What's New in Smoke 2017

Welcome to Autodesk Smoke 2017. This release introduces many new creative features, performance and workflow enhancements, and other user-requested improvements. Make sure to check http://www.autodesk.com/vxf for the latest Smoke documentation (including Installation Guides, Release Notes, and other documents). Also, many new feature videos (as well as other workflow videos) are available at https://www.youtube.com/user/SmokeHowTos. This Learning Channel is updated frequently, so be sure to subscribe or bookmark the page.

Follow these links to navigate to the sections below:

Hardware Configuration

10-bit Precision Graphics Monitor

Smoke can now use the full bit depth of a 10-bit precision graphics monitor (requires El Capitan 10.11.2 or later).

The application should automatically configure itself to the correct bit depth. If the application still runs in 8-bit mode even when the attached monitor supports 10-bit, you can force the application to use the 10-bit mode.

To force the application to use the 10-bit mode:

  • In a Terminal window, log in as root.
  • Type: bash
  • Type: export DL_XG_VISUAL_DEPTH=10
  • cd to the application: cd /usr/discreet/<flame_version>/bin
  • Start the application. Type: ./startApplication

High Resolution Monitor Support

Smoke now officially supports high resolution monitors (including Apple Retina Displays), and you can adjust the button size in the application, by modifying the scaling factor control in the Smoke Setup utility.
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.

SDI Preview

See Broadcast Monitor Supported Timings on Mac Workstations.

Proxy Workflow

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.

Resource Management

A Resource Manager utility is now available from the Smoke menu. The Resource manager indicates the amount of RAM and VRAM that are Available, Used by the system, Used by the software, and Free. It also lists the RAM and VRAM clients, and details their memory consumption.

For more information, see Resource Management.

Conform

Archive

Media Import

ARRIRAW

Improved ARRIRAW support:

  • Smoke now supports ARRIRAW SDK 5.3.

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. 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.

Canon XF-AVC

  • Support for XF-AVC 12-bit 444 MXF files.
  • XF-AVC spanned clips are now seen as a single clip in MediaHub.

DPX

Improved DPX support

  • 12-bit packed DPX created by Blackmagic Design Resolve are now correctly read by Smoke. 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.

DNxHR

  • DNxHD: DNxHD 100 and 444 MXF (OP-1a) media files generated by Blackmagic Design Resolve are now supported
  • 10- and 12-bit (QuickTime, MXF OP-1a and OP-Atom) generated by Avid applications are now supported.
  • You can now import Avid DNxHR media, using either QuickTime or MXF containers. The whole DNxHR family is supported:
    • DNxHR 444
    • DNxHR HQX
    • DNxHR HQ
    • DNxHR SQ
    • DNxHR LB

OpenEXR

Improved OpenEXR support (import and export):

  • Support for version 2.2 of the OpenEXR format.
  • Multi-Channel OpenEXR files with multiple alpha channels / matte are now imported as Matte Containers with all available mattes.
  • 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.

Panasonic

Improved Panasonic VariCam support (import):

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

RED

  • Support for the RED SDK version 6.1, which includes support for the Dragon 6K sensor, RED Weapon (8K) and RED Raven (4K) cameras.
  • Support for the following R3D Gamma Curves:
    • HDR2048
    • BT1886
    • LOG3G12
  • When importing R3D media files from the MediaHub, it is now possible to use the file header information for various settings. This addition makes importing multi-selection of R3D files easier since you can define manual settings for some parameters while preserving camera original settings for non-modified options. You can set it up in the MediaHub, in the R3D format options.
  • The following boxes from the Colour menu now have a From File option:
    • Colour Science
    • Colour Space
    • Gamma Curve
    • HDRx Offset
  • The following toggles, located in the Image menu, set the behaviour of associated fields:
    • Image Settings From File: Enable to use information from the imported R3D file to set the options displayed in the the Image menu. Disable to use the MediaHub values.
    • Advanced Settings From File: Enable to use information from the imported R3D file to set the options displayed in the the Advanced Colour menu. Disable to use the MediaHub values.
    • The 'Save As User Settings' option is now enabled by default and allows you to use the camera settings as a starting point in the Pre Processing Options.

TIFF

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

XDCAM-EX

The timecode of High Frame Rate (HFR - 50p, 59.94p, 60p) material is now accurately calculated at import.

