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Flame Exporter Controls Reference
Use default camera. When checked, the export will control Flame’s Default camera.
When unchecked, a Camera3D will be created. Important: a Camera3D is
required if a lens center has, or will be, computed. Changing camera type later requires manual assistance, due to Flame limitations; we strongly recommend keeping this off if noticeable distortion is present.
Camera Type. Select Free to animate using a position and rotation. Select Target to use a target aka aim aka interest point. If the focus distance track in SynthEyes has been animated (perhaps by reading it from metadata), the target point will track to that focus point.
Max. Exported Trackers. Limits the number of exported tracker layers to this value.
Randomly-selected unconstrained trackers are turned off to get under this limit if possible. Set the value to zero to disable the limit. If you delete trackers or increase this limit, SynthEyes will ask you if you want to export more (randomly- selected) trackers, or set the limit back lower.
Scale coordinates by. All coordinates in SynthEyes are multiplied by this value. The default 10 means that a nominal world size around 100 arbitrary units will become approximately 1000 pixels in Flame.
Enclose trackers/world. Controls whether or not the trackers, or even the entire scene, are parented to special holder Axis nodes. Such axis nodes can make managing the many trackers easier, or make it possible to move or rescale the entire scene in Flame. Choices: Neither, Trackers, World, Trackers & World. Note: it is better to do scene positioning and scaling in SynthEyes, which has the tools to do it accurately and repeatably, rather than in Flame.
Axis Scale/chisel size. Initial Axis Scale value that goes on the Display tab of Node Prefs for the Action node, affecting all Axis nodes, such as moving objects. Also sets the initial size of any tracker chisels. After the initial export/import to Flame, adjust the Axis Scale value manually in Flame. The chisel sizes are not easily adjustable, so your initial value ought take them into account the most.
Rendered Trackers. Trackers (and moving objects) appear as Axis nodes in Flame, which can be thin and gray and aren’t rendered. For an easier-to-see ‘chisel’ object that matches the color in SynthEyes, turn on Rendered Trackers. You can change this setting in subsequent Update exports. Note: at present, the colors cannot be set during Updates, only during the initial ‘New’ export, due to Flame python limitations.
Overscan%: When lens distortion is present, the lens distortion nodes and Action node rendering use overscan rendering to handle pixels pushed “off the edge” of the image. SynthEyes computes the minimum amount of overscan, then suggests a somewhat larger overscan value for you to enter here. This value usually allows later Refine solves to proceed without requiring a change in Overscan%. When a change is required, Flame will notify you, and you or the Flame operator will have to make that change manually due to Flame limitations. ( Note: A specific conservative over-large value can be selected for consistency among shots.
However, unlike in other apps, this shouldn’t be necessary, as the overscan image isn’t particularly accessible or used. )
Mesh mode. This controls how meshes imported into SynthEyes are passed to Flame.
Write: meshes are written from SynthEyes to the project folder (as Alembic
.abc’s); Flame is told to read the SynthEyes-written mesh, maximizing consistency with Flame. Copy: the original external .abc or .fbx meshes are copied to the project folder for use by Flame; Flame is told to read that copy of the original. Refer: Flame is told to read the original file, which works only if Flame and SynthEyes are on the same machine, or the file is in the same location on both machines (as possible translated by environment variables).
Important: if you change a mesh in SynthEyes, and update it to Flame, you’ll need to select the “Alembic Scene” for the mesh and click the ‘Refresh’ button to force it to reload. Telling Flame to read the original (or a copy of the original) file only works if SynthEyes and Flame read the files identically, which is not always the case, which is why Write is the default value. The Write option does potentially result in information such as materials being lost in the translation, making using Copy or Refer ideal when that is possible. To force a specific mesh to be written (in Copy or Refer mode) even though it was imported (for example, if you have edited it in SynthEyes), clear the edited mesh’s filename so that it no longer appears to be an import, using this Synthia command: make the selected mesh’s import file ``.
SynthEyes Near/Far. Check this box to export the near/far clipping distances from SynthEyes to Flame. Shouldn’t be necessary in most cases.
Save .sni file each export. Check this to have SynthEyes save the .sni file as soon as each export finishes. This helps ensure you have the sni file that corresponds to your export.
Always show controls. When checked, this control panel will be shown even during ‘Export Again’ (Shift-X). When off, the control panel is not shown during Export Again, only during regular exports, as is typical for other exporters. This checkbox is on by default for Flame so that you can use shift-X exclusively and not have to wade through the file selection, since the export filename is preconfigured for your Flame project. You can turn this off if you want the easiest ‘Update’ exports; as usual you get the control panel back by selecting the Flame 2025+ exporter directly.
Force ‘New’ exports. Normally, the exporter looks in the project’s folder to see if the project has previously been exported to Flame, generating a ‘New’ export if not. ‘New’ exports do a whole lot of scene building using an Action file. If the project has been previously exported to Flame, SynthEyes generates a smaller, limited, ‘Update’ export that won’t erase existing work (ie the Action node). Checking this checkbox allows a New export to be forced. You might want to do this if (1) the project is being sent to users on a different machine (you may export more
than once before that happens); (2) if you are starting this project over; or (3) for development. If you are restarting a project and turn it on, you must be sure to turn it off when you begin doing exports to update your scene, at risk of losing your work in Flame. If you want to start a project over, you’re better off just deleting the project’s SynthEyes-to-Flame folder and Send it out of Flame again.
©2024 Boris FX, Inc. — UNOFFICIAL — Converted from original PDF.