What's New in 2019.2 Update

Flame Family 2019.2 Update Highlights

Creative FX:

  • Light Wrap in Action
  • GMask Tracer in Flame Assist
  • Neat video denoise via OpenFX node
  • Printer Lights in MasterGrade

Python scripting:

  • Timeline
  • Media Panel
  • Render Node
  • Camera 3D

User Feedback:

  • New Bookmarks Manager
  • New file browser
  • And more...

Navigation tips:

For details on all the new features and enhancements in this release, follow the links to navigate to the sections below:

Action

Updated FBX. Action now supports version 2019.2 of the FBX library.

More T-click. In Batch, the resolution of an Action node can be set by T+clicking another clip or node that propagates its resolution information.

New High Polycount FBX Models

These new models allow heavy displacement mapping techniques without resorting to Geometry Subdivision. These models' polycount are in the range of 200 000 to 800 000 polygons, and can impact performance if many are used.

  • PBS_HighPoly_Cube
  • PBS_HighPoly_Sphere
  • PBS_HighPoly_Cylinder
  • PBS_HighPoly_Hemisphere
  • PBS_HighPoly_Cube

Also note that the Subdivide option has no effect on the above models, since the subdivide does not work on sub-pixel polygons that are being used here.

Light Wrap

The Material node in Action can now create a light wrap effect on the following objects: Surface, 3D Text, 3D Shape and Geometry. This implementation automatically identifies the objects behind the light wrapped object, using the 3D scene to define the background pixels. This is more efficient than creating the same effect in Batch. And of course, the same Material can be shared across multiple objects to simplify even further your setup. For additional information, see the Light Wrap settings.

See this video from the Flame learning channel: Light Wrap in Action .

GMask in Flame Assist

GMask, GMask Ellipse, GMask Rectangle and GMask Plane are now available in Flame Assist.

Animation

Tangent Mode. You can now set the default tangents mode in Preferences > General > Animation.

Set Animation Settings. You can now set Tangents, Interpolation, and Extrapolation settings by using a pulldown button named Set. This is to avoid confusion between buttons indicating their status and the buttons to set them.

AVIO

Support for AJA v14.2. The new 14.2 AJA drivers change how HDMI monitoring is done for 4K/UHDTV timings. If SDI is programmed in Square Division (Quad SDI), the HDMI signal is now a 2K/HDTV signal. You must enable the Two Sample Interleave (2 SI) option to get 4K/UHDTV over HDMI. This mode shows 4 full HD frame on Quad SDI instead of the usual four quadrants. Quad SDI capable monitor might require the signal to be converted from 2SI to Quad to properly display a 4K/UHDTV image.

Support for BMD 10.11.2. On macOS, Flame Family products now support Blackmagic Design Desktop Video version 10.11.2.

Sample Interleave (SI) in Broadcast Monitor Preferences. When selecting a UHDTV or 4K Preview resolution, use Sample Interleave option to set the HDMI output to display UHDTV/4K signal. If Sample Interleave option is disabled, 2K/HDTV down-converted signal is displayed on the HDMI output.

Backburner

Backburner Preferences. You can now define Job Priorities and Server Group for cache, proxy generation, and export from Preferences > Backburner.

Updated Config File. The init_sample.cfg file has been updated with the Job Priorities and Server Group for Cache, Proxy generation and Export. Make sure to update your init.cfg file if you need to define these options.

Port configuration. The Background Reactor and Burn TCP ports can now be configured in their respective init.cfg files located in /opt/Autodesk/backgroundreactor_2019.2.pr96/cfg and /opt/Autodesk/burn_2019.2.pr96/cfg. The default port has been changed to 7241 to avoid conflicting with Shotgun.

Removed Option. The Use GPU option for Burn has been removed since CPU Burn is no longer available.

Batch or Batch FX

More renaming. You can now use the Rename keyboard shortcut on nodes selected in the Action, Batch, and Modular Keyer schematic views.

Action Media Input. Action's Media Input nodes are now added under the cursor when added using the keyboard shortcut Add Action Media Input.

Batch Paint Source. Batch Paint's Source nodes are now added under the cursor when they are added using the keyboard shortcut Add Paint Source Input.

Insert and Extract nodes. We have improved the Schematic Insert and Extract node functions available in Batch, Batch FX, and Modular Keyer.

