The Wonders of Nuke - An Overview of Foundry's Nuke

so welcome today we'll have a look at new compositing software what it does and what sort of career you can build around it nuke is created by the foundry and you can download it for free from their website by clicking uh try for free here um so the foundry website um and try for free um on their website obviously uh you also have so let's go to the website sorry uh so on the website you also have tutorials uh just so you know so you have a page uh to learn nuke um so you could be watching some of those tutorials as well and um also the foundry has its channel on youtube so you can uh view some befores and afters and see how the software is being used in the industry so what is compositing well essentially it's taking different elements shot at different locations often under different lighting conditions some elements can be shot on green screen or blue screen we can create some cg and combine it with a live action plate or any sort of hand-drawn animation and basically combining everything together and make it appear to have been shot in one pass in camera so let's have a look at the foundry's new cheryl and see why the software is so important in the creation on visual effects and what the senior news artists say about nuke working on vfx i don't think any other software has this impact in the industry the combination of having very strong native tools and then the possibility to customize it in the way you need it i think that's something that makes it so unique [Music] nuke is ubiquitous to every visual effects studio all compers either do know how to use nuke or should know how to use nuke when you're close up on denarius flying on drogon's back and there are particles flying by and wisps of cloud whipping pasture that's all done in nuke it's a core way that we can bring things like smoke embers dust affecting and interacting with with the character creating realism developing those composites in a three-dimensional sense is core and without those three-dimensional tools it would be vastly more difficult i wasn't supervised at the time where we picked up nyx studio and it was so nice to just pick up a tool that has all of that i mean it has a timeline it has all the basic features that we needed and just be able to use that right away that was amazing and once you start to expand upon it it becomes just evident that it's i mean there is no alternative to it nuke is is just a really powerful tool in that you can generate very complicated templates and scripts and then nuke has a lot of tools for boiling those down into gizmos turning those into plug-ins so every little unique aspect of the show we would develop a tool so the artist didn't have to learn a large set of like scripts and templates it was really a tool set that they could learn and then carry that through the rest of the show and that's really powerful the tools that make the biggest difference are tools like the camera tracker and the model builder those types of tools are time saving and they work and i've seen them attempting to work in other software and not working i love how close my software is to one of my artists i love that i can jump from nuke studio into nuke at any given moment give feedback write up scripts jump back into new studio i don't think any other software could do that from returning mute studio is a massive string to our boat we can compete with this workflow we win work because of it so thank you very much okay so it's escape studios we prepare our students for the career and visual effects compositing uh using nuke um and armed with the key skills that are needed in the industry and to demonstrate this um i'm gonna show you uh three show rules uh three different show rules from my students i'm florian giraffe oh sorry i'm a senior visual effect let's close please okay so um i'll show you uh three show rules uh just to give and i give you an idea of the type of skills uh we want our students to develop and help them uh develop um and uh later on you can ask questions uh once we've seen the cheryls we can have a look at uh nuke and uh the interface um and have have a little look at the type of work uh we do so um let's see the first cheryl as you can see on the slate uh it says roto prep junior compositor this is the sort of rail that would demonstrate the key skills needed to enter the industry so uh we do prepare our students for that but for those particular roles uh rotor prep uh junior compositor so let's see uh some of these skills uh so first of all uh we are viewing a demonstration of rotoscoping scale which means essentially cutting out someone from the background in order to place a person or an object in a different environment we often need to do this sort of thing in the industry because for whatever reason um the the environment all has to be changed um sometimes uh we want to take just one element from uh one uh from a live action plate and place it into a different environment now that has to be done uh very accurately um every little element you can see these strands of hair here we are the little boy was cut out um and and we teach how to do that um accurately and uh fairly quickly although uh vertoscoping is not a super quick uh skill uh you do have to spend time and uh you know in order to to uh retain uh every little bit from the original image you want to cut out right so all the detail the hair detail in this case uh has has to be preserved and we teach it uh how to do that with particular techniques um in in some of the other cheryls you will be able to see the shapes uh how that is created um and obviously i can show you later as well uh another uh thing another example on the show release as you can