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getting up to speed on Lustre?
Hi,
I primarily grade on Resolve but recently I got a request for Lustre. It seems a bit difficult to get trained, as its part of Flame and there are either youtube videos or the training center in LA for $2500, and not much in between, at least not at the moment from ICA or FXPhd.
Any suggestions? I’m going to try the training edition put out by Autodesk and just see if I can plow thru it myself, I’ve heard Flame family boxes can seem impenetrable.thanks in advance!
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20 Replies
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Not a great place to ask for advice on rival software. I have taken the class offered by Autodesk in Santa Monica, and they’re very good out there.
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Lustre is so incredibly outdated, it’s almost funny 🙂
And yes, you need a total different set of hardware for it, so you are better of going somewhere where people took care of the tech for you.Resolve 11.3 – Smoke 2015 EXT1 – Sapphire 8
Colorist / VFX Guru / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber
https://dk.linkedin.com/in/saschahaber -
[Sascha Haber] “Lustre is so incredibly outdated, it’s almost funny :)”
I’m not so quick to call a piece of software “outdated” if the companies using it are still making money, keeping clients happy, and getting the work done.
I can think of several dozen major films that were done with Lustre in Hollywood over the last few years. All the Marvel films (several of which made billions of dollars), along with “Gravity” and “”Birdman” were done with Lustre, and there are entire companies out there whose workflow revolves around Lustre. And many people I know using it are doing so with just keyboard and mice — no control surfaces at all.
I think it’s more a question of using the right tool for the right job. If you have the time to do a project in Lustre, it can work very well, particularly if the staff is used to it and knows what to expect.
I think there are ways to make many different kinds of color-correction software productive, provided each has the toolset you need to get the job done. Resolve would be my pick most of the time, but I think it boils down to personal choices and preferences — it’s just one of several options available in the tool chest.
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>Lustre is so incredibly outdated, it’s almost funny 🙂
If Resolve hadn’t been made free, you might not be saying that. Lustre is hardly outdated, even though it isn’t even sold as a standalone product any longer. It still has a toolset that others haven’t yet caught up to, and continues to benefit significantly from its shared architecture with Flame. It might not have as many users as Resolve (once again, that wouldn’t be the case if Blackmagic hadn’t made it free….) but some of those users are responsible for DI work on some of the largest motion pictures made today. The only way in which it’s “outdated” might be in its sales/pricing model. In actual use, it’s still a very high end tool, really rivaled only by Baselight in terms of precision and capabilities.
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Well, i was grading on a DaVinci and then on Nucoda when Lustre was still “the shit”
Also a Pablo was somewhere on the road but then Scratch happened.
And that changed everything.I fully understand the power of an Autodesk environment, i had the pleasure to work in several more TVC based facilities, but as both of you stated, it needs the infrastructure and the highly skilled, experienced and trained staff to flourish.
My point was more the technical aspect running it on a home computer like most Resolve users do those days.Resolve 11.3 – Smoke 2015 EXT1 – Sapphire 8
Colorist / VFX Guru / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber
https://dk.linkedin.com/in/saschahaber -
Hey thanks for the flurry, I didn’t know people held such strong opinions!
I’m a resolve colorist, and there is a facility that would like to book me that is running an Autodesk shop.
I guess I was putting some feelers out there about the learning curve coming from resolve, and if its feasible to try to work it out myself on the training edition. Ill try the flame forum as there is no Lustre forum? -
Sasha.
Despite your very strong feelings, Lustre is pretty much still “the shit”. It’s the main grading platform at Technicolor, which is responsible for countless tent pole and Academy award winners, like Birdman, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man etc. The list is simply endless.
Incidentally, the first Alexa 65 feature also been done right now using Lustre. -
Small correction: Technicolor/Hollywood does have a couple of rooms with Lustre, but it’s about 90% a Resolve facility. And there are colorists who prefer to use Resolve for features. Some of the rooms can switch out either to Lustre or Resolve, and it was that way at Complete Post as well.
It is true that lead colorist Steve Scott uses Lustre, since that was also the software (or at least similar software) used at eFilm. I think it’s fair to say they could get similar results going either way.
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At Technicolor Hollywood, the Resolves are used primarily for broadcast, so yes, there are a number of them. However, the vast majority of the DI work is done on Lustre, as it is the preferred platform for most of the current lead DI colorists at Tech Hollywood. As for getting equal results, that’s a bit debatable, because it depends at least in part on the individual colorist’s grading style. For those who came from a VFX background (like Steve Scott) Lustre is generally preferred because it contains most of Flame’s rotoscoping tools, a very heavily used feature for Steve and others. It may not offer the overall speed of Resolve, but it offers a degree of precision – particularly in terms of area isolations – that goes beyond what Resolve generally offers. So for colorists that prefer mattes to keys, it has some definite advantages, at least in terms of both programs’ current incarnations. It also offers an arguably better interface for those who prefer to use a mouse or a pen to drive the program (as opposed to a trackball centric panel). The interface is designed for direct manipulation and is geared to allow for very precise control. This may not be for everybody, but for anyone with Autodesk experience, there’s a lot of value to that approach.
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“Lustre is so incredibly outdated, it’s almost funny :)”
When I first read that, I laughed…then I investigated the source of such a strong opinion. Then, I considered that person’s experience, location, and knowledge of the industry – in Hollywood, where the post facilities for the biggest movies on the planet are still based.
Then I took that comment with a grain of salt.
The best colorists on the planet use Lustre, for a reason. Fact is, if you want to be one of them, you better learn ALL the tools. I go from studio to studio. Some use Resolve, some use Lustre. When I have my choice, I use Resolve – but if you think you can be a top notch colorist and only know one tool, you’re wrong.
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