The redesigned Batch Paint module was used in the Stop Me video. An illustrator designed style frames of the cartoon tears. With the Batch Flame tool, Szumsk created his own animation cycles and revised others easily.

Meanwhile, Batch Paint has been re-designed. I never used Batch Paint in previous versions of Flame. It just wasn't an improvement upon the Paint module available from the desktop and very counter-intuitive. The redesigned Paint module is very helpful. The rotation and onion skinning features are very welcome in the paint module. I used these features in the Stop Me video as well. We worked with an illustrator that would design style frames or minimal keyframes of the cartoon tears that eventually flood Los Angeles. With the Batch Flame tool, I was able to create my own animation cycles and revise others easily. We had many revisions to the artwork for Stop Me. The ability to save my paint strokes was a huge timesaver. I did have some problems working with unusual resolutions and experienced more frequent crashes. I hope this is resolved in the next service pack release. Another improvement is FBX import/export support. FBX import/export was a feature that was included way back to version 9.5 but sadly it never functioned properly. I did a test exporting a camera from Maya with some models and it worked perfectly.

Aside from improvements to the existing software, a Motion Blur/Motion Vector tool has been added. In the past, I used sparks to add Motion Blur to CGI and time-warped footage with mixed results. The Motion Blur/Motion Vector tool in 2008 is fantastic. I used this for Sprint/MTV Movie Awards and Animal Collective's Peacebone and had great results. The post Motion Blur looks very convincing and is fast to render. Another new addition is 16-bit float support and Open EXR import support. Unfortunately, it is not supported in all modules.

The added Motion Blur/Motion Vector tool in 2008 is fantastic. It was used for Animal Collective's Peacebone to great results.

Flame 2008 is a big step forward for Autodesk, showing a strong commitment to the product by redesigning the interface, including some much needed new features and many improvements to the existing software. The Multi-Track, Multi-Layer Timeline will change the way Flame artists work. My only complaint would be a lack of new creative tools; for example, I would like to see the addition of shadows into the Flame 3D compositing environment or a re-tooled particle generator. These are old requests that may or may not have been easily addressed with the SGI hardware. Hopefully, with the Linux platform, some of these features can be added. We'll just have to see where Autodesk takes Flame in the future.

Mark Szumski is the senior visual effects artist at Click 3x team. With 10 years of experience, he has worked on films, commercials and music videos. Since being at Click 3x he as received five BDA awards, a MTV2 Video of the Year Award and worked on the Venice Film Festival Winner Man from Plains directed by Jonathan Demme. Recent commercial credits include Burger King, Foo Fighters promos for MTV and Olay. Also he served as director of visual effects on music videos for Animal Collective, Mark Ronson and the environmental awareness PSA for Dr.Octagon.