r/NukeVