Publishing Shots

Publishing a Shot

Before distributing shots to others, verify that the structure of the sequence, name the shots, and then distribute them.

To create a shot:

1. Verify that the shot has a "layered cake" structure.

   This structure is the best layout when publishing a shot: Flame uses a bottom-most left-most segment part of the shot to create the shot's timing structure.

   
2. Identify segments that are part of the shot by assigning them an identical shot name. For Flame, a shot is a group of segments that have the same Shot Name.

   You can edit the shot name from the Conform view, or with the Rename Shot option from either the Timeline gear menu or contextual menu.

3. Repeat for each shot on your timeline. Make sure to assign each shot a unique name.
   Tip: The Conform tab provides your with a great overview of your timeline, including assigned shot names.

Possible strategy for naming shots:

1. Select the bottom video track.
2. Select Rename Shot from the Timeline gear menu.
3. From the Add Token, select Segment Index. This assigns a unique shot name to each segment.
4. Now go from segment to segment, assigning each segment the segment id of the bottom-most segment. You can do this in Conform, to edit Shot names in bulk.

When you are ready to distribute the shots, publish them.

To publish the shots to be used by other applications:

1. Export the sequence.
2. In the Media Export window, navigate to the root folder.

   The root folder is the published material destination where the published shot structure is created. When you publish shots, you do not only export the media, you also export additional files that provide information crucial to the shot publish workflow, such as Open Clip XML files and Batch setups for each shot.

3. Set Export to Sequence Publish.
4. Set Format Preset to one of the Shot Publish existing presets.

   For this procedure, we will use Shot Publish - Flame Root Directory (16-bit OpenEXR and No Audio).

5. Click Export.

   Once the export is completed, you can see, next your original sequence, the published timeline named as your sequence but appended with _publish.

When you open a shot published sequence, the versioned shot appears on a different Version layer of the sequence. The bottom Version contains the original sequence.

The versioned shot actually contains all of the media of the shot and effects, keeping the timing from the original sequence.

Create New Version

• Provides access to the open setup in a fashion similar to History. Like History, exiting automatically triggers a new render, however in this case it will create all of the required media and metadata in the appropriate paths in the job tree, and append a version to the timeline segment.

Open as Batch Group

• Load the currently selected version in Batch. This will include the Write File node needed to append versions to the shot, the job tree, and the segments in the timelines where it is used.

Promote to Batch FX

• Ingests the shot directly in the current timeline. This removes the connection to the job tree, as well as its versions.

Opening the Shot in Flare

1. In Flare's Batch view, click Load.
2. Navigate to the folder where the shot's Batch setups are stored.

   Batch setups for shots are placed in the path defined by Clip Options tab > Setup Pattern field in the Media Export window. In the Format Preset Shot Publish - Flame Root Directory (16-bit OpenEXR and No Audio), Batch setups are located in flame/batch/.

3. Double-click the Batch setup to open it.
4. Edit the setup.
5. When done, click Render.

   New media and version information are written to the paths set in the Write File node. The Open Clip XML is updated to include this new version information. And a new version of the Batch setup is automatically saved in the appropriate paths in the job tree.

Viewing a version in Flame:

1. Right-click the published sequence and select Source Versions > Update Source. _publish identifies a published sequence.

   This reloads the associated Open Clip, making sure the latest versions are available for viewing. An updated segment is highlighted in white to indicate that is contains new versions.

2. Open the published sequence.

   The original sequence is displayed on the bottom Version of the timeline. A new Version contains the track with the published shots and referenced media.

3. On the Timeline, locate the shot segment on one of the Published shots tracks.
4. On the Timeline FX ribbon, select a version from the Clip Versions box. Click Pre-Processing if at first you don't see it.

   You can now playback the new version, open it in Batch, promote it to BFX, output it, or simply revert back to a previous version.

Regarding Source Versions options:

• Update Source: Reloads the Open Clip, making sure all the versions are available for viewing.
• Select Current Version: Reloads the Open Clip, and then displays the version defined as current in the Open Clip by the currentVersion property of the <versions> element. Pipeline tools such as ShotGrid can change the Current Version based on approval policies.
• Select Latest Version: Reloads the Open Clip, and displays the latest version.
• Mark All Updates as Viewed: Clears from all the selected clips the white halo that highlights segments that were updated and which help you track down updated segments.
• Version Name: If you select a clip, you can select a version directly from within the Source Versions menu.
Note: You can perform these operations on a segment, a sequence, multi-selected sequences, and even a reel, Reels Group, a library, multiple libraries to updated all sequences within.

Naming With Tokens

You can make it so a segment's name, shot identifier, or comment uses dynamic tokens.

