| File:Autodesk new white on black.png | |
| Company type | Subsidiary of Autodesk, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded | Montreal, Quebec (1999) |
| Headquarters | Montreal, Quebec |
Key people | Martin Vann, VP Worldwide Sales Marc Petit, VP Product Development num_employees = N/A |
| Products | 3ds Max Flame Inferno Smoke See complete products listing. |
| Website | www.autodesk.com/me |
Autodesk Media and Entertainment, formerly Discreet, is based in Montreal, Quebec as the entertainment division of Autodesk. This division produces software used in feature films, television commercials and computer games. It also provides products for storage, management and distribution to complement its primary product line.
History
Autodesk's Yost Group initially developed 3D Studio and later 3D Studio MAX. Autodesk re-named the Yost Group as Kinetix and operated it as a subsidiary in 1996.
Toronto-based MGI Inc. was formed by a consortium of veteran Canadian computer industry professionals, from companies such as ATI, AST and Delrina. Its mandate was to develop the best graphics and video software on the PC market.
Montreal-based Discreet Logic (a maker of high-end UNIX and NT video and graphics software) paid $153 million in early 1999 to buy MGI.
In 1999, Autodesk acquired Discreet Logic and combined Kinetix with Discreet for several years. In 2005, Autodesk reorganized Discreet as Autodesk Media and Entertainment.
Current Software
Software currently produced by this company include Maya, 3ds Max, Viz, Inferno, Flame, Flint, Fire, Smoke, Lustre, Combustion, Cleaner and Toxik. Autodesk Media and Entertainment's advanced compositing and editing product line, or "systems" line, is commonly referred to as IFFFS, which stands for Inferno/Flint/Fire/Flame/Smoke. It is also sometimes referred to as FFI or FFFI (Flint, Fire, Flame, Inferno).
Maya
Maya, a popular 3D modeling and animation software suite used in many feature films today, evolved from Alias PowerAnimator and was added to the Autodesk collection in the 2006 acquisition of Alias. One of Maya's most appealing factors to large studios is its openness to third-party software, enabling rapid development of proprietary software manipulations and extensions.
3ds Max
3ds Max is a professional 3D modeling, animation and rendering software suite which provides advanced tools for character animation, game development, design visualization and visual effects production. 3ds Max supports animators, designers and game developers with a unified object-oriented platform, customizable real-time interface, multiple-processor support and 3D graphics acceleration capabilities, including extension via a wide range of plug-ins and specialized products such as Ball’s character studio.
Gmax
Gmax was a free scaled down version of 3ds Max. Its modeling function is basically the same as 3ds max R4 but with fewer options and tools. There is no capability for photorealistic rendering. Gmax's file format is not compatible with 3DS Max. Gmax can be expanded with special packs usually for designing in video games. It was available for download free of charge. As of 2006, Gmax is a discontinued product, but support information is still available through a free support website from Turbo Squid
Viz
Autodesk VIZ is an architectural visualization application, based on 3ds max. It features the same interface and functionality, but lacks the advanced animation (such as Character Tools and Particle Systems). There is also no support for sub-object animation.
Edit
Edit was a real-time, non-linear editing system originally designed to compete with Avid. At the time it was popular due to its low cost (relative to similar Avid products). Edit was discontinued in August of 2002 and support contracts expired one year later. The last version released was version 6.5, which was released only with Targa 3000 video board.
Flint
Flint is Autodesk Media and Entertainment's entry level compositing platform for systems product line. Flint currently runs on a dual Xeon PC with nVidia Quadro FX3000G graphics running Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3. Flint performs very well in terms of processing speed and interactivity. Although Flint's features were identical on Octane and O2 systems, the O2 version's performance suffered due to the O2's relatively weak CPU and lack of dedicated graphics hardware. Later versions of Flint on O2 were called Effect Option 3. The last version to be released for O2 was 7.1. The current SGI version of Flint (9.5) supports Octane2 with V10 or V12 graphics. Octane SI/SE support was dropped after 8.3.2.