see the tracking markers on the face um we would do that when we wanted to uh replace an element on the face or add an element to the face obviously we would reposition the tracking markers when we are uh filming um so that we can emulate uh the movement uh of the face um uh but however that those tracking markers have to be cleaned off unless you are replacing the whole face uh with the mask uh you would want to uh remove those trucky markers and to do that again precisely uh and accurately uh it's it's a particular skill that we teach this sort of cleanup uh is an essential part of uh compositing artists uh role because um in in commercials films or uh television programs uh there is always a requirement to clean or clean something uh because somebody has walked onto the set or so we have to remove the person or uh an element has been left on the set uh sometimes uh a dolly truck or uh simply lights uh had to be left in um and they have to be removed afterwards and so on so uh that's what we call prep work uh basically preparing the plates for the actual compositing uh later on so that that is an entry role uh wrote a prep artist um and when creating the show rules uh the students want to demonstrate these skills and here we can see uh another example of that sort of prep very accurate prep work where the rig on the body is being removed um and obviously the uh element uh you know the trousers all these that uh all the faults in this plate have to be recreated so we'll have a look at later on how these things may be attempted in nuke another example of uh regiscoping uh cutting out a person and a motorbike so a person and an object which we call uh organic if it's an animal or a person we would call this organic rotoscoping and for any object uh inorganic or rotoscoping so it's it's good to have an example of both on the rail um and you you can see uh [Music] uh how we present that sort of work on gray uh black and white and with the overall overlay because that gives you uh a real um view of the accuracy of uh that skill um if you know everything has been captured um and the background uh essentially removed another [Music] another form of cleanup uh this this is a 3d cleanup using 3d capabilities in nuke uh essentially projecting onto the geometry enuk um different textures these had to be camera tracked uh that can be done in nuke as well and then different textures in this case the doorway and posters placed into the live action plate here we have an example of keying another skill that our students need to demonstrate on their showreels um this is a green screen plate of one of our students and again uh capturing all this uh hair detail um and um every little bit we it has to be pixel accurate um uh keying and rotoscoping uh that we teach uh has to be pixel accurate um in order to demonstrate uh the mastering of the scale and being able to place uh the element onto a new background and then a little bit of cg compositing uh cg compositing is not an entry rule but uh here the student is demonstrating uh the creation of some cg element placed into the live action plate and hence you know all our students sure will start and end with the slates uh demonstrating the the skill or the role that they are applying for uh obviously contact details and the software used and here we can see that uh on this particular real new can silhouette has have been used uh nuke has a main software and silhouette uh we use uh sometime uh for rotoscoping uh because it it was designed for rotoscoping so it has few tools that are uh make it a little bit faster uh to uh to rotate a shot although uh not all the facilities have silhouettes so roto is taught uh in nuke uh as well so our students have to master rotoscoping in both nuke and silhouette i'll show you another showreel let's have a look at this one these are our students who got jobs in the industry on the back of these showreels and actually this year this the graduates this year's graduates all got jobs in really top facilities in town which which has been amazing because you know had they worked remotely last year as you know we had locked down we are now face to face but last year uh because of lockdown the students had to use vpn to connect r to our computers at escape and uh worked remotely and generated an amazing work uh really amazing work so let's have a look at eva's uh cheryl because it may be structured in a similar way i mean you want to them all they our students always want to demonstrate uh these core skills um and you will see there is just a little bit of variety of work because the shots they choose we have a library of shots they can choose from but some students use some of the stock footage websites or film some of their uh some of the shots they want to work on or are involved in working on real productions so in this case this was a real production of short commercials and we do make an effort to try to get real work in because it gives our students experience in working with the clients um and working to the deadlines i mean even our obviously our courses you always work into the deadline but it's quite different when you have a client so this is an example of clean up a typical sort of cleanup is that when you are working with mirrors on a shoot you are very likely uh to have a cameraman or a member of the crew in a shot so we would use nuke uh to uh clean this sort of shot up and um this is using a 3d projection in nuke uh camera tracking yoke and obviously paint to remove the cameraman and bring her back on top because you can see here the breakdown of the cleanup and uh you could see briefly the shapes uh for cutting her out uh rotoscoping her let's go back and have a look right um so this is how we