Autodesk Flame Admin - Get Started

Last updated About 1 month ago

This addon integration is still at the beta stage. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us.

Introduction​

Autodesk Flame is a high-end visual effects and finishing software used in the post-production industry. The AYON Flame integration allows you to seamlessly connect your AYON Server with Flame and automate publishing and loading of your project data.

Current version of the integration also supports following features:

  • Editorial:

    • Publishing of clips.

    • Vertical publishing of clips.

    • Folder hierarchy publishing.

    • Publishing resources with on-the-fly transcoding using presets connected to Flame's native XML presets.

  • Loading:

    • Loading clips into Flame's Media Panel as Reels clips with conversion to OpenClip.

    • Loading clips into Flame's Media Panel as Batch clips with conversion to OpenClip.

Flame's unique workflow​

  • Missing Inventory manager is not integrated for version control like other DCCs. This is because Flame has a unique workflow that doesn't fit well with the Inventory manager's versioning system. Instead, we use Flame's native versioning system to manage clip versions via OpenClip files. These files are created dynamically for each loaded clip and stored in the task's directory within the work tree. Each related OpenClip is then updated with newer versions of the clip.

  • Due to the Python API limitations we are not able to place loaded clips directly to timeline as timeline segment. Instead, we place them in the Media Panel as Reels or Batch clips. This allows you to manually place them in the timeline as needed.

Preparation

Before opening any task in AYON wrapped Flame, the following needs to be configured:

Application addon Flame variant settings​

Usage of wiretap

AYON integration uses the wiretap server to pre-create Flame project attributes that match the currently selected context attributes. This ensures all required attributes are present in the Flame project before opening it in Flame.

  • Ensure that the Flame executable is correctly filled in for the corresponding variant.

  • Set the required environment variables for Wiretap connection:

    • FLAME_WIRETAP_HOSTNAME can be left empty if the Wiretap server is running on the same machine as Flame.

    • FLAME_WIRETAP_VOLUME is usually set to stonefs by default, but your setup might be different. Check your local volume names using the command: /opt/Autodesk/io/<YOUR FLAME VERSION>/bin/vic -v stonefs

  • Optionally, you can add your custom Flame scripts to the FLAME_SCRIPT_DIRS environment variable.

Variant related environment variables

Make sure your variant-related environment variables point to the correct paths. Otherwise, the integration might not work as expected.

  • Following are variant-related environment variables:

    • AYON_FLAME_PYTHON_EXEC - Flame Python executable

    • AYON_FLAME_PYTHONPATH - Flame Python path

    • AYON_WIRETAP_TOOLS - Path to Wiretap tools used for communication with the Wiretap server