Inverted Delete. Delete (button, keyboard shortcut, contextual menu, gestural or edit mode) now preserves the input and output links between the previous and next nodes. You must now use a modifier to also removes the links. (In previous releases, it would delete links by default and require a modifier to preserve links.)

Colour Management

ACES 1.1 support. A new colour policy has been added for ACES 1.1 support. This updates the HDR view transforms and adds some new view transforms for dealing with different white points and doing gamut limiting. The commonly used SDR transforms for video and cinema were not changed for the 1.1 release and this is reflected in that they retain the "1.0" in their name.

The new transforms:

Connected Conform

You can now modify the source detection threshold used by Create Sources Sequence to merge sources. Go to Preferences > Timeline > Conform > Sources Merge.

This option is used in the context of the Create Sources sequence workflow. When you create the Source sequence, Flame considers every segment: if a segment shares frames with another segment, these two are lumped together into the Sources Sequence. But if a segment shares no frames with any other segment, a new segment is created in the Sources sequence.

But now, with Sources Merge, you can force Flame to consider two segments as part of the same segment, if they: 1. Come from the same source media and 2. Are apart from each other (in the source media) by at most the number of frames defined in Sources Merge. This calculation always considers the handles as expanded.

Effects Tab

The Set Play Mode: Play All Frames and Set Play Mode: Play Real-Time keyboard shortcuts are now available in the Effects tab.

File Browser

We've updated the file browser to look and behave much like the MediaHub.

A new keyboard shortcut, Emulate Double Click, emulates the double-click when you navigate the File Browser and MediaHub folders:

Bookmarks Manager. A new, unified Bookmarks system is available in both the MediaHub and the new File Browser. The Bookmarks menu now holds your bookmarks, as well as a new Bookmarks Manager and a Session History menu. For more information, see Managing Bookmarks with the Bookmarks Manager.

See this video from the Flame learning channel: The Browser & Bookmarks .

GMask Tracer

GMask Tracer is now available as a Node and a Timeline FX in Flame Assist.

Image

Mastergrade

Grading Printer Lights style.You now have access to numeric keypad "Printer Lights" grading style in MasterGrade. For more information, see Working with Printer Lights.

See this video from the Flame learning channel: MasterGrade - Adjusting with Printer Lights.

Curves Menu changes.The Translate X and Translate Y options are no longer available from the Curves' contextual menu.

The Master, Red, Green and Blue buttons available in the Curves sub-menu now properly reflect the selected curves. It is now possible to Ctrl+click the button to select multiple curves.

Look

It is now possible to automatically import a .cc, .ccc or .cdl file in a Look node by using the Media-Relative Look Search Path setting in Preferences > Colour Management. The workflow is the same as with the Look Timeline FX with the exception that a path must be manually propagated to a Look node by selecting it and T-Clicking on a clip node in the Batch Schematic.

Matchbox

The Effect numeric field is now functional in every Matchbox inside of Action, and not only in a Matchbox used with a Selective node. The Effect field is also available in the Animation Channel, like any other Matchbox parameter.

PhysicalGlare

All the blending modes available in to a Matchbox are now available to the PhysicalGlare effect.

MediaHub

You can now set Drop Frame mode for most format, from their Format Specific Options. Use this when the media file metadata is wrong. You can also change the rate and decide how to convert the current timecode data:

Width X Height for custom resolution.Selecting a Custom Resolution now automatically sets the ratio option to Width x Height (W:H).

Bookmarks Manager. A new, unified Bookmarks system is available in both the MediaHub and the new File Browser. The Bookmarks menu now holds your bookmarks, as well as a new Bookmarks Manager and a Session History menu. For more information, see Managing Bookmarks with the Bookmarks Manager.

Media Formats

Faster PSD. Improved browsing performance when working with Photoshop files (PSD) containing quite a few channels.

MP4 Colour Levels. The Colour Level (Full or Legal range) (COLR atom) for MP4 files is now read. In MediaHub>Format Specific Options>MP4>Image, a new Auto option has been added to YUV Headroom section.

SonyRAW. Support for SonyRAW SDK 4.16.0 / RAW SDK 3.1.0:

About QuickTime ProRes from ARRI cameras

Some formats recorded by ARRI cameras in a QuickTime container use the Clean Aperture resolution instead of the native resolution of the file . The files are recorded at a resolution larger than the active image section, and you must make sure to use the right resolution for finishing. The option is located in MediaHub>Formats Specific Options>QuickTime>Image>Clean Aperture. See the table in the QuickTime reference.

