What's New in Flame Assist 2016 Extension 1

Welcome to the 2016 Extension 1 release of Flame Assist. Follow the links below to read about new features and enhancements in various areas. In some instances, links are provided within the What's New sections to more information within the User Guide.

Note: Follow these links for other What's New information from the 2016 release:

What's New in Application Installation

Central Install

Central Install is an optional installation method that allows multiple versions of Flame-family applications to be hosted on a single repository. This repository can be a full system, a file server, or a compatible data drive. Upon completion of the process, users can then remotely launch their choice of Flame-family applications directly from the installation host on any compatible machine. For more information see the installation guide PDF.

What's New in Project Management

Important Configuration Changes

Important: This only impacts your configuration if you use the default values for the following parameters. If you edited their values, the installation process does not overwrite your edits.

SymlinkAcrossFilesystems

Found in /usr/discreet/sw/cfg/stone+wire.cfg.
Determines if the application uses symlinks or if it copies media locally when it cannot create hard links.
The old default value: True. The application would create symlinks to media files located on remote servers, which is faster than copying, at the expense of data security, such as in cases where a USB drive is unmounted.
The new default: False. The application copies media and no longer relies on symlinks.

NumLocalSlaves

Found in /usr/discreet/wiretapgateway/cfg/wiretapgateway.cfg.
Determines the number of Wiretap Gateway slaves to be used to decode media files.
The old default value: 4. Users tend to edit this value to improve decoding performance.
0 slaves for GPU capable systems (Note : there are some GPU decoding limitations).
Minimum 4 or (Number of CPUs)/4 with 3 GBs of RAM per slave required.

What's New in Proxy Workflow

On Demand Proxies

The Proxy workflow has been greatly enhanced. Proxy generation is now much more granular, in that they can be enabled and disabled for individual clips, at any time, regardless of whether default proxy generation was enabled at project creation.

See: Working with On Demand Proxies.

Proxy Quality Workflow

When playing back media in proxy quality mode, the viewer is bordered in orange, in the Timeline, as well as in Batch.

Granular Cache Status for Clips

Clips now provide a more granular indication of the current status of caching operations. There are now four cache statuses, available from any list view, in the Cached column. Clip icons also change, based on the new statuses.

Media Cache Status Icon	Cache Status in List	Description
	Uncached	Not one frame of the clip is cached, and no caching operation has been requested for this clip.
	Pending	Backburner has been asked to cache the clip's media, but has not started the caching process yet.
	Caching	The clip's media is being cached, frame by frame.
	Cached	Every single frame of the clip is now cached. All of them.

What's New in SDI Preview

The following AJA Kona 4 and AJA Kona 3G Quad broadcast monitor timings are now supported on Flame Assist Linux workstations:

RGB 12-bit and 10-bit SDI Single Link 3G (all HD, 2K DCI, UHD, and 4K preview timings up to 30p).
RGB 12-bit SDI Dual Link 1.5G on HD and 2K DCI preview timings up to 30p.

Note that there is a current defect of corruption on 12-bit SDI out, using UHD and 4K preview on the Kona 3G Quad.

The SDI Preview timing is now saved by project.
Full Range and Normal Range options are now applied to both SDI and HDMI Output on AJA I/O and Preview cards.
The DVI Broadcast output no longer resets when you change the Broadcast settings.

Note: You no longer need to be running the latest AJA firmware in order for the application to run. However, certain features related to broadcast and / or video I/O may not work as expected.

See the supported broadcast monitor timings page for an updated list of all supported timings.

What's New in GPU Decoding

R3D playback performance has been optimized for sequences with multiple segments, sequences with unrendered Timewarp effects and for forward / backward playback.

About GPU Decoding and Wiretap Gateway Slaves

With the recent introduction of GPU decoding, the concept of Wiretap Gateway local decoding slaves is being slowly phased out.

The slaves mechanism had a significant impact on performances for R3D CPU Decoding. No slaves will be used by default for R3D decoding when a GPU decoding capable system is detected (Q6000 and above) unless NumLocalSlaves is explicitly set to a non zero value (it is commented out by default). See the comments in the [Slaves] section of the file /usr/discreet/wiretapgateway/cfg/wiretapgateway.cfg.

Keep in mind that, as mentionned in the wiretapgateway.cfg file, R3D files using Color Science 2.x or HDRx cannot be GPU-decoded, in which case you will need to configure NumLocalSlaves.

