Autodesk’s Flame Family of products now runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), empowering creative teams to deliver professional-grade content fast and securely, virtually from anywhere. Flame on the cloud debuts in a feature-rich update to Autodesk Flame, Flare, and Flame Assist, along with enhanced HDR and animation workflows to help artists achieve high-end VFX that exceed client and audience expectations.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to support a cloud-based production ecosystem for the media and entertainment industry, our engineering team worked closely with AWS and system integrators to bring artists an alternative to working with Flame via on-premise workstations. Artists can now tap into Flame on the AWS cloud, helping teams scale up capacity during crunch times without needing to purchase additional hardware. Working on the cloud further supports seamless collaboration with remote artists, as globally dispersed teams are tasked with managing increasingly complex productions,” Autodesk engineering director Steve McNeill said.
“Embracing a fully cloud-based VFX workflow enables creative studios like Preymaker, an early pioneer and adopter of Flame on AWS cloud, the ability to recruit talent from around the world. Preymaker is all about having the finest talent using the best technology, and running Flame in AWS allows us to recruit and work with exceptional talent who live anywhere. Having Flame projects live in the cloud, with artists collaborating in multiple locations, we are able to create exceptional work for our clients. Our colorist in Los Angeles can start a project, with our Flame artist in London doing the conform, ready for our CGI team in New York to continue work. Ultimately, the cloud gives us the flexibility to execute highly complicated, demanding, and compute-intensive projects in a collaborative cloud-based workflow,” explained Preymaker founder Angus Kneale.
Updates in this Flame release include:
Flame on AWS: Autodesk’s Flame Family of products can now be run on the AWS cloud, offering a scalable and secure work environment with a wide selection of compute and storage services. Teams gain access to powerful, modern hardware without requiring additional CapEx to purchase new on-premise workstations. Artists can connect to a Flame instance anytime, anywhere with solutions like Teradici CAS remote desktop software using PCoIP technology and be up-and-running in minutes, freeing up cycles to focus on creative tasks rather than technical aspects of production. And with parallel distributed file storage solutions built with WEKA, artists can safely store and playback shots in real-time.
Improved Animation Editor: A redesigned animation editor panel provides artists with an enriched workflow for manipulating curves. More intuitive framing and filtering of curves, enhancements that fine-tune the selection of points in complex graphs, and simplified terminology in drop-down menus and buttons further help to expedite artist workflows.
Enhanced HDR User Interface: To support increasing demand for HDR workflows, a new setting optimizes Flame’s user interface (UI) on HDR monitors, allowing artists using on-premise workstations to accurately view and manipulate vibrant, high-quality imagery. Artists can now see the viewport picture and background interface together in HDR fidelity on HDR capable monitors.
Apple M Series Support: Compatibility with Apple M series devices via Rosetta 2 offers new hardware options and improved performance for artists.
More Capabilities: Artists can run Autodesk’s Flame Family of products on Rocky Linux 8.5 and enjoy updated camera RAW formats like RED, Blackmagic RAW, and Sony X-OCN from VENICE 2 6K and 8K cameras.
The latest update to Flame, Flare, and Flame Assist is now available at no additional cost to Flame Family subscribers.
