Flame 2016 – out of the box and on to the Mac
Autodesk is evolving its entire Flame family, announcing Flame support for OS X, a $750 per month subscription option for Flame software, and making Flare and Flame Assist software available as standalone products.
Autodesk plans to continue to sell perpetual licenses of the Flame Family, but is making available new monthly, quarterly and annual subscription options for Flame, Flare, Flame Assist and Autodesk Lustre.
Flame will be available as a software only product from today, from $750 per month. Customers can choose their own qualified Linux hardware, with sales of Flame as a turnkey system set to discontinue next year
Flame on Mac OS X will be available as part of the Autodesk Flame Extension 2 release, available later this month. Autodesk didn’t have configuration specifications for Flame running on OS X today, but said recommendations will be available soon.
You can also now purchase Flare and Flame Assist licenses, with no requirement to own Flame software already. Monthly subscription prices start at $400.
Autodesk said in an announcement today that the moves aim to “meet the needs of a growing base of creative professionals including freelancers and smaller facilities that need access to powerful 3D visual effects and finishing tools to tackle tough jobs.”
Marc Stevens, vice president, Film & TV, Autodesk, said, “With the new Flame business model, it’s never been easier for artists and studios to access these powerful tools they need for the high-end finishing their customers demand. Community feedback is vital to the future of Flame, and these changes reflect what our customers want.”
The Flame Family 2016 Extension 2 release also brings new format support and performance gains in colour grading workflows, said Autodesk.
Across the Flame family of products, when importing media, artists can take advantage of new support for the full DNxHR media family by using either QuickTime or MXF containers, as well as updated support for R3D media files including R3D SDK 6.0.3.This allows Flame to directly support the new RED Dragon 6K sensor and Rec 2020 colour space.
When exporting media, the extension supports Sony MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Studio Profile (SStP) encoding in an MXF wrapper, supporting a variety of formats and presets.
Also in Extension 2, Lustre Reactor brings new GPU acceleration to colour grading workflows and significantly improves performance when using blur, keying and softness controls for both preview and rendering operations, said Autodesk.
Other enhancements in Lustre include 32-bit floating point GPU rendering locally, via Shot Reactor and when using Autodesk background rendering software; performance enhancements when working with Open EXR source media with embedded mattes; UI support for high DPI monitors (4K); and new Print View and Print LUT support when using AJA SDI output.
For more information, visit autodesk.com/FlameUnleashed.