Foundry Launched Nuke 14.0

Foundry has released Nuke 14.0 – the update to the node-based compositing and visual effects software that introduces a new USD-based 3D architecture, improvements to UnrealReader and AIR tools, and a library of machine learning models.

The 3D system available in beta offers better performance, over 40 nodes, a dedicated scene graph, and new workflows. It works in parallel with the classic 3D system so artists can use the workflows they are used to.

The scene graph allows you to easily view, navigate and manage large, complex 3D scenes by ensuring every primitive inside the new system has a unique ID path that exists in a scene graph hierarchy.

All nodes that create and modify geometry will now have new path and mask knobs that enable artists to see where the geometry lives in the scene hierarchy and how it's named as well as specify which part of the scene the node should affect. 

The update also introduces new material and light nodes: a new PreviewSurface material node allows for USD-based materials to display immediately in the viewer.

UnrealReader is now out of beta and features support for Unreal Custom Render Passes "allowing for effects like non-photorealistic rendering, OpenColorIO to allow matching of color spaces between Nuke and Unreal, easier picking of Sequences, and access to Unreal Sequence metadata to retrieve info on objects like lights."

Nuke 14.0 also improves the performance of Nuke’s AIR tools. The CopyCat node has a new checkpoint targeting human matting, speeding up training "by up to ten times". The tool has been upgraded to PyTorch 1.12.1, which sped up CopyCat training by 20% on NVIDIA Ampere GPUs.

In addition to the Nuke changes, Foundry released Cattery – a library of free third-party, open-source machine learning models converted to .cat files to run natively in Nuke. With it, you get access to models addressing segmentation, depth estimation, optical flow, upscaling, denoising, and style transfer. The company is planning to open the site up to user submissions later.

Other changes to Nuke include access to OCIO soft effect support in HieroPlayer and support of colorimetry metadata, OCIO 2.1.2, and ACES 1.3. Foundry also extended support for login-based licensing to the entire Nuke Family and included new features and functionality for teams and organizations.

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