You can perform three types of publishing: Simple, Complex, or Flatten. Each type is suited to a different publishing scenario.
Simple Publish Creates a continuous file sequence on the shared storage, in which all effects are hard committed. The resulting clip in the clip library is also continuous and is linked to the published media on the shared storage.
Complex Publish Creates a file sequence for each segment of the clip, with only the source media being published. The resulting clip has the same structure as the original clip except that the media is saved to a shared storage volume and is unmanaged. It is no longer managed on the direct attached storage array. Neither soft effects nor transitions are committed for the clip or for the sequence of files.
Flatten Publish Flattens the media into a single video layer. The published media includes head and tail frames (based on the value set in the Handles field). All effects such as wipes and timewarps are committed. Dissolves and cuts are not committed. When you use Flatten Publish, an EDL is generated to maintain the dissolve and cut transitions created in the Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing application. The published media is divided into segments to maintain the unrendered dissolve and cut information. To render the dissolves and transitions, use the EDL.
Use this publish option if you are publishing media that you will be using in Autodesk Lustre.
When publishing using any of the three methods, the files generated are as follows:
If you publish a clip to the shared storage directory, other users can see the associated media. If other users in other applications change the published media, you will see the changes in the media of the soft-imported clip, without having to replace the clip. For example, if a user with access to the shared storage uses a paint program to modify the content of one of the files in the shared storage and replaces the file with the modifications, you will see these changes. However, if you change the clip in Inferno, users outside of Inferno will not be able to see these changes. You must re-publish the clip for users to see these changes.