do roger's got me or in silhouette because having multiple shapes makes it you're able to move them around much quickly even though it looks like it's more time consuming it actually isn't because uh you are able to maintain the accuracy on the edge uh on the edges of the people or objects you are cutting out so rather than moving the individual points and the whole shapes are moved around and it gives you a much faster and more accurate result another example of regis curving a very complex shot because of the ribbons um and uh required this was very very time consuming you can't do something like this very quickly but it it does demonstrate uh perseverance and patience uh which are very very important uh traits to have uh when you are working in visual effects um and here we have a little uh cg comp um as you can see little aeroplane and then the breakdown of the passes that have been used uh different cg passes uh you can see the list of them underneath um it tells us we have a beauty pass uh um a ma alpha or a matte diffuse uh which is a color pass then specular which are highlights uh shadows and so on so we do that in order to have a lot of controls uh in uh over cg in compositing we do have a lot of control because we have these different passes so we can decide how reflective an object is we can change very easily the color uh because if the client you know everything is designed for a particular plate but the client may decide to change the color let's say of the object and that can be very easily done by a compositor in 2d rather than sending it back into cg um so a lot of control we can even rewrite uh this object uh to sit it in a scene um and so on so we as compositors we have a lot of control over cg um so that it sits in uh in a photorealistic uh fashion in in in the live-action plate uh that's very important and here we have an example this is the actual artist the student uh we do make an effort to film uh plates um at escape uh we have uh green screen uh blue screen shoots and uh we would involve students uh on these shoots uh so that we can uh give them an experience of uh the whole process the production process and uh they can test the rules uh split the rules among themselves and have this uh live-action experience what is required in production because uh uh it helps understand the needs of post-production better as well now in this case we were testing the lighting um different types of lighting on this particular shoot and filmed the students um so you will see that you know when king we need to retain all these different strands of hair uh all these very fine detail and we do that using multiple keys actually i have this script we can have a look at later on and again ending with the slate contact details and the name of the student if you have any questions please ask you know in q a or leave them for later on uh just one more more real to show because i think it is beneficial for you to get an overview of the type of work we do at escape and obviously uh what you need to get into [Music] actually let me make this full screen uh the skills you need uh to enter the industry um and these students um are working in the industry and as you can see uh the the cheryls are uh most mostly show the finished uh finished shot and then uh the breakdown of that shot we find that is a very good way to uh [Music] you know present your work uh rather than having to finish shots at the beginning and the breakdowns at the end we tend to prefer having a shot then the breakdown making it very clear what has been done this was actually a team project because undergraduates work as teams with the animation students so uh you and and cg students as a compositor um you work in teams with students uh studying uh other parts of visual effects or animation and here you can see another example of the type of work compositor would be doing uh what we call a matte painting in the background um rebuilding the environment uh using projections in you here a student says he's responsible for all aspects of the shot meaning uh came up with the direction uh directed this particular shot the live action and then created the matte painting integrated everything together and did all did all the compositing so let's have a look at this breakdown so green screen shoot king creating the environment obviously tracking creating the environment in a nukes 3d being able to do these projections and then here again says responsible aspects of the shot meaning he's filmed this live action this is another student from that particular group um and he's been filmed entering the tube station um actually there was a student uh 10 years ago that created his name is tim adams you can look look up his real uh regiscoping rail because he's a really amazing artist and one of his shots uh was of a person entering the tube with the rucksack at the back now this is a very good example of uh you know being able to present organic inorganic rotoscoping for example uh having a rucksack as you know inorganic element with all these traps and so on is quite complex and and you know something that is relatively time consuming so again patience and accuracy very important um very important traits uh to demonstrate and you can see he's created a lot of changes in the tube um removing uh replacing some of the posters as well so um brother demonstrating just one skill in a shot he's demonstrating uh also the cleanup the replacement of the poses and so on uh very good uh and again ending up with the slate you can see that uh slates uh were a little bit different uh from each other some sort of individuality a little bit of difference uh between these uh between these uh different reels but i think that's given