The Flame Publish Workflow

When Flame established itself in commercials VFX, it used its own filesystem, Stone & Wire, instead of the consumer options of the day. It since moved to Linux, and then Mac. At the time Stone & Wire was needed to provide a stripped-down clean system that could provide real-time playback. As a byproduct, it conferred the closed shop workflow for Flame; a clip needed to be loaded into the filesystem before it could be used. From a file management perspective, this was a major benefit - once in the system, the clip could hardly get lost & the operator could focus on the job.

Most other VFX apps read directly from the OS. The disadvantage here is that they all require file management. AE and Cinema 4D both do a good job collecting files afterwards. Nuke does not, most likely due to its own history; sitting in a pipeline where somebody else does the file management!

The point is that Flame now runs both systems simultaneously on the same job with no penalty. The publish workflow is the process of externalizing an edit. If you run other apps, another PC & a NAS then you make your every shot available to every app in an instant.

You can now mix and match tools from any app with virtually zero export-import time penalty. If the Flame warper is giving you a headache, Nuke's is right there. Or if the Flame particles don't have the right look for this shot, Trapcode is right there. Every tool is close & at the ready.

You use pattern browsing and open clips to direct render from other apps back into the Flame ecosystem. Your work from the other apps pops up INSIDE your Flame edit, or INSIDE your Flame comp at the flick of a single switch.

And why should you care? If you'd told me when I started VFX that I would get excited by filesystems & workflows I might have looked at you quizzically. But it makes sense. You don't get to make the masterpiece before you build the foundations. The filesystem, the workflow ultimately end up delivering much more beautiful work.