What's New in Supported Media Formats

GPU RAW Media Decoding

Flame Assist supports GPU RAW Media Decoding for the ARRIRAW and RED file formats, providing much faster decoding speeds. GPU RAW Media Decoding is enabled by default, if the following conditions are met:

GPU RAW Media Decoding requires the NVidia Quadro 6000, Quadro M6000 or Quadro K6000.
You must update to the latest DKU.
For ARRIRAW media, Debayering must be set to ADA-SW5. This is the default setting.
For RED, Colour Science must be set to version 3.x. This is the default setting.

Improved OpenEXR support (import and export):

Support for version 2.2 of the OpenEXR format.
Support for new compressions:
- DWAA: JPEG-like lossy compression format. Compresses 32 scanlines together.
- DWAB: Same as DWAA, but compresses blocks of 256 scanlines.
These new compressions have their own export presets.

Improved Canon XF-AVC support (import):

Support for XF-AVC 12-bit 444 MXF files.

Improved Panasonic VariCam support (import):

Support for Panasonic Varicam 12-bit 444 MXF media files.

Performance enhancements (import):

TIFF decoding is now faster, which should noticeably improve TIFF playback performance.

Improved DPX support

12-bit packed DPX created by Blackmagic Design Resolve are now correctly read by Flame Assist. In previous versions, red and blue channels were reversed because, while the DPX metadata says the file is RGB-encoded, the file is actually BGR-encoded.

ARRIRAW

Improved ARRIRAW support (import only):

Flame Assist now supports ARRIRAW SDK 5.1.

Support for ARRIRAW ADA-5 SW Sharpening controls.

The Debayering menu now shows the Red, Green, and Blue sliders of the ADA 5 SW Sharpening controls, in addition to the already present Debayering option box.
But to accommodate these additions, the following changes had to be done to the ARRIRAW options:
- The Metadata menu now hosts Clip Name, in addition to the already present Tape Name, Orientation and Timecode options.
- A new Resolution menu now hosts Resolution, Aspect Ratio, and Cropping Aspect settings.
In Lustre, the new ADA 5 SW Sharpening controls are located in Image/Transcode/Format menu. As always, you can copy these settings using the Selector.

MediaReactor Support

Drastic Technology MediaReactor is a new import plugin for Wiretap Gateway, that allows the ingest of multiple file formats not currently supported by Autodesk products.

See MediaReactor Support for details.

Pixspan Support

Flame Assist now supports Pixspan compression, when importing and exporting media.

Pixspan is a lossless compression algorithm that preserves the original media container and metadata while compressing the original media file.

See Pixspan Support for details.

Media Export

H.264 files exported by the application now show the correct frame rate metadata in the header, using QuickTime Player 7 (the issue is not visible in QuickTime Player 10).
The double dot issue, that would arise when exporting a single frame clip without padding as a File Sequence, has been resolved.

What's New in Conform

Connected Conform

Connected Conform is a set of tools created to help you conform sequences that share similar sources and similar contents. Aimed at helping you deliver multiple deliverables, it offers you two new types of specialized sequences, the Sources Sequence and the Shots Sequence. The former helps conforming multiple sequences in a single operation, the latter helps consolidate with shot distribution and processing.

Connected Conform is there to help you when you have multiple deliverables that share structure and source media but:

Are of varying length.
Require different finishing tasks such as visual effects or titling.
Use the same media, but in different locations, or of different durations, or even uses different sections of said media.

The Connected Conform tools allow you to:

Conform a group of imported sequences in a single operation.
Consolidate media ingest and linking by tying together related segments' metadata.
Manage and distribute shots to be worked on from a central location.
Integrate the worked on shots with the imported sequences for final delivery.

All this can be accomplished using the Connected Conform tools which include:

Sources Sequence, a specialized sequence to conform multiple sequences in a single operation.
Shots Sequence, a specialized sequence to help with shot distribution and processing
Shared Segments, a concept to share information between related segments across different sequences.
Reel Group and the Sequences reel, which provides a clear location for the Connected Conform workflow.

See Connected Conform.

Improved Path Translation

A new configuration file allows you to define some form of path translation. Used when conforming AAF or FCP XML files, or when using Link to Media File, it translates the media's File Location so Conform View could quickly find media files. This mechanism is similar to Lustre's Path Translation functionality. See Working with Path Translation.

