Diferences Between Flame and Flint

#7

for a pimped-out Tezro system and enough Stone and Wire space to do serious features with, probably around $150-200k.

Again, the Flint system is $99k including hardware, but can only do SD at 8 bit. Or get IFX Piranha for linux at same price as the Flint, but it can do 10 bit HDTV online editing in realtime, plus effects. It’s more like the Inferno or Flame speed-wise, but has more editing functionality, and can do quite a bit more than FFI, like painting 3d models, and painting on particles. Pixar and Nasa (among others) use it.

Or get Shake plus a dual Opteron for around $10-15k, plus plugins.

#8

But Shake with dual Opterons wouldn’t have the same “strong” as a FFI with the highend’s SGI hardware, else people won’t buy that kind of equipement ( I guess). Else realtime in very high resolution with effects, is there any other asset? As I heard here, these are for “clients sections”, where you have to show stuffs in that right moment, right?

Again, just a curiosity :slight_smile: , how much for a 4 or 8 processors Onyx 350?

Thanks

#9

you’d be suprised at the speed of Shake on a smoking dual Opteron system…

people pay for the “sexiness factor”. a Flame is just sexier than Shake because it costs 50 times more, and has 3d tracking/compositing. Shake 4 (coming out this summer) will have 3d compositing. Combustion already has that as well. Flame systems also have the color warper and other things that differentiate them for certain projects, but for bread and butter compositing, many of the big FX houses are using Shake for almost everything and Flame/Inferno systems for certain shots that they want to do a certain way. I think the “Lord of the Rings” was like 85% Shake and 15% Flame, approximately.

Also, you can basically do just about anything with Combustion. It’s not as “sexy” (expensive) as the Flame, but for music videos, low budget features, motion graphics, etc. it is used every day in huge companies doing major projects.

#10

I saw some video demos about Inferno in Discreet’s web site where they interview Inferno artists. Some of them (can’t remember if all) appear in front of the “workstation” (if I can call a Inferno hardware a workstation) and shows the guys using a tablet (like wacom) to manipulate “things” in Inferno and I wanted to ask wich are the benefits or using a wacom instead of a normal mouse? It sounds stupid the question but, I’m learning :slight_smile: .

And, just curiosity, how much would be for a 4 or 8 processors Onyx 350?

Thanks

#11

tablet is a big improvement in my opinion. using a mouse is like trying to draw with a bar of soap… not very ergonomically correct.

the price for inferno on an 8 proc. onyx maxed with ram and ‘enough’ storage is in the $700k-$1 mil. ballpark.

#12

You mean for painting? The videos I saw they were dragging over the timeline and dragging footages, selecting things, etc… Then I thought why use a “pen” if a mouse can do the same, so it must have an improvement on using it, and seems it’s more confortable you mean, right? If you mean that for paiting in comp, I agree with you, else that, what would be the asset?

Thanks

#13

Some people just get so used to using their tablets when they’re painting that they start to use it for everything. One of my instructors even navigates all of his 3ds max scenes with a tablet.
I can’t stand tablets for anything other than drawing, personally. But I guess it it realy comes down to personal preference.

#14

By reading both replies, seems it’s indeed a personal opinion. I used a wacom but not many times. Don’t know if any of you used it much but, does it have a big diference, of course I mean not by painting but, like -Vormav- said, his instructors navigates all around on his 3ds max scenes?

(maybe I kick off my mouse and change for a pen? :rolleyes: )

Thanks

#15

Flame is more than a sexiness factor. It is very expensive but it has a very specific purpose and position in the market place. Not the least of which is that clients DEMMAND that you use it and are prepared to pay $1000 an hour for the privelage.

I am a total shake evangelist but having used flame/inferno for 2 years I know that there is a lot of power and unique features there. Combustion is not flame, not even close ! Toxic might come close will have to wait and see. The dedicated hardware of flame/flint/inferno (FFI) is much more than just processor grunt and OpenGL through put. It had garunteed broadcast playback res/framerate 10 years ago when all other systems coul;d barely deal with 2 FPS. Also FFI has dedicate video/audio capture and out put via deck control for either digital betacam or now HD. That is worth a fair bit.

FFI is really designed for using the wacom tablet. There is a concept in the interface design called ‘gestural manipulation’ which is really designed to be wacom driven. I would seriously recommned trying a wacom for about 3 weeks or more if you plan to do any serious compositing !!

#16

I use a tablet all the time for compositing these days. I just find it much faster for roto and paint if your already on a tablet and you just hit the hotkeys with your left hand. I have a intuos 3 that I can bring onto a job if they don’t have a tablet for me since I work a lot of onsite freelance.

#17

i didn’t mean to imply that Combustion and the Flame are the same, only differing in speed. the Flame system is definately more robust in many ways.

 a simplified overview of each package's strengths;
 
 [b][u]Flame[/u][/b]
 handles multiple layers more quickly
 faster with HD and 2k material
 3d tracking
 color warper
 editing much more refined than Comb
 file management much more advanced than Comb
 3d import much more advanced than Comb
 3d particle system
 distort
 modular keyer
 
 
 [b][u]Combustion[/u][/b]
 b-splines
 16bit or 32bit float (vs. Flame 12 bit)
 backburner network render system  (free, whereas burn can get expensive)
 vector based paint
 more plugin choices
 2d particle system
 raytraced shadows and reflections

re:Flex warper

 then of course, they have the same color corrector, same discreet keyer, same 2d tracker, Gmasks, etc..

