VANCOUVER — Creative software developer Foundry (foundry.com) has launched Nuke 11.2, bringing a range of new features and updates to the compositing toolkit. The latest version will let artists work quicker through upgraded UI features and performance capabilities, alongside a new API for deep compositing that can increase the speed of script processing.
Key features for Nuke 11.2 include a new API that delivers 1.5x faster processing. In this installment, the Nuke Tab menu and UI for creating user knobs have been enhanced to improve user experience for some of the most common tasks: adding nodes and creating Gizmos. The updated Tab menu allows artists to find nodes using partial words, set ‘favorite’ nodes and organize them via a weighting system. These improvements add up to substantial time savings when building scripts with a large number of nodes.
A new UI allows user knobs to be linked between nodes by simply dragging and dropping. Artists can add, rearrange or remove user parameters using the same interface. The Smart Vector toolset is now even faster to use and more effective in shots with occluding objects. Smart Vector and Vector Distort have been optimized for the GPU, allowing users to generate Smart Vectors on the fly and preview the result without needing to pre-render the vectors.
A new mask input allows artists to identify areas of motion to ignore when generating the Smart Vectors and warping the paint or texture. As a result, the Smart Vector toolset can now be used on shots with occluding objects with less laborious manual clean-up, speeding up the use of the toolset in more complex cases.
Nuke Studio now benefits from an updated project panel UI, providing the artist with new visual controls for managing and organizing complex projects. For quick visual reference, artists can assign colors to items in the project bin and the timeline, based on file type and other parameters accessible via the UI and python API.
Nuke 11.2 is available for purchase on Foundry’s Website and via accredited resellers.
Also at SIGGRAPH, Foundry has introduced the latest updates to its flagship lighting, 3D painting and look development and lighting tools - Katana and Mari. The highly updates will provide a more user-friendly experience and improved response times, enabling artists to achieve powerful results, with greater efficiency.
Katana 3.0 brings a new, powerful viewport driven by Pixar’s USD Hydra technology. The toolset ships with the 3Delight rendering plug-in, giving users the option to enjoy the best-in-class live rendering free of charge for interactive renders and an affordable option for batch renders. The UI has been modernized, and performance improvements mean that Katana 3.0 is up to 1.5x faster than the previous version.
Mari 4.1 users will benefit from improved artist friendly color management. Mari 4.1 also benefits from new functionality for Selection Groups that vastly increases user efficiency.
Mari 4.1 will be available for purchase on Foundry’s Website. To purchase Katana 3.0, pros should request a call-back from the Foundry team.