What's New in Interoperability

| Interoperability with Lustre 2012 Extension 1: Source Grading Workflow Many workflows require working in parallel between Smoke/Flame and Lustre. For better flexibility, grading the source footage prior to conforming is ideal, but may not be an option for fast-paced projects. Grading source footage post conform requires removing all soft effects and unsupported transitions, but this manual process can be cumbersome. To accommodate parallel workflows, we introduce the source grading workflow in the Lustre, Smoke, and Flame 2012 Extension 1. With the source grading workflow, you can: Import a timeline into Lustre, without having to render soft effects or transitions, Grade the timeline based on the editorial decisions to date, and then Send the timeline back to Smoke or Flame for further refinement, preserving soft effects and transitions. See the Lustre 2012 Extension 1 What's New for complete details of this new workflow.
| Point Cloud Interoperability with Maya The Action FBX camera export has been modified to support the new Point Cloud Objects introduced in version 2012. You are now able to export a Point Cloud Object when exporting an FBX Camera after 3D tracking. Once in Maya, the points become locators, and it's possible to attach 3D objects to any locator for proper setup in the 3D reconstructed world. Once exported back from Maya, and imported into Flame, they are recreated as Point Cloud objects. If the Point Cloud transformation has been set to either Plane or Centroid transform, an extra axis is created when exporting to FBX, so that this locator can be used in Maya. Once re-imported, the Point Cloud object is set appropriately to the exported transform, and an explicit axis is also created. If a 3D object is attached to one of the locators, then an explicit axis is created in addition to the Point Cloud object. This axis carries the position of the locators to which the 3D object was attached. Note that the workflow requires the explicit creation of a Point Cloud Object from the Analyzer. The Analyzer locators will no longer be exported by default unless they are converted to Action Point Clouds.
| FBX Linked Files You can now link to FBX files instead of importing them. In Action, import an FBX file with FBX Import Type set to Link to Original File and keep a live link to the FBX file. This creates a single FBX Scene node in the Action schematic. Set the FBX Import Type to Create Local Copy to import FBX files as before. See Working with FBX Scenes Linked to the Original Files.
| Real World Measurements You are now able to set a distance (in the unit of your choice) between any 2 points of the Action Analyzer point cloud. When a distance is defined between two 3D points of the Action Analyzer, a red line is drawn between the selected points. To set a real world distance in the Analyzer view (F7), go to the Fine Tuning menu, click Define under the new Real World Measures section, and select 2 points. A red line appears, and you can enter a distance expressed in the units of your choice in the value field. The complete Action scene gets scaled instantly. NoteWhen exporting the camera (and the point clouds or axes) through FBX, you can set the Unit of your scene. This will be encoded in FBX, and used when imported in Maya. If you specified a Unit and defined a distance between 2 points, you should choose a Pixels to FBX Scale of 1.000.
| UV Map Support In Action, you are now able to use UV maps generated by 3D applications or Action itself. The U information is coded in the Red channel while the V info is coded in the Green channel of the UV map image. You can also embed object IDs in the blue channel when performing a UV render pass in Maya, allowing you to specify which objects are displaced within the UV map in Action. See UV Mapping.

#### Topics in this section

- Working with FBX Scenes Linked to the Original Files
- UV Mapping