I don’t work for Autodesk, but in my humble opinion Combustion is incredible for the price.

#18

maybe the best way to describe the difference between compositing packages is like comparing cars. here is my impression;

After Effects is like a Chevy Impala, can be souped up to be fast, to have alot of features, or to be plush. Can get you almost anywhere.

Combustion is like a BMW 545-- sleek, stylish, fast, tons of features.

Shake is like a Porsche Cayenne-- big, fast, tons of horsepower.

Flame is like a Bentley Continental GT— extremely fast, robust, sleek, with more power than most will ever need.

Inferno is the Bugatti Veyron-- the pinnacle of power and speed, the top of the top of the line. More horsepower than any production car ever made.

#19

Have you ever used Combustion? It is definatly not fast and is not really feature rich.

#20

Comb was just as fast as Shake on the same machine on a simple-ish project with few layers and plugins-- my only speed reference (on the same machine). I don’t have the same plugins for both to test identical trees. At film rez with alot of layers, it is most likely a different story. Combustion is MUCH faster than AE-- i did comps with same plug ins using same footage files up to 5 times faster with Comb on the same machine.

With all due respect, i don’t know what you mean about ‘not really feature rich’, as it has many features that Shake doesn’t (plus the same color corrector as FFI, better roto than AE, same tracker as Flame, etc.). It also has more plugin options than Shake, and includes the whole suite of 3d tools, where Shake does not (yet). It also has approx. 10x more text options and the whole particle system that Shake lacks, etc… it’s a bit more well-rounded than Shake in many ways.

  It's not fast compared to FFI, but considering the price difference-- Combustion a pretty amazing tool for the money IMHO.
#21

Deke,

i think i figured out why most people believe Combustion is slow-- the settings are hard to get used to. I just spent a few minutes configuring Combustion 4 on a Sun dual Opteron 250 workstation with 4 gigs of ram and a Quadro FX3000. It is pretty fast at 1280 x 910 (custom setting) 12 bit 24fps, but was slow and sluggish until i got my settings right.

Here are my settings;

Preferences-- mostly default, but make sure that software Open GL is unchecked, and uncheck “use texture ram”. Then, in the composite settings, make sure rendering is set to software. Then enable Open GL in the window tab. It’s pretty insanely fast on this system-- at preview resolution on a 1280x910 comp with a Diamond key, color correction, grain removal, and 2 Sapphire camera shake nodes, rendering at about 9fps-- playing back 14fps. Added Sapphire glow to the nested comp, it was down to about 6fps rendering, then 14fps playback. The addition of most other Sapphire plugins (blurs, etc) are rendering at around 9fps in preview rez on the whole nested comp.

I added a particle stream to the comp-- a fireball travelling across the screen, and it rendered in preview rez at approx 9 fps. In Medium rez, it rendered the above comp including the particles plus blur at 17fps then played back at 24fps (the comp speed).

When I do a render to ram, it plays back any rez at 24fps. It took 45 seconds to render 35 frames at best settings.

#22

I work at film rez(S35, 2048x1556) most of the time, so thats where my point of view for it being slow is coming from. It may be fine for you at SD rez, but for compositing film rez it sucks. Roto is fine, paint sucks at float, only good at 8/16 bit, EXR support sucks. Half the stuff I really need is broken. Everywhere I work we always have 2 gig of ram and a nice quadro card. 4 gig is worthless with combustion, doesn’t really make a difference since it can only use 2-2.5 gig until it is made into a 64 bit app.

Yes, I know about all those settings(been using C* since v1). Also when you render to ram or playback and let everything cache on the timeline, it is always going to play back at 24fps or whatever you set it to because its playing from ram.

#23

Yep, guess Shake 4 will be 64 bit… OS X already is, as are several linux distros. Shake can use up to more 2 gigs of RAM when making a flipbook, according to the Shake manual, since it is another process. I have Fedora Core 3 64 bit installed, and the Nvidia driver has been crashing Shake recently when I try to open any file windows. The built-in driver works but is not hardware accelerated, so i’m thinking about getting Suse.

Also, agreed-- Shake is more streamlined for high end feature compositing work that you’re doing. Combustion has kindof a broader tool palette for motion graphics and particles and such, and is designed for prepping elements for FFI-- which are 8 or 12 bit.

Also, have you tried Combustion 4 yet ? Something feels faster with the caching… I may be tripping though :slight_smile:

#24

I’m not going to take sides on this, I hate taking side. :scream:

Beaker - What apps do you use for compositing at film rez? Are you using combustion on mac or pc? It seems like combuistion’s faults are effecting you more than the average person, so in your case I suppose combustion doesn’t fit the workflow. Combustion fits well in my pipeline and I’m happy with it, but the support for 3ds Max is also a huge plus for me. I’m really curious to try out Toxik. It wouldn’t do much for my pipeline today, but it’s something I’d like to look into. It’s more represenative of flame than combustion too. :twisted:

#25

I have used AE, Shake, DF, Combustion, for film compositing, just depends the job I am working and what tools that company uses.

I never said I didn’t like combustion(I use it in production for many things). I was just disagreeing with many of buttachunck’s statements about it. I have equally as many bad things to say about DF, Shake and AE. Just because I say bad things doesn’t mean I don’t like it. It’s just a very slow app. :slight_smile: (no I am not using it on osx).

#26

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