you a sort of overview of the type of work uh our students need to be prepared i mean uh we said rotoscoping kink uh cg compositing uh match moving uh or tracking using 2d trackers planar tracker or match moving the camera retouching uh so 2d and 3d cleanup color correction and filters uh that's all very important so i'm just going to jump into nuke now um let's see okay so i'm just gonna jump here we have a script actually from one of our students and let's have a quick look around so um i'm assuming that um you know if you've joined this uh webinar you may not have or maybe you have used nuke a little bit but not a lot so i'll just show you uh around a little bit uh to give you an idea of bits and pieces first of all we have an example of the script and as you can see we have a lot of nodes uh it's a node-based system which gives you a lot of flexibility so uh essentially uh this is a nuke interface with the viewer on the top that's how we lay it out of course you can um uh you can do a different layout but we don't actually encourage that because um if you you know it's very compositing is very much teamwork so you don't really want to have a completely different layout than everybody else because you may need to pick up a script from somebody else and vice versa you want to pass your script script around um and somebody else needs to pick it up they would want to have um the same type of interface so each element that you have in a script i'm just going to zoom in so you can see this uh when you are zoomed when i'm zoomed out you can see the script is very looks very organized this is as i said actually one of my ex students uh that's what we teach to keep the scripts organized and um sorry i just moved something okay uh to keep them organized and labeled uh because uh you know it can be quite overwhelming opening something like this uh but actually you will see when i zoom in uh that it's a very intuitive i'm just going to click on something so the script is sitting down here and on the right hand side when you click on a node any of these nodes you get its parameters and all the tools are on the left hand side here so um you when you hover over uh the menu it actually tells you what sort of tools anything to do with the image then drawing retiming and so on and you can see here we have 3d that's how you would navigate you can also click on a tab and type in something let's say if i type in camera i can get a camera in uh it will load it in it's placed it uh here somewhere okay let's see wherever my cursor was but so how do we organize scripts uh as a compositor uh you basically you are bringing in uh a lot of different elements in this particular case um i should show you uh the actual shot uh the result of the shot here at the end and let's have a look at that so export result let's have a look um so we had this sort of plate uh coming in um and this was this is actually a second module so first module in the second year because uh first year it's escape uh when you are studying visual effects um or uh games or animation uh you uh when you are enrolled on one of these courses um you will actually get an overview of uh different areas um so uh you you may have uh even though you want to start compositing you'll learn uh you'll get an insight into animation games and all the uh see let's say you want to be a compositor you you would still um get an insight into a 3d uh visual effects as well so cg creation meaning that in a first year you you you will have you would have one new module and the other modules would be uh other other parts of the industry so this effectively is the first module in the second year where the students uh visual effects students uh haven't yet decided did they want to do or we give them an opportunity to still change uh from 3d to 2d or 2d to 3d so this first module is uh for all visual effects students have to create a cg element and then compete into live action shot as [Music] they also need to do a clean up on the live action shot 2d and 3d cleanup so this is uh part of that module um so at the top of the script so first of all uh as i said this is this was the original plate um if i uh just show you um a plate sorry let's just play it so this was the original plate and um you can see there is a camera move that we have to emulate so i can show you that in a minute uh how that would work and um when uh that is done um in this case let's see let's see this uh final comp so if i was to compare between uh the original and let me just load it into one and this into two so this was the original um and this is the comp so the boat has been replaced you can see that some other cg elements have been dropped in like this tire and some other bits and pieces uh the sky was replaced uh to give it a different atmosphere to the shot and then uh some of the elements in the background have been removed um you can see so we could be using uh you know for those elements you could even be using a 2d tracker to remove them but i'll show you uh briefly how that will be done so uh when i uh talked about organizing organizing the script uh let's move to the top of the script and have a look at that uh so as a compositor uh you know in this case you would want to bring all the elements in and here they are organized uh i can tell you that this camera even though we can match move this in nuke has been created in 3d equalizer which has undistorted the plate um and and um has been new the camera has been used to create this moving cg element of the boat so i'll just show you uh this is essentially a render from maya of a cg boat that has come out uh as i mentioned earlier um with different passes and this is so that we can control the uh shininess uh shininess