Miscellaneous Conform Improvements

You can now conform and publish AAF for Avid Media Composer 8.4.
You can now publish AAF for Avid ProTools 12.2.
The AAF & XML Import Options and the EDL Import Options are now saved per project, just like the General and the Format Specific Options.
The Conform list display options such as columns order, columns size, and columns visibility are now saved when you perform a Save Project (Ctrl+S).
You can now increase the width of Conform's Preview panel.
A Proxy Resolution column has been added to the Conform Event List.
In Conform, Link Sources is now the default option, replacing Link Selected.
In Conform and in MediaHub, match criteria are now set in a dialog box. The selected matching criteria then become a preset, that can be reloaded at a later time. Finally, the presets and the currently selected match criteria are common to both Conform and MediaHub > AAF & XML Import Options.
In order to ensure a higher level of accuracy, Animated Timewarps from AAF files are now translated as one keyframe per frame.

AAF & XML Import Options

In the MediaHub and in the Import window, the options Search and Import Files and Link to Media Files are now performed sequentially:

If Link to Media Files is enabled, Flame Assist locates the media files based file paths and names found in the XML/AAF.
For the media that cannot be found, and if Search and Import Files is enabled, Flame Assist tries to locate the media files in the location defined by the Directory Up field, trying to match media to segments based on the defined Match Criteria.

What's New in MediaHub

MediaHub now automatically refreshes whenever you enable or disable Browsing > Essence Mode for formats such as Panasonic P2 clips, or switch between Sequence and Frames in Clip Options > Sequence Detection box for formats such as DPX files.
The following MediaHub's General options are now saved per project: Cache Source Media, Alpha Channel Processing, Generate Proxies, Still Duration.
The matte container options are now all consolidated in the Alpha Channel box.
You can now search for Pixspan encoded media files in the MediaHub, using the Search tool.
MediaHub settings are now saved within the Project settings rather than on a session by session basis. Previously, the application would always reload the last settings of the last session.

What's New in the Media Panel

When no sorting is applied to the media contained in the Media panel, a hyphen (-) is displayed at the top of the Media panel, letting you know that no sorting has been applied.
The default Save Destination Library now displays a yellow arrow over its icon, in the Media panel, making it easier to identify.
You can now display a "Sample Rate" column in the Media panel and the MediaHub list view.

What's New in Desktop Reels

You can now assign a keyboard shortcut to perform the "Add New Reel Under Cursor" function. It is unassigned by default.

Reel Groups

Reel Groups have been enhanced to work with the new Connected Conform feature. Every new Reel Group now has a Sequences reel. This reel is used to store sequences imported for conforming AAF, EDL, or XML sequences.

See Reel Groups.

What's New in Shot Publish

A new token is available in the Rename Shot, Rename, and Comment dialog boxes. Background Index can be used to propagate the background (track .1) segment's Shot Name index to all segments located above it in the timeline.
Tokens added using the Add Token button are now inserted where the text cursor is located, instead of being added at the end of the string.
A new path in the Clip Options tab of the Export window, Output Path, allows you to define the media location for Publish. Existing Sequence Publish default presets have been updated to reflect this change.
You can now create a Batch Group when performing a Shot Publishing, from the Export window's Clip Options tab. And if you enable Create Group, the Batch setup created can also show a Clip or a Write File node as defined by user in the Clip Options tab.

What's New in Colour Management

The following color transforms are included:
- - gamma/apply_PQ_encoding.ctf
  - gamma/remove_PQ_encoding.ctf
  - camera/VisionResearch/Phantom-Log2_to_scene-linear.ctf
The following color transform file formats are supported:
- Academy/ASC Common LUT format (.clf)
- Panasonic VariCam 3D LUT format (.vlt)

