job than what flame has. Nuke obviously costs less and you can make a fast machine for far less than a flame. The thing is you can charge a client a higher rate for flame time than Nuke time. You cant present jobs off a Nuke or quickly add a new audio and lay down to HD and Digibeta quickly.

So you can see how Nuke can fit into a Commercials pipeline in terms of being given individual shots . People do the individual shots on flame and also all the other stuff which makes the post house more money (but they've spent a fortune getting a flame).

In Film it makes more sense to have more people working on cheaper machines/software which is totally suited to the task at hand. You only really need 1 or 2 mass storage machines with real time playback for presentation as nothing is expected to be changed right there in the suite as the shots are way more complicated.

So it may depend where you end up working. If you go to a Film house then the chances of getting on a flame are very slim. You can still do Nuke in a commercials department and have access to a flame . But as has been laid out , being a flame op is a whole different ball game to being a Nuke compositor. Which one is better is totally down to you there is no right or wrong .

err apologies if this has gone abit off topic just went off one one abit!

[jbantly]

Thanks! I appreciate the thorough response. I want to work in film more than commercial so I will go with learning Nuke now. Besides, I already own Nuke and can't afford Flame anyways.

[Steinz]

No one can afford Flames except companies and they mainly get them on finance. They are over priced but have a particular corner of the market. People are not buying new flames but those that already have them will continue to run them as long as they can

[jbantly]

Yeah. Flame is very expensive. I still wouldn't mind checkin' it out though.

[Steinz]

Well Smoke is available on a Mac. Much of the features are the same but what it lacks is the desktop project management and the 'Batch' which is the Node based compositor. What it does have is many of the nodes used in the 'batch' as seperate modules. Its certainly worth a look if your interested. Also Combustion has many of the same modules especially the keyers and Colour Correction

[theta]

I wouldn't be surprised if Flame eventually morphs into some kind of desktop software at some point. We have Flame, Smoke and Lustre all on the same Linux box, also like Steinz mentioned, they already have Smoke for the Mac.

[Steinz]

I think they will try and hold off as long as possible before making Flame desktop. It would require an extremely fast machine with massive and very fast storage if it was to function anywhere near how they do now. Flames crash as they are with approved hardware setups so if they let it loose to the general public i think you will have alot unsatisfied customers that have tried to cut corners.
I think with all the components you would need it could still be around the £40k mark at a guess , perhaps more

[jbantly]

Steinz you really know your stuff. Ima have to post more questions more often in hope that you answer.

[Steinz]

haha nah i dont really , im just freelance and currently out of work so spend way too much time on here!

[jbantly]

Freelance eh, that's cool. You in America or somewhere else in this globe?

[Steinz]

Im from london,england . Your president is all over the tv what with the visit

[jbantly]

Holy hell, so he is. Well, my gf's sister lives in England. I'm hoping to visit that place. Wouldn't mind working for DNEG!

[Steinz]

A friend of mine works there. Its one of the best places to work for Film in london. They are really big on training their staff so they do masterclasses and lectures. I think they are making the switch from Shake to Nuke at the mo

[jbantly]

From what I've heard they made the switch awhile ago and DNEG is literally the American ILM version, thus the reason they work well together. I mean look at the Harry Potter Films. Not to mention Inception film.