Flare is a fully compatible assistant to Flame, featuring the same creative toolset as Flame Batch. All Batch nodes found in Flame are fully supported in Flare. This extends the creative capabilities of Flame by allowing any Batch task to be performed on a Flare system. It also allows Flame to offload time-consuming tasks such as rotoscoping and particle creation.

With the focus of Flare being on the Batch toolset, there are some tasks performed by Flame that cannot be performed by Flare. For example, Flare does not support video I/O, archiving, broadcast monitoring, or conforming.

You can use Flare in an independent system workflow or in a remote connection workflow. In a remote connection workflow, the same (Flame) storage is used by both Flare and Flame so there is no duplication of media. Multiple Flare systems can connect to the same Flame system. Each can work on the same project at the same time, speeding up the production pipeline workflow. Overwriting work on a Flame system from Flare is not a concern as special precautions have been put in place to ensure efficient collaboration between systems. As well, the Flame artist can perform project management tasks of Flare libraries without leaving the Flame station.

If being able to work on projects collaboratively with Flame is not your main objective, you can still take advantage of the assistant capabilities of Flare in an independent system workflow. You need Wire to transfer media to/from a Flare system; therefore, there will be duplication of media. However, there are fewer workflow considerations than in a collaborative environment since Flare work is done on its own framestore.

The rest of this chapter discusses Flare in the context of a remote connection workflow.