Note: Non-atomic Movie files (files where audio and video do not have the same durations) are now seen as valid sources. To ensure that audio and video tracks are of the same duration, silence or No Media is added at the end of the clip to make up for the difference.

For more information, see Supported File Formats.

Media Export

Improvements to available export codecs:

Other export enhancements:

Supported Media Formats

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

Smoke 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.

MediaHub

Media Panel

For more information, see Using the Media Panel.

Multi-Version Enhancements

Support for multi-version has been improved, making it easier to integrate multi-version clips into your workflow. Multi-version workflow requires the use of Open Clip files, and is an extension of the publish workflow previously available. The following enhancements are now available when you use multi-version clips.

For more information, see Working With Open Clip Files.

Some of the improvements:

Changes to the structure of an Open Clip:

Colour Management

Five new or updated Colour Transforms are available for HDR, based on the most recent update of ACES 1.0.1, enabling the display of pure black on Sony X300 HDR monitors:
  • RRT+ODT/ACES_to_P3-D60_PQ_1000nits_1.0.ctf
  • RRT+ODT/ACES_to_P3-D60_PQ_2000nits_1.0.ctf
  • RRT+ODT/ACES_to_P3-D60_PQ_4000nits_1.0.ctf
  • RRT+ODT/ACES_to_HDR_r709-g2.6_1000nits_1.0.ctf
  • RRT+ODT/ACES_to_HDR_r2020-g2.4_1000nits_1.0.ctf (new)
A new levels transform to improve precision when importing lens rectification maps and a transform for applying the 52.37/48 DCI headroom scaling are also available:
  • levels/offset/subtract_0.5.ctf (new)
  • levels/dci_headroom.ctf (new)

Other colour management enhancements:

  • A new Auto mode in the MediaHub uses rules and format-specific colour space preferences to convert various types of media to a common scene-linear Working space.
  • In Auto mode, the rules are resolved at import to assign a colour space to the clip. If you update your rules, you can go into Pre-processing options for already imported clips and reselect From File or Rules from the Input Colour Space menu in order to get the latest colour space from the updated rules.
  • For ARRI, RED, and Sony camera native formats, Auto mode converts directly to the chosen Working colour space using the highest quality path (i.e. you do not have to worry about which camera-specific Gamma and Colour primaries to specify in each format's SDK options).
  • In the Input Colour Space menu there is a + Add New option to allow users to add their own colour spaces from LUTs or colour transforms. Doing this creates a ctf in the Shared directory specified in the Preferences.
  • A new table in Colour Management Preferences allows the rules to be defined which assign a default Input colour space based on filename.
  • The MediaHub Format Specific Options tab provides a Colour Management setting for temporary adjustment of the Input colour space to assign when importing a specific format.
  • A selection of Input and scene-linear Working colour spaces are offered as menu options. These options are currently the ones used in Maya and we are soliciting your input on the list you would like to have for the release. The ability to add user LUTs is being worked on for an upcoming beta.
  • A new Input Transform tab in the clip Pre-Processing options allows adjusting the Input-to-Working space conversion for specific clips.
  • A new Input Transform tab in the Clip, Read File, Render, Write File, and LUT Editor nodes also allows the Input-to-Working space conversion (and its inverse) to be applied in ConnectFX.
  • A source's assigned colour space is now displayed in the MediaHub clip info.
  • New Input and Working colour space options for Media Hub.
  • New colour transforms in the Autodesk collection for transcoded RED media.
  • New default import rules for OpenEXR and DPX.
  • The LUT preferences page has been renamed Colour Management.

Player

Audio

The following are improvements to the audio capabilities of Smoke:

Timeline and Timeline FX

ConnectFX

Context Views

There are new Context views in Smoke, 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 ConnectFX and the Modular Keyer and, once set, can also be accessed from the Timeline.

See Viewing Nodes in Context.

Other ConnectFX Enhancements

  • You can now select all of the nodes in the ConnectFX and Modular Keyer Schematic views, by opening the contextual menu from the Schematic background and selecting the Select All option.
  • Deleting a clip from the Media panel or the Viewing panel that is currently used in the ConnectFX 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 Full Height option of the Media panel is now available on monitors of higher resolution than 1920 x 1200.
  • The Node Proxy status (enabled / disabled) is now persistent. This facilitates the workflow where 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.
  • The Project and User Custom Bins are now located next to the All Nodes bin in ConnectFX and Modular Keyer.
  • The ConnectFX schematic now highlights the nodes that are invalidating the pipeline and causing the inability to exit ConnectFX.
  • Mimic Link now works properly with the Colour Warper node in ConnectFX.

Burn-in Metadata

Burn-in Metadata is a new flexible tool created to replace and expand on the Burn-in Timecode tool. Available as a node in ConnectFX, in the Tools tab, and as a Timeline FX.

Note: The Burn-in Timecode tool is no longer available in ConnectFX and the Tools tab. It can however be restored from an Archive.

Burn Metadata includes the following features:

For more information, see Burn-in Metadata.

Action

Action Live Preview Mode

Introducing Live Preview mode. You can now toggle between 3D and Live Preview in the F4 viewport of Action. This allows you to toggle between a 3D viewport, and a pixel-based viewport of the same scene. This solves a large number of issues, including allowing Action widget support in the different Context views for the selected output; including Timeline Primary/Secondary context, Connect FX context and MK Context. Live Preview mode also improves the interactive performance, since it is reducing the shading coverage of the scene, and makes better use of HWAA and properly supports proxy and resolution options. Hardware anti-aliasing or any post-processing effects (such as Lens Flares and Rays) are not available in the 3D view, and can only viewed in the Live Preview view mode. Adaptive Degradation has also been refactored, allowing for Live Preview specific options to create feature parity with the 3D view.

Tip: Use the 3 keyboard shortcut to cycle between the Live Preview and 3D View modes.

See Live Preview and 3D View.

Action Outputs

  • Introducing the concept of render layers in Action output, allowing you to set multiple render passes, based on a single camera and object selection. The Primary output selection allows you to quickly define a single render pass render layer of any output type.
  • More viewing flexibility in the new output system: F4 always shows the current output selection, even when the render pass is not set to be an active output socket of Action. When in an Output view, you can cycle through selected Render Passes associated with a Render Layer (press 1 to navigate down the list, or press 2 to navigate up the list).

See About Rendering Outputs from Action.

Other Action Improvements

  • You now have the option to enter the full Blur editor from the Media list. By using the X and Y Blur fields, you perform a Gaussian blur. To perform other blur types, double-click the new Blur field to enter the full Blur editor.

  • Lights now have a parametric falloff model that is easier and faster to use than the graphical model. See Using the Light Bevel Curve.
  • A new parametric bevel option is available for 3D Text, added to the previous Bevel, Position, and Rotation options. Parametric Bevel allows you to set the bevel using numeric fields, which is both easier and faster than using the curve.
  • The Toggle Icons Draw Mode shortcut has been renamed to Cycle Icons Draw Modes and it now cycles between the On, Off, and Selected Icons display modes.
  • Performance and quality have been improved for 3D Soft and 3D Hard Shadows.
  • Shadow Cast now supports 32-bit shadow maps, fixing the shadow precision problem with large shadow maps.
  • The FBX SDK has been updated to version 2017.0.1.

Matchbox

For more information on these new Matchbox features, as well as complete information of creating your own shaders, see the Shader Builder API Guide: http://www.autodesk.com/shader_builder_api_guide.

General Workflow and User Interface

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 ConnectFX is expanded or collapsed by default, using the CFX Action button. This preference is set in Preferences > TL FX/CFX > CFX 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.

Shortcut Updates

  • A dialog window now appears on screen to indicate that a key is stuck on your keyboard, preventing you from using keyboard shortcuts. The message indicates which key must be released to fix the problem.
  • The Display Node Information shortcut has been modified from Ctrl + I to Ctrl + Shift + I to avoid conflicts.
  • The Toggle Draw Icons shortcut has been modified from I to Ctrl + I in the Smoke Classic and Smoke FCP profiles, to avoid conflicts and to make it consistent with other such shortcuts.
  • It is now possible to use the Rename Under Cursor shortcut in the Timeline. The shortcut is assigned to N by default in the Flame Profile. It is not assigned to a keystroke in the Smoke Classic and Smoke FCP profiles, since these profiles use the Rename (selected) shortcut by default.