Connected Colour Workflow Considerations

While the Connected Colour Workflow integrates Lustre and Batch very efficiently, the following considerations must be taken into account:

Grade Invalidation

When you apply Batch Effect post Lustre node, the resulting shot in Lustre is seen as being part of the baked grade. Any modification to the grade requires a render of the Batch scene. A warning is shown when applying any modifications that would invalidate the Batch Effect.

Burn can be used to render Batch effects from Lustre but requires Flame/Flare to be running.

Viewing LUTs and Colour Transforms are not shared between the applications, so make sure to manually set viewing in both applications in order to view the expected results.

The default Project location for Batch renders is the project home folder. Make sure to change this location to a location on your fast storage. This also applies to the Degrain cache location.

Content that has been retimed in Lustre is not seen in Batch as retimed content. Any effect work is done pre Retime effect.
Avoid applying a Batch effect to a shot that has a reverse Retime effect, as the result may not be accurate.
Content with a Retime effect applied in Lustre will not have the correct speed in Batch. This limitation means that you can still apply Batch nodes before the Lustre node but the preview of the effect is not correctly displayed in Batch. Applying Batch nodes after the Lustre node creates inadequate results since the retime effect is not computed.

Modifications done through Gang and Group to Batch effects are not yet supported.

The Flip/Flop effect applied in Lustre is displayed as part of the Read File node in Batch.
Any modifications applied to the Flip/Flop effect in Lustre, after a Batch effect has been applied, might require modifications to the Batch Effect in order to adapt the effect to the updated media orientation. For example, a Paint effect in Batch on flipped media would require modifications to the paint effect for it to appear in the correct position on the image. This is because the Flip/Flop effect is never rendered by Batch, but simply displayed by the Read-File node. The Flip/Flop effect is rendered by Lustre.
Reposition and resizing are part of the Write File node in Batch, so any modifications done in Batch is applied to the original media. This provides Lustre with the ability to modify the Reposition and Resizing parameters, post Batch Effects, without having to re-render the Batch Effects.
When a shot is cropped or resized in Lustre, the Batch effect is applied to the original resolution of the media. While this behavior may not be expected in some cases, it enables a non destructive workflow allowing to reframe the content after adding Batch effects.
Avoid using Top and Bottom Cropping with different Top and Bottom values when using shapes. If the Batch effects are applied next to the Lustre node, the position of the shapes may not be accurate.

Though matte clips from Lustre are visible in Batch, they cannot be modified or connected to a node that would modify the clip. It is also not possible to connect a matte to the Write File node. The recommended practice for external matte is to first import them in Lustre, since they cannot be added in Batch. Working with mattes in Batch is still possible, however the actual matte clips will not be displayed in Lustre.
When working with external mattes from Lustre, avoid changing media attributes (Flip/Flop, resize, etc) in Batch as Matte media is not affected and the result will not be accurate.

Importing a Batch setup that contains a Lustre node on a Mac-based Flame Family product will not render the Lustre grade. Lustre grade rendering is only available on Flame Family Linux-based products. On OSX, the Lustre node is a pass-through node, where the effect is not applied but the Batch scene can still be rendered.

Within Batch, it is possible to save in any Batch bin to a Lustre node. This way, the grading effect can be applied to other Batch scenes. If the Lustre node requires a matte, recalling a Lustre node will not work since the grade requires a matte input to produce a valid result and the Lustre node does not have a matte input. An error message is displayed when loading the Lustre node to the Batch scene.

You can decide if handles are provided to Flame when adding a Batch effect by enabling the Heads &Tails option in the Render / Local / Render Options menu. When disabled, only the media required for the shot is provided to Batch. When the option is enabled, the entire clip (including heads & tails) is provided to Batch. But in either case, the full duration of the source clip remains available in Batch. If Heads &Tails were disabled in Lustre, clicking the Write File node displays the duration of the shot between brackets and only those frames are rendered.

Batch Flags are now available to mark the presence of a Batch effect on shots in Lustre:
- Yellow: Indicates that the Batch effect on the shot is not rendered, meaning that what is displayed is not final.
- Green:Indicates a rendered Batch effect on a shot.

Degrain cache cannot be generated in GPU mode. Disable GPU mode and then playback the shot that requires Degrain cache.
Media generated with Batch effects is 16-bit float, even for integer cut in Lustre. This provides the highest rendering quality. In this workflow, avoid disabling GPU mode as the media may not be displayed correctly.

The Lustre node in Batch can be saved just like any other node in the Batch bins. This means that Lustre grading effects can be used in any Batch scene outside of a Connected Colour Workflow (i.e. on the same workstation or any workstation that is not running Lustre). This is a great workflow when you need to deliver graded content. However, there are some limitations:
- If the Lustre node requires an external matte, it will not be possible to re-use this node in a Batch scene because of the dependency on the original Lustre content.
- If the Lustre node requires external content such as a plugin applied in Lustre or a LUT or Color Transform, these must be available on the workstation using the grade. This is the case when, for example, the Batch setup is loaded on a different workstation than the one used by Lustre / Flame or Flare.