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Fluxx

Two Finishing Tracks

Fluxx finishing runs as a single Fabrixx pipeline with two output destinations. Both tracks ride the same upstream chain: same on-set capture, same metadata, same overnight render, same Fluxx Vault. The only thing that changes is what happens at the back end. The Near-Time track ships the overnight render as the deliverable after a compositing pass. The Near-Time VFX track picks the same render up for hero finishing. Type of show and type of shot decide which track a shot rides on, not the shoot type and not the budget. Shots can flip tracks mid-pipeline.

One workflow, two tracks

Both tracks ride the same Fabrixx pipeline upstream: same render, same metadata, same Fluxx Vault. The split is at the output destination, not at the workflow level. Both tracks include the same on-set quick PostViz render checkpoint while the creatives are still on stage. Both tracks deliver photoreal pixels from the same near-time render. The difference is what happens after the render, not before it.

The workflow is also the same regardless of shoot type. LED, green screen, and practical location all run through the same Fabrixx pipeline. The shoot environment changes the on-set capture details, not the pipeline architecture and not the finishing options.

Near-Time track

The overnight high-res render is the deliverable. A compositing artist does a quick standard pass, color balance, plate integration, light polish, and the shot ships. Carries the bulk of runtime on any show: dialogue scenes in built environments, action coverage with set extensions, anything that does not need a hero pass.

Reopen semantic: if changes are needed later, the shot reopens cleanly without roto recovery. The ComposiTrack clean-key plate, the pre-comp recipe, and the underlying CG scene all stay live and re-renderable after first delivery. This is a substrate property, not a workflow property. It exists because the Vault holds the content-addressed primitives and the USD scene graph persists.

This is the head-to-head replacement for traditional ICVFX and in-camera final pixel delivery, with one structural difference: the shot stays openable. In legacy in-camera workflows, once the shot is locked at capture, opening it back up requires extensive roto and VFX work after the fact. In Fabrixx, the underlying assets and lighting recipe stay live, so the cost of unlocking is near zero.

Near-Time VFX track

The same render is picked up for hero finishing. The heaviest creative work goes here: full CG creatures, complex destruction, character VFX, story-beat shots, trailer beats, climactic action sequences. The flow:

  1. Slap comp at 80 to 90 percent final. The shot is fully rendered with a slap comp. The director sees a near 80 to 90 percent final look.
  2. Director call. Director opens the shot up for changes or approves.
  3. Polish. Artists work the keyshots. Agentic Sequence Assist propagates polish across the sequence, with the artist auditing the propagation.
  4. Comp review and delivery. The comp team and VFX supervisor review the polished shot for final delivery, with the supervisor inside the production’s perimeter and the team on the call sheet.

Different polish budget than Near-Time, identical pipeline upstream. The shot was already at near-final state from the same overnight render before the hero artists picked it up.

What decides the track

Type of show and type of shot decide which track a shot rides on, not shoot type and not budget. A tentpole might use Near-Time VFX for hero shots (trailer beats, climactic sequences, shots that have to land) and Near-Time for everything else (background plate enhancements, environment extensions, simple comps). A series episode might run almost entirely Near-Time. A music video might run entirely Near-Time because iteration speed is the value proposition.

Shots can flip tracks mid-pipeline without leaving the system. A scene that started on Near-Time can flip to Near-Time VFX if the director wants more creative iteration once they see the overnight render. A background-replacement shot routed to Near-Time can flip to Near-Time VFX if the director decides to add a digital element through the background. The pipeline supports both because the underlying assets and renders are the same.

Per-shot routing mechanics

finish_track is a Vault-side field on the Shot entity. Plugins that participate in track assignment implement an ITrackAssignPlugin marker. A shot.track_assigned event fires on assignment. Track assignment is observable by every plugin via the event spine, so vendor plugins, finishing plugins, and downstream automation all see the routing decision and can react to it.

Why this matters operationally

Most productions today have separate VFX and finishing pipelines that do not share a substrate. The work crosses house boundaries, the data does not flow cleanly, and the show inherits a reconciliation problem at the back end. Fluxx unifies them at the substrate tier: one Vault, one render, two finish destinations.

The reopen semantic makes mid-show creative iteration affordable, because the cost of opening a shipped shot is near zero on the Near-Time track. The per-shot routing makes mid-show track flips operationally trivial, because flipping is a finish_track field change, not a pipeline migration. A production allocates polish budget against the shots that actually earn it, with no structural cost to changing the allocation as the show finds its shape.

Cross-references

  • Pipeline Architecture (primitive 4)
  • Capture to Delivery Workflow (Phase 6)
  • Vendor Integration Path (how vendors plug into finishing)
  • Q-G45 Two Finishing Tracks at 04_Fluxx_Shared/_Master_Canon/Q-G/Q-G45_Two_Finishing_Tracks.md
  • Q-G47 Two Finishing Tracks at 04_Fluxx_Shared/_Master_Canon/Q-G/Q-G47_Two_Finishing_Tracks.md
  • Q-G44 VFX House Role Recast (vendor finishing implications)

Sources

  • 02_Working/Strategy/Company_Overview/Finishing_Workflow_Source_2026_05_01.md
  • 02_Working/Strategy/Company_Overview/Gap_6_Finishing_Workflow_Draft_2026_05_01.md
  • 02_Working/Strategy/Company_Overview/Fluxx_White_Paper_Near_Time_VFX_DRAFT_v0.1.md

Audience visibility

industry, vendor, production, sales, director, investor.