Very Important Tips and Fine Print

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‌Very Important Tips and Fine Print

 You need to left-click into the Action or Batch schematic to get Flame’s attention before using the right-click menu items Send or Receive: Flame is picky and can present the menus, but then not do anything. Keep an eye on the status line at lower left to ensure that Flame really did what you asked.

 The Python menu items for SynthEyes rely on the current shot’s SynthEyes files being where the clip’s note says they are, or if the note is missing, at the location determined by the configuration information. The SynthEyes exporter must continue to export to that location for the menu items to work.

 To be able to update Flame from SynthEyes tracking changes, it’s important that you not change node names, tracker names, etc in Flame. Change them in SynthEyes, export, and Receive in Flame.

 Use the “Std. Radial 4th-order”, “Std. Anamorphic 6th-order”, or “Std. Anamorphic, Merged 6th-order” models in SynthEyes, which Flame’s Lens Distortion node supports. The Std. Radial 4 th-order option is selected during shot setup.

 Don’t use the Default camera if noticeable lens distortion is present. It doesn’t accept a de-centered lens, and it may be problematic to later change to a Camera3D that does support an off-center lens.

 At present, anamorphic shots should be handled after they have been unsqueezed to square pixels for use by both Flame and SynthEyes. (This means that the ROT parameter’s effect isn’t quite right!) This area is still being studied.

 Don’t run “Lens Workflow” — it isn’t necessary or supported. (Overscan rendering is used)

 If you’re told to increase the overscan when reading exports into Flame, do it! An insufficient value may cause hard-to-notice image clipping in final renders.

 You can send shots to SynthEyes from clips in batch groups, from “Create BFX” nodes (eg after color correction), or from timeline BFXs. You can send multiple shots from within a single Batch Group too.

 When multiple clips are in a single Batch Group, you’ll need to select one before running ‘Send to SynthEyes’ or ‘Receive from SynthEyes.’ Be sure to right-click inside the clip node to bring up the menu. If you right-click outside, Flame de- selects the node before running the script, and you’ll get an error message.

 If you’re intending to use the final clipReComp, don’t forget to cut or disable the Action node’s background.

 Be thoughtful about using characters other than A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and _ (underscore) in the names of SynthEyes objects and in Flame clips (or node names). Flame limits node names to the alphanumeric characters above, also prohibiting names beginning with a number. Unacceptable characters are converted to underscores, which may create duplicate names that cause errors. For example, if you have name “Box-1” and “Box+1”, they’ll both become “Box_1” and fail… but of course these were confusing names to start with. Flame clip names inexplicably can contain more characters, even when they appear as batch node names; but when the clip name is used as part of an Action node name, it gets sanitized. Clips with no names will be reported as an error. Stay safe.

 After changing a mesh in SynthEyes, in Flame you’ll need to click its Alembic Scene node’s “Refresh” button. For more information on those Alembic Scene nodes (vs ‘Action Nodes’ imports), see Autodesk’s Working with FBX and Alembic Scene Nodes .

 See the Flame exporter’s Unsupported Features list if something isn’t happening that you expect.

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