of here we have specular so we can control the highlights on this uh particular object uh we have uh diffuse paths uh direct and indirect uh meaning uh atmospheric lighting direct meaning direct lighting and indirect indirectly lighting atmospheric lighting um so that we can so that we have a really good control of when um when combining this uh or placing that element into a live actions uh shot uh this these passes would give us uh uh control over that uh i'm just gonna move along uh to show uh what other elements we have and then of course we have the original background plate from which uh the boat has been cleaned so how would we approach something like this as i said uh we could do uh we could actually uh camera track this in nuke as well so i'll just move along because i actually prepped uh a little bit uh on it here on the side uh for us to have a look um and to have a look at renders as well i have some sort of additional passes here as you can see uh this is what we call an id pass uh meaning uh it can it cr it is a pass of uh different uh maps uh for the different elements so that we have a actual mat for the boat uh that will enable us if we want to do any treatment on a boat like color correction we can separate that boat um and do that and you can see some some sort of wood elements here uh again mats for all the different objects so that we can have some sort of control over them uh separately some sort of separate control over them uh so uh i just wanted to show you uh quickly uh that in nuke we also have a camera in this case uh i have actually tracked this shot myself uh here uh you can see this is we have a camera tracker in this 3d 3d menu uh here we have camera tracker when we load this scene um it will essentially uh track all the different elements uh in a shot uh we we have a lot of control over that uh in settings we can we can actually set the number of features um i tend to go for 300 uh first of all uh so it will fi try to find 300 features in this shot to track the default is 150 but i i find that 300 is actually a little bit better default uh once it's done that uh of course these things don't happen instantly so um that's why i uh prepared uh this in advance because otherwise we would need a webinar to last much much longer but essentially uh once it's tracked and it it's uh just a sort of standard setting adjusting just uh just few settings we can track track the shot uh solve it and then export the camera so here you can see uh the actual camera in 3d space um so uh you can see i can actually view the scene through that particular camera choose the camera and i'm viewing uh the actual scene uh through it so amazing features and i'll tell you why it's amazing because once you have a camera and you are quite independent there's a new artist uh in this case of course the students were tracking in in 3d equalizer and exporting that camera so you can import the camera from maya or another any other software but you can also create your own camera tracking nuke which enables you to move on to move on and use it uh to do certain things in this case um i i will just move down uh to show you what i've done a little bit lower down so once you have a camera move uh you can drop in uh uh a card uh just an ordinary card which i have done um and i've dropped it into the scene uh you can see when if i zoom in you can see that camera so just a second let me zoom in okay so you can see if i move around i now have a card on the floor and i placed it on the floor because um i would like to do some cleanup on that floor remove something from the floor which means that i can project onto that uh onto that card with the camera that emulates the move but that is matching the camera in the live action plate um so that's very exciting uh so let's have a look at that um so once uh once the card is positioned i can actually project and let me show you uh what i've done here so uh i have chosen frame 157 on the shot uh to do a little cleanup so let's have a look at that [Music] um briefly okay so uh this is the plate uh frame 157 uh i've added a roto-paint node uh basically from one of these menu menus uh from the tool containers on the left hand side so roto-paint i can attach it to the plate and use let's say cloning on it zoom in and start retouching so i can just copy the texture just a second i can just copy the texture uh from the part of the from the other part of the plate and paint over as you can see uh to remove uh this object which i've done so you don't need to wait for the result i've done that on this frame this is just for demonstration at the moment you can see there is some repetition here uh the way i painted this of course we would want to avoid that and do it a little bit more carefully so once i've painted one frame um i can use that bit of the painted frame to actually project it back onto uh the card uh and onto the plate so i'm using project 3d um uh to project it onto this card let's just move around and have a look so if i zoom in you can see i am projecting there and uh let's have a look at the result result of that uh obviously uh when you are projecting any sort of cleaned up and elements like this you would want to uh add uh you know we add grain to it um and of course we would want to uh any any match any difference we have in a shot and so on so that's that's very important but you can see that uh uh if i compare this uh to the original i've i've effectively uh cleaned uh this element remove this element from the plate so if i uh play pleiades and all that um let's let's play it all that is done in nuke because um we have all the tools in nuke uh to do something like this and this is it on on the move so as i said we would want