Now available, Avid and NUKE free plugins allow colour grade to be imposed in real time; simple upgrade to full node-locked or floating licences if required
FilmLight has already transformed collaborative post-production with Baselight Editions, a series of plugins which put complex, high quality grading capabilities into popular post tools. Now it has gone a step further by making it free to use Baselight Editions to read and render grades. As the grade is created in the colour suite, now it can be seen immediately in Avid editorial and NUKE VFX without needing to purchase a licence for those systems.
Baselight Editions offer two sets of functionality: the ability to take in a Baselight Linked Grade (BLG) colour file and impose it on the content in the host software, so the pictures appear with the latest grade; and to open the Baselight user interface inside the software to make adjustments to the colour space and the grade. Now, in Baselight for Avid and Baselight for NUKE, the interpretation element is free. If the user needs to access the grading tools, a simple online upgrade process is available, or the facility can hold floating licences on a central server which can be allocated to specific rooms as needed.
“Chainsaw has relied heavily on Baselight Editions and the BLG workflow for years,” said Randy Magalski, editor, Chainsaw. “Now, with the release of the free licence, this workflow is accessible in all of our Avid Media Composer bays wherever they might be — at no additional cost to us or our clients.
“Being able to leverage the work done in a relatively expensive colour bay back in Media Composer makes the Baselight for Avid BLG workflow one of the best solutions we’ve seen in our facility in years, and we applaud FilmLight for introducing this offering. We can now deliver the fastest, most flexible and most complete round-tripping solution available between online and colour.”
Andres Kirejew, VFX supervisor of Alter Ego, added: “With Baselight for NUKE free-to-read licences now installed on our farm, every compositor at Alter Ego can work with ungraded EXR linear files and finesse their work as the look of the commercial develops. We can render or just load the project without having to return to the colour suite, which is a huge plus in the fast turn-around world of advertising.”
Baselight for NUKE
The floating licence functionality means a facility can have unlimited seats of Baselight for Avid and Baselight for NUKE, allowing any user to apply, render and display Baselight grades, using the free licence.
“In the case of visual effects elements with a sophisticated grade, our floating Baselight for NUKE licence uniquely allows the whole grading stack, including colour space transforms, to be fully deconstructed and analysed at the compositor’s workstation,” added Kirejew. “This allows everyone the confidence to push what is creatively possible to the limit.”
The decision to offer a free read-only mode is in response to the growing interest in BLG as the colour grade metadata format. Increasingly productions are using a collaborative workflow with initial grading performed on or near set, and final grading taking place in parallel with other post processes, allowing editors and effects artists to see the latest grade and make minor adjustments where necessary.
“Our customers have asked us to solve the challenge of sending parts of a job to rooms or other facilities which do not routinely need Baselight functionality,” concludes Steve Chapman, CEO and co-founder of FilmLight. “Making the read mode available for free is our contribution to a wider collaboration throughout the post industry, and we’re delighted that our clients and their customers are adopting our BLG-driven workflow globally and so rapidly.”