Major features from Inferno and Flame that are missing from Flint include the Modular keyer (one of the best tools in FFI for keying work), 10 bits per component image processing (which is a must for cineon log workflow for film work) and 3D tracking.
Flame
Flame is Autodesk Media and Entertainment's flagship online visual effects system. Flame is a turnkey compositing system that enables artists to craft visual effects for feature films, television commercials, music videos and broadcast promos at the highest resolutions from film to high definition television (HDTV). It offers the ability to interactively create, edit, composite and clean up highly challenging visual effects (VFX) sequences. Version 8 included support for editing, 3D graphics and a multi-resolution workflow. Post-production facilities and broadcasters integrate Flame within dedicated suites and networked environments.
Flame v9.x runs on these platforms: SGI Tezro V12 (SD/HD resolutions), SGI Octane2 V12 (SD/HD resolutions), SGI Octane1 MXI/MXE (SD resolution). Since Flame v9.5.5, it also runs on an HP xw8400 workstation under Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (Two Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® 5100 Processors with NVIDIA FX4500G)
Inferno
Inferno, an online visual effects system, is a creative solution that builds on the feature set of Flame with film tools, and increased image resolution and color control for digital film work, including film-specific tools for grain management, wire and scratch removal and color calibration. It is tuned to provide high levels of feedback on large format imagery and is designed specifically for film and high definition content.
Currently, Inferno runs on Silicon Graphics Onyx2 or higher. Support for the original Onyx has been dropped by version 5, Inferno v4.7.4 was the latest version that runs on Onyx InfiniteReality (IR). Current (2005) Inferno hardware is an SGI Onyx350, mostly with IR4 graphics with 1024MB texture memory, though Onyx2 is still supported.
When Flame and Inferno are compared, the toolsets are remarkably similar and the main difference is in their processing speeds. Inferno Product configurations are much faster than same-generation Flame configurations, although newer Flame systems can sometimes be faster than an older Inferno's. It is for this reason that Inferno systems are usually preferred for situations where time-critical high speed compositing is required, for example visual effects sessions with film directors as well as TVC directors and agencies.
One important feature difference between Flame and Inferno is the motion module. The motion module was bought from Realviz, and it is actually the Retimer software integrated into inferno GUI.
Smoke
Smoke is an online non-linear creative editing and finishing solution that enables editors to edit, conform and finish television commercials, broadcast programming and other content. Smoke supports HD and SD resolutions, can work in a 3D environment, and is compatible with Flame and Inferno.
Fire
Fire is very similar to Smoke as far as features go. Fire differs on the level of performance. Fire used to run on the SGI Onyx, a very scalable system. It can go up to eight processors and features a very high I/O bandwidth. This enables a Fire system, for example, to load thirty-two 2K layers, and interact with thirty-two 2K layers.
Lustre
Lustre is a digital intermediate system for 2K and 4K color grading and look creation. It delivers real-time primary color correction and grading capabilities while working with high-resolution imagery and digital intermediates.
Currently, it works on a PC, running Windows XP and Linux. It uses NVIDIA FX4000SDI as the graphics and video monitoring card. It was originally developed by Colorfront [1] in Hungary and named 5D Colossus.
Its first major use was the Lord of the Rings Trilogy operated by Peter Doyle.
Combustion
Autodesk Combustion (formerly known as Autodesk Media and Entertainment Combustion) is a hybrid layer and node-based desktop compositing and visual effects program produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. Combustion features a wide variety of tools including particles, paint, advanced tracking/stabilising, colour correction, chroma keying, text generation and others. Combustion is sold as a small version of the Inferno and Flame compositing systems, but utilises a different interface.
As of December, Combustion version 2008 is the current version.
Cleaner
Cleaner is an encoder sold by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. Cleaner can encode in RealPlayer, Windows Media, QuickTime and MPEG2 formats and is offered on the PC (XL version 1.5) and Macintosh (version 6.5) platforms.
Toxik
Toxik is a collaborative software for interactive film compositing. Node based.
Former Software
Autodesk Animator
Autodesk Animator was a bitmap-based animation package for MS-DOS, circa early 1990s, that allowed users to easily create simple, frame-based animations with up to 256 colours.