To rename a segment so it uses tokens:

1. Right-click the segment in the timeline.
2. Select Rename.
3. Enter the new name for the segment. Use tokens to use existing metadata.
   Tip: Enable the Dynamic button to have a name that automatically updates its tokens.

To add the clip's height and width to the segment's name:

1. Right-click the segment in the timeline.
2. Select Rename.
3. Click the Pattern field, and then Esc to empty it.
4. From the Add Token box, select Clip Name.

   Pattern now displays: <name>.

5. From the Add Token box, select Width.

   Pattern field now displays: <name><width>.

6. From the Add Token box, select Height.

   Pattern field now displays: <name><width><height>.

7. Add characters to clear up the name: <name>_<width>x<height>.
8. Click Rename. The segment's name now contains its name and dimensions.

You can edit multiple segments in a single operation by first selecting them and then selecting, from the contextual menu, Rename, Comment, or Rename Shot. And what information you type in the dialog box overwrites whatever was already present in those segments.

To add information to multiple segments' shot name, comment, or segment name without overwriting what is already there:

1. Multi-select the segments.
2. From the contextual menu, select Rename, Comment, or Rename Shot, depending what you need to update.

   If you've never edited this information, both the Preview and Pattern are empty. If this is not the first time, they will contain some information.

3. Edit the Pattern field. Add the required text and tokens, but make sure that the relevant token is included. That token is a placeholder for the original information and makes sure. The tokens to include are:
   • For Rename: <segment name>
   • For Comment: <comment>
   • For Rename Shot: <shot name>
4. Click the required button to close the window. Now each segment contains the old information (thanks to the placeholder) and the new information that was added.

Example:

1. Two segments need to be renamed to display their width and height: Segment_1 and Segment_2.
2. Select both segments, and from the contextual menu, select Rename.

   In the Rename dialog box, because this is the first time these segments are renamed, both Preview and Pattern fields are empty.

3. In the Pattern field, add the segments' name placeholder. The Pattern field is now:<segment name>
4. Add the width token, with a colon and space. The Pattern field is now:<segment name>: <width>
5. Add the height token, with an x and a space. The Pattern field is now:<segment name>: <width> x <height>
6. Click Rename.
7. The two segments are now named:
   • Segment_1: 1920 x 1080
   • Segment_2: 1920 x 1080

Using the Custom Index Token

A Custom Index token is available in the Rename, Rename Shot, and Comment Tokens list. Its tokenized name is <index>.

You can define the following three attributes of this token:

• Padding: Represented with # signs like in other tokens.
• Start Point: Represented with the @ sign and a numeric value.
• Increment: Represented with the + sign and a numeric value.

For example, using sh<index####@10+10> on three selected segments will return sh0010, sh0020, sh0030.

The Custom Index is baked-in once applied, which means that subsequent instances of the same segment will not show the <index> token in the Pattern field, but the resolved token previously applied. The index is version-based and the order is based on the Record Time.

Regarding Batch Setups for Shots

Batch setups created with the Shot Publish workflow possess some interesting features that help minimize record keeping.

• The Write File node is already configured to use the correct render paths and the correct Format and Settings options.
• The version number automatically increases every time you render.
• The Batch timing view provides you with the required layer information.

Shot Publish Presets

Note that there is a limited amount of presets for Shot Publish. These presets are provided mainly as examples of naming patterns, examples you can customize to your specific needs. But as you customize those settings, make sure you enable:

• Copy Exported Clip in Media Library: This option creates in your Flame the special _publish sequence with the Version that contains all the individual shots.
• Create Clip Data: This option is the Shot Publish workflow by creating the Open Clip XML files, essential to this feature.
• Clip Versions: This option is required if you want to track the different versions for each shot.
• Create Shot Setup: This option exports, together with the clip, the batch setups required for the FX. Especially useful when working within a Flame-Flare setup.

But you can always edit the different patterns naming patterns to fit your facilities requirements.

Integration with Third Parties

You can integrate Flame in third-party asset management workflows, but it does require some additional work.

This additional work consists of configuring Nuke (or any third-party application) to update the Open Clip XML file. The Open Clip XML file stores version, media, and shot structure information. To leverage that information, the third-party app must be able to decode (and encode) Open Clip XML. You can find information about its format here.

You can integrate this info to a script in the Write node in Nuke, or to a post-render script in Maya. Rendering in such an application automatically runs the script to wrap the footage in the Open Clip XML format and automates this process. If any new renders are output from these applications, they automatically update in the Open Clip XML file.

If you additional monitoring or automation needs, you can use available Python hooks to integrate Flame into a shot management system.

And from the Flame, the process is identical to working with a Flare.