AMSTERDAM – UK-based VFX software developer, The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk), showed off new
upgrades to its Nuke compositing program today, including an app for
stereoscopic post, possibly the next big thing in event broadcasting if you
were to look around the IBC exhibit.
Nuke 5 sports an easier-to-navigate UI, reworked to “improve the user experience" and make it more
approachable to a wider range of artists. The new Nuke has augmented its
existing floating window layouts with a flexible panes-and-panels system and
will feature per-node inputs and expanded LUT support for file I/O colorspace
conversion. Matt Plec, team leader at the Foundry, pointed out that Nuke,
originated by D2, an offshoot of Digital Domain, was built by working
compositors and, although it fits with the company motto "designed by artists
for artists," the original UI was not the most user-friendly available.
As far as moving the product into the uncharted waters of stereoscopic post
(Quantel is also setting its sights on stereo), Plec said The Foundry will
"keep it simple and make the work fun. You shouldn't have to build trees
for both the left eye and the right eye. You should work in stereo the way you
worked in mono."
Bruno Nicoletti, Foundry CTO and company founder, concurs. "The reception
has been good," he says of the proposed Nuke stereoscopic workflow.
"There's a lot of interest."
The Foundry will also be adding support for Python scripting language with the
upcoming release.