Flame Masters II

Taught by Sam Edwards

Course Number:
FLM209
Software Version:
2015 
Original Run Date:
January 2015 
Duration:
5 hours 58 minutes 
vfx
mograph
The Flame community has seen a resurgence of interest in the venerable software. From a strong user-created Facebook community to user-led groups in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, and other cities around the world, artists are once again excited about the software. The releases after the Anniversary edition have seen substantial improvements in stability and creative features, and free training editions have made the software more accessible to artists who want to learn Flame. Our Flame Masters course speaks to resurgence of the community, bringing three artist perspectives to lead the course.

Returning from his FLM208 course, Sam Edwards leads several lessons covering techniques artists can use every day on the job. From how to push the limits of morphing and warping techniques in Action to production-proven tips for cleaning up motion-estimated time warps. Edwards is a long-time flame user and owner, having recently composted over 250 shots for the new Cosmos television series. At IBC 2013, he was honored with “Recognition for versatility using Flame” as part of the Flame Award event.

Artist Scott Balkcom is a particles guru and will be sharing his tips and techniques for the first time with fxphd members. The particle system can be quite complex and intimidating for artists, but his series of four lessons aim to demystify the process. Balkcom will be showing how he uses particles to create realistic effects such as cold breath, snow, and even blood. He’s been using Flame for commercial, eposodic, and film work since 1993.

Flame is the hub where it call comes together at the end of the project, and to that end our last prof John Fegan will be sharing job-proven workflow techniques. He’s recently completed a short film where he served as Avid Editor, effects artist, and finisher — and will be showing a solid workflow to help you get your job done efficiently.
 
Flame Masters II
Watch our overview of the course

Class Listing

Class 1

Sam Edwards tries to break the new extended bicubic surface by using it to create a static morph using UV’s and Vertices. Footage and LogicOps are provided as a batch setup for you to use in your own work.

Class 2

Sam Edwards continues with morphing with the extended bicubic surface, by creating a tracked morph. We see that there are certainly plusses and minuses to this workflow, but gain greater control of these new surfaces. We also cover some advanced scripting and the difference between 'shape-channel' on and off.

Class 3

Scott Balkcom uses the particle system to create cold weather breath, creating the texture and manipulators from scratch.

Class 4

Using the particle system, Scott Balkcom begins the next mini-project by adding snow to the previous breath scene.

Class 5

Sam Edwards looks at a real world project using the extended bicubic for beauty work. We pay special attention to the ability to invert the motion of a bicubic surface to tackle a project that would have been very difficult without. Note: this lesson contains nudity.

Class 6

Scott Balkcom polishes and finishes up the snow particles for this leg of the project.

Class 7

There will be blood. Scott Balkcom gets away with murder by using the particle generator.

Class 8

John Fegan goes over the offline workflow process for the movie "Cronus" in preparation for bringing the entire feature film online in Flame.

Class 9

Sam Edwards examines creating a day for night shot. The main techniques used are color correcting and g-masks. But we also look at how to add the final decorations that really sell the shot. You can use the techniques discussed on almost any log exterior footage.

Class 10

John Fegan retuns to finish up the project. We import our AAF's we exported in the previous lesson and get those ready for color grading. We have Jason Starnes the colorist of "Cronus" show us the Flame to Lustre process we used on the project. Last but not least we learn how to utilize the bash shell to create an alias that will speed up matchbox updates for Flame.