to be a little bit more accurate i can see there is little uh pattern on it now but uh it is re it was really just to show the sort of workload the sort of thing we can do uh of course when you are adding nodes in the script uh there is no you don't need to worry it's you work in a non-linear fashion so um let's say if i wanted to change the color of this patch for whatever reason um i could just you know go in uh go back uh to that patch and add let's say a color correct node or a grade note to change uh to change the color on it so let's say i'm gonna make it red just move these two sliders um and you can see now we have sometimes we do that anyway just to check uh the truck or how an element is moving i can't believe it's already 6 17. um okay so let's just have um so if you have any questions please uh please you can use q a to ask um anything [Music] let's just have a quick look then or quick look at another script let's see well that is the script um for uh keying of uh we've seen this on the showreel right i use this um as one of the template scripts for the students using multiple cares and what we call additive care to actually uh separate uh separate her from the background from the green screen um that's uh another little workflow um i can just show you so when we have green screen like this with the trucking markers at the back the first thing we do is we we try to clean it uh then we use multiple cares uh to separate the foreground from the background because nuke has a number of cares we can use and a very sophisticated one is ibk ibk gizmo to get a very fine detail that's what we use which creates a clean plate from the original green screen plate it it actually creates clean plate which uh we could we could actually film on the shoot uh but sometimes uh clients don't have time to do that or uh they are not able to do it for whatever reason so uh ibk kia has been designed to deal with this in these situations and it can um create a clean screen uh out of the uh original plate uh this you know clean screen meaning it will match uh the original plate um and a green screen and uh separate uh use it to separate uh the foreground uh from the background so uh as i already said uh we do tend to use multiple keyers to do that we use idk for very fine detail and then combine it with multiple cares to basically achieve a perfect key uh other keyers are primark and key light which we often use for um uh forgetting the corky or the inside of the key because in order to have a very nice uh edges uh very nice edge or uh retain the fine detail uh which you can see from ibk here we are getting all the very fine detail here but we have some holes in the center of the key and that's why we use some other keys to fill in these holes and create a perfect key rather than making adjustments uh on the main gear which could harden some of these very fine detail we we prefer to work in this way uh and that is uh how the industry likes to work as well uh the the way we teach uh you know all different skills and processes is following the industry guidelines and so that the artists when entering the industry are using the same techniques as are used in the industry and are able to then pick up other people's scripts and pass their own scripts um and be able to fit into those themes uh seamlessly okay so uh another example of the script uh before questions um um any questions answering any questions you may have uh again uh as you can see very nicely laid out script um very neat uh everything is uh labeled uh all the different sections again this script uh was also part of that module where uh we are doing cleanup and cg comp uh in a shot so let's uh have a quick quick look um at this plane uh this is a little bit slow because it has a lot of roto-paint uh nodes in here uh a lot of painting but you can see this is the original shot with all these dustbins uh it's a nice uh shot in shepherd's bush uh in london and we like to use this this is one uh one of our tutors uh uh has filmed a lot of plates uh dan schatz has uh filmed a lot of plates for our students to use this is a great plate because you can see it's an interesting camera move and plenty of things you can replace clean add new elements and so on okay um so let's see the final result try to see final result here oh it's not reading it's okay sorry about that just a second what i actually wanted to show was this interesting cleanup um just a second um so again here um if i zoom in uh uh you can see everything is labeled it's it says what has been removed and added and so on let's see so different parts of the plate different parts of the plate um being um treated okay well i hope that gave you um a little bit of insight into nuke you know it is a very it's such state-of-the-art uh software um it's uh it is an and pretty complex so uh so it's not easy to show all its features uh but i hope it has given you an idea of the sort of things uh you can do um and seeing those showrooms from the students um and uh you know if you have any questions if you think of any questions uh at a later stage you can always contact us and we are very happy uh to talk to people who are interested in uh um in compositing or what you know if you need any advice um any direction to to different tutorials you could use please get in touch thank you very much thank you for coming

Channel: Escape Studios

Views: 1,626

Keywords: Escape Studios, Escape, studios, VFX, Visual Effects, CGI, Maya, Autodesk, Nuke, Foundry, I want to learn, tutorial, modelling, rendering, dynamics, texturing, animation, renderman, compositing, ncloth, motion graphics, design

Id: 79SqrIEuMAU

Length: 53min 53sec (3233 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021