Media Panel

The following options are now available from the Media Panel contextual menu:

Miscellaneous

Streamlined first-launch. The following changes have been made to the opening sequence of a software version you are launching for the first time:

  • The End User Licence Agreement (EULA) is no longer displayed within Flame. You must know accept the EULA during the installation process.

  • The Flame works with Shotgun window is no longer presented.

  • The Hardware Validation application is no longer automatically launched.

Plugins

An OpenFX node now appears in Batch, Batch FX and Modular Keyer when a Neat Video OpenFX product is detected on your computer. The node doesn't support any other OFX plugins than Neat Video.

OpenFX is now available as a Timeline FX. The button is greyed out unless an OpenFX plugin is detected on the system.

Python Hooks

Hooks on Batch Iterate. Two new python hooks have been added to the batchHook.py file: batchSetupIteratedPre() and batchSetupIteratedPost(). The hooks are respectively called before and after the Iterate or Iterate As functions are performed from the user interface or the python api.

Python API

More control. The Python API augments it capacity to control the application by extending to new areas.

In Action:

In Batch:

In Media Panel:

In Timeline:

For additional details, see the Python API documentation.

Security (Linux Only)

Control access. X server control access is now enabled by default .

Shotgun

New option to enable Shotgun. The user is no longer prompted to enable or disable the Shotgun Plugin the first time the application is launched. The plugin can be enabled using the Shotgun > Enable option located in the Flame main menu or from the Flame Setup application.

Stabilizer / Tracker

It goes to 11. The maximum value of the Shift X and Shift Y settings have been increased to 1,000,000.

Tangent Panels

Printer Lights

A new grading style, printer lights, is now available on Tangent Arc panels when in the MasterGrade effect.

  • Primary: Function module (page 1-2)
  • Selective: Function module (page 3-4)
Note: Printer Lights grading style has not be mapped on Tangent Element and Wave/Wave2 panels since the mapping occupied all modules. But you can use the Tangent Mapper to assign Printer Lights controls to these panels.

OpenFX

You can now apply or select an existing OpenFX using the Tangent Arc, Element and Wave/Wave2 panels.

Note: Make sure to create a new Flame Family user profile to have access to the updated mapping.

Updated Tangent Hub (1.4.8.2) (macOS-only)

For macOS users, please download the Tangent Hub from Tangent web site from Tangent Element and visit the Application Support tab to get to the Tangent Hub link (Installer for Mac).

Note: If after the installation you need the Tangent Mapper to add a missing panel:
  1. Quit the Flame Family application.
  2. Start Tangent Mapper, using the Desktop icon or from /opt/Tangent/bin/TangentMapper.
  3. Open File menu > Panel Configuration > Edit and add the missing panels.
  4. Quit the TangentMapper.
  5. Start your Flame Family product.

Additional Improvements

Auto-Repeat. Printer Lights and Previous/Next frame are now auto-repeat when the button is pressed on Tangent panels.

Cancel and Confirm. You can now cancel or confirm directly from the Tangent panels.

Fixed RGBCMY. The RGBCMY Curves rotation was inverted on the Arc, Wave, and Elements panels in Lustre 2019.1 release. This is now fixed, but you need to create a new user profile to get the bug fix.

Timeline

Nudge Segments Shortcuts. You can now nudge selected segments to the left, right, top or bottom by using keyboard shortcuts when the Select and Trim editorial modes are selected. For more information, see Nudging Segments with Keyboard Shortcuts.

See this video from the Flame learning channel: Timeline Editing - Segment Nudging.

Timeline Search. The following string comparison options are now available in Timeline Search's Name, Source Clip Name, Tape, Shot Name and Comment criteria:

See this video from the Flame learning channel: Search Presets .

Scrub Audio Shortcuts. The Scrub Audio keyboard shortcuts have been modified in the Flame, Smoke Classic and Lustre user profiles to avoid conflicts with other features.

Viewing

Filtering persists.The status of the Filtering button is now persisted for a user between sessions.

Select Viewport. It is now possible to select a viewport using a keyboard shortcut or a Tangent panel button using the Select Previous Viewport and Select Next Viewport shortcuts. There is no default keystroke assigned to this shortcut.