What's New in the Timeline

You can now toggle between different Sequence subsets using a popup button located to the left of the Timeline tab. By default, all the Sequences Reels from the current Group are available. Sequences Reels from other Reel Groups are not available. An entry called "Other Sequences" is also available. That reel contains all the open Sequences that are not located inside a Reel Group. A "standard" Reel located in the current Reel Group appears in the list if it contains an open sequence.
It is now possible to hide the Editing panel area in the Conform, Timeline, and Tools tabs by performing a Ctrl+Swipe at the bottom of the screen. By doing so, you end up with a full height version of the Viewing panel (Player, Source-Sequence, Triptych, Freeform, Desktop Reels, Conform list). Viewing panel areas other than the Conform list can also be displayed in a full screen manner if the Media panel is hidden.
You can toggle the new full screen Timeline view by performing a Ctrl+Shift+Swipe at the bottom of the screen.
You can now toggle the full width Media Panel by performing a Ctrl+Shift+Swipe to the left or to the right, depending on where it is displayed.
You can now control whether the Timeline focus remains on the Source or switches to the Sequence after an editorial operation using the Keep Focus After Editing setting, located in Preferences > Timeline > Editing. This option is disabled by default.
A keyboard shortcut is now available for the Large Timeline view (assigned to Shift+F5 in all profiles). It toggles between the larger timeline view and the current timeline height, as set by the user. You can also use Shift+Swipe down to toggle between the Large Timeline view and the normal Timeline view (was previously Ctrl+Swipe).
It is now possible to copy a segment out of a sequence in the following situations:
- The clip is located in a Library and Protect From Editing is enabled.
- The clip is locked.
- The clip is located in a Shared Library and you do not have the exclusive write access.
The Timeline Audio Meters are now displayed only if the current clip or sequence has at least one audio track (when the Timeline Audio Meters option is enabled in the Timeline Options menu).
The FX button that is used to collapse and expand the FX Pipeline menu is now located at the top right of the Timeline canvas and can be toggled using the Toggle FX Pipeline shortcut (assigned to Spacebar+Tab by default).

What's New in Batch FX

Context Views

There are new Context views in Flame 2016 Extension 1, bringing the number of Contexts up from two to ten, while eliminating the need to cycle between the two original views as you change your Context views. Context views can be set and used in Batch FX and the Modular Keyer and, once set, can also be accessed from the Timeline.

See Viewing Nodes in Context.

Other Batch FX Enhancements

You can now select all of the nodes in the Batch FX and Modular Keyer Schematic views, by opening the contextual menu from the Schematic background and selecting the Select All option.
You can now double-click on a Render node while its settings menu is displayed to open the Render List menu. Double clicking on the Render node while the Render list is displayed opens its settings menu.
The Node Proxy status (enabled / disabled) is now persistent. This facilitates the workflow, in that you can display the MUX Proxy and hide the MUX Input Link, in order to re-use a clip, already in the Schematic, in different locations within the Schematic.
Deleting a clip from the Media panel or the Desktop reels that is currently used in the Batch schematic displays an empty clip node in the schematic with its name labeled in red. This is helpful in enabling you to catch mistakenly deleted clips.
The Project and User Custom Bins are now located next to the All Nodes bin in Batch FX and Modular Keyer.
The Iteration drop-down list, accessed by clicking the arrow to the right of the Iterate button is now colour-coded, to match the colour of the iteration in the Media panel.
The Full Height option of the Media panel is now available on monitors of higher resolution than 1920 x 1200.
The Batch FX schematic now highlights the nodes that are invalidating the pipeline and causing the inability to exit Batch FX.
The Save Under Cursor keyboard shortcut Meta+S now saves the current Batch Iteration to the Library Destination instead of the current Batch Group.
The Save Under Cursor keyboard shortcut is also now assigned by default in the Smoke Classic profile. It is still unassigned in the FCP profile.
The Save Current Batch Group is now assigned to Meta+W.
The Save Current Batch FX Iteration is no longer assigned to a keystroke.
Mimic Link now works properly with the Colour Warper node in Batch FX.

What's New in Action

A new Edit Track option, available in the Surface Vertices menu, allows you to edit tracking data directly from the image window without having to switch to the Animation channel.
The Shading Active button located in the Action Setup menu Rendering section can now also be found in the Basics tab for each light.
The HelpLink token is now available for Action Matchbox shaders, allowing you to define a link to a web page containing more information about your shaders.
The Front Matte Offset Matchbox preset has been updated to include a proportional scaling setting, as well as a global axis that is present in the hierarchy on top of the Front Matte Offset Matchbox node.
The FBX SDK has been upgraded to version 2016.1.

