Slate vfx

Hello!
The time has come to release the very long overdue 1.75 release for Slate, as well as a new website that should be a lot more reliable.
As part of this, I have made Slate completely free for individual users. (Commercial licenses still have to pay, it’s not cheap to keep up the vendors!)

http://www.facedownfx.com

There are far too many changes to list. I’ve taken everyone’s feedback over the past few years on board and will continue to do so, no matter how slowly.

• New UI system, with docking and many drag-drop quality of life features.
• A flexible “Image Sequence” approach, rather than a static list of textures, allowing you to easily create multi-pass content
• A large focus on custom shaders being enabled, allowing custom passes that can each use different shader passes whilst maintaining the same layout.

Updating is a little bit of a pain point. I have completely changed the update system to be much more user friendly. Unfortunately this also breaks the old method (through the app itself) so you will need to uninstall & install the new version.
The hope is, from now on, I can just publish updates and you wont need to touch an installer again. That, at least, was the motivation.

Now, the bad.
I broke the docs and really need to do some more

Over the coming days and weeks I will begin to put out tutorial/showcase videos highlighting features, providing people can put up with my dulcet tones.

Hey guys,
A little shameless here, but I have finally released Slate! It’s a one-stop for Texture Layouts, Optical Flow, and shader trickery for FX artists. I’m really excited to finally be releasing properly after all this time. I’m really hoping it can become something that’s regarded as a standard.
https://www.facedownfx.com/

Here’s the docs:
http://www.facedownfx.com/Products/Slate/Documentation/index.html
What’s pretty crazy for pipelines is the command line interface - it can be hooked in to most DCC apps with Python or other scripting languages - as long as you can kick off a binary with arguments, you should be good to go

It also generates Optical Flow maps, and supports looping optical flow assets & will auto calculate your magic numbers for shaders!

Here’s the release notes [spoiler ] I finally added an Undo buffer. [/spoiler ]
https://www.facedownfx.com/Products/Slate/ReleaseNotes.html

It would be great if you have an interest to follow my company on Facebook and/or Twitter. I normally post development things on Twitter and if you are curious, there’s quite a few shots of old/heritage builds that I still find interesting!

Edit:
I should also thank everyone who helped me during the prolonged Beta for Slate - everyone was a huge help with this! Here’s to the next one!

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Netflix has a preferred format template for providing media embedded information such as slates and overlays on media deliveries by VFX vendors. This guide has the information you’ll need to get started using our template. Please refer to the full documentation for further details.

Download

The VFX Slates & Overlays package includes: full documentation, a Nuke template (.nk), a Photoshop template (.psd), and example files - DownloadLink.

SLATE

All submissions should have a slate frame included in the same resolution and format as the media. 

• Slates should be on the first frame of the media and be 1 frame in duration.
• Slates should include a thumbnail frame.
• All fields and features should be inside of the final picture area.
• A guide should be shown to indicate the final picture area on the slate frame.
• You may add a vendor logo.

The following fields should be included on each slate:

If an IVY workflow sheet is being used for your production, it should be considered the source for the slate field requirements.

Sample Slate

OVERLAYS

Overlays (aka burn-ins or chyrons) should be included on all non-final media, unless otherwise specified by Editorial or Production.

• Overlays should not be 100% white.
• Overlays should be inside of any letterboxing.

Overlay fields and positioning should be:

Overlay Example

In this example, there is no letterboxing, so the slate fields are overlaid on the image. If there is already a letterbox applied to the video, then overlays should be kept inside the letterbox and not overlap the image.

TEMPLATE IMPLEMENTATIONS

The VFX Slates & Overlays .zip package includes reference templates that have been implemented in both Nuke and Photoshop. 

Nuke

The Nuke slate template has been created with v10.5, but should be backwards compatible and is provided as a single group node with fields to provide all of the inputs. The Nuke template has a configuration tab that can be used to set options for slate size, final cropping, fonts and scaling. The template automatically removes any non-required fields that are blank and automatically crops any fields that are too long. Both of these behaviors are configurable per field on the field groups inside the template. Hover over the knobs to find more information on each function. A Nuke overlay template has been provided as well, with controls for sizing and color.

Photoshop 

The Photoshop templates have been provided to implement the template in other applications such as After Effects. All fields and text areas are provided in layers and laid out for a UHD frame with no final crop. Sizing adjustments may be needed, based on the deliverable format. The photoshop slate template indicates the area for the thumbnail and vendor logo.

Cut Overlays

When delivering VFX in context, such as in a cut, please reference the following guidelines:

Matted Example

If the aspect ratio is not 16:9, best practice is to use the matted area for any overlays to have as much of the image undistracted as possible.

• For VFX we need to see the unique shot code in the top left of the frame and a short description of the scope of work in the bottom left of the frame.
• You can find the shot naming best practices here.
• Top right should always be the time code, and bottom right the Music Notes.
• White letters work best to not distract from the image and for best readability.

Unmatted Example

If your aspect ratio of the title is 16:9, use a semi transparent black block behind the letters to increase readability. Also, white letters work best.

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