What's New in the User Interface

Flame, Flame Assist, and Flare now officially support high resolution monitors (including Apple Retina Displays) and you can now adjust the button size in the application, by modifying the value of the "UI Magnification" token, in the init.cfg file.
Note: On a Mac, to ensure best GUI quality, make sure that System Preferences > Displays > Display is set to Best for display. Tweak the size of the GUI using the "UI Magnification" token . Using the Display Preference to scale the GUI blurs images in the application.
You can also modify the font size of the Tooltips, the contextual menu and the Setup application.
To modify the font size:
1. From the KDE Main Menu, navigate to: Settings / System Settings / Appearance / Fonts.
2. Set "Force fonts DPI" to 120 DPI.
All mentions of "Coloured Frame" have been standardized to "Colour Source".

Introducing Expanded Tooltips

With Flame Assist 2016 Extension 1, we are happy to introduce expanded tooltips. An expanded tooltip is a larger tooltip that can include images, videos and links to other learning resources. Their purpose is to demonstrate functionality that is not easily discoverable. For this release, we have included nine expanded tooltips, which include images and links.

You can find expanded tooltips on the following UI elements:

Insert Edit button (Timeline view)
Overwrite Edit button (Timeline view)
Replace Edit button (Timeline view)
Secondary Edit box (Timeline view)
Link button (Timeline view)
Ripple button (Timeline view)
Keyframe Move Mode box (Timeline view)
Horizontal Scroll Bar (Timeline view)
Vertical Scroll Bar (Timeline view)

What's New in Sparks

You can now develop Sparks to benefit from the HiDPI support, by using a new method: sparkGetUIScaleFactor(). Here are some tips:

This method returns the current UI scale factor, a factor you can assume as constant (it does not change dynamically.) The scale factor is usually 1.0f (indicating no scaling), but can be greater when the application runs on Hi-DPI monitors.
Typical use is within method SparkOverlay() to increase the size of the UI widgets displayed on top of the image in the viewer.
You can find examples of the new sparkGetUIScaleFactor() method in sparkMotionKey.c and sparkWipe.c, both within /usr/discreet/presets/[Product Version]/sparks.

Note: If you use any custom tools built on the Sparks API, you or a developer in your organization may need to modify your code accordingly and recompile your applications.

Miscellaneous Features and Enhancements

You can now set odd number custom resolutions at project creation and in all resolution lists throughout the application.
The list of default resolutions is now seen in width order, in all resolution lists throughout the application.
Batch FX renders are now excluded from an archive when the archive option Archive Renders box is set to exclude renders.
When archiving or restoring files from an archive, Flame Assist now displays a progress bar.
The icon displaying the type of source in clip thumbnails now subtly updates to indicate whether the media is pending caching, or being cached.
When a value has been entered in the calculator, clicking another numeric field in the user interface applies the value entered in the calculator.
You can now click on a colour slider with the Colour Picker to sample that colour.
You can now use the mouse wheel to scroll in the Preset File Browser.
MediaHub now uses the user's secondary group id when browsing for files.
It is now possible to make the following views full screen, using the Toggle Full Screen Area shortcut, which is assigned to Spacebar+~ if using the Flame and Smoke Classic profiles, or Ctrl+F if using the Smoke FCP profile:
- Media Panel
- Timeline View
- Desktop Reels
- Thumbnail View
- Player
- Source - Sequence View
- Triptych View
- Trim View
- Conform List
Player overlay selections now persist between sessions.
You can now toggle the status of Player overlays (Current Selection and Quick Off), using the Meta + O keyboard shortcut.

Preferences Updates:

You can now force the Conform Table to display Timecode information, even if the Time Display Mode is set to Frame, using the Force TC in Conform List button. This preference is set in Preferences > Timeline > User Interface > Time Display Mode. It is enabled by default.
You can now choose whether an Action node in Batch FX is expanded or collapsed by default, using the Batch / BFX Action button. This preference is set in Preferences > TL FX/Batch/BFX > Batch/BFX Action. The default setting is Expanded Node.
You can now control whether the Timeline focus remains on the Source or switches to the Sequence after an editorial operation using the Keep Focus After Editing setting, located in Preferences > Timeline > Editing. This option is disabled by default.
You can now manually flush Batch FX cache libraries to free up some space on the framestore. You can also set a lifespan on the cache files, so that cache files older than the specified value are automatically flushed. See Preferences > Timeline FX/ Batch/ BFX: BFX Cache Life Span (Flush BFX Cache Library) and Batch Cache Life Span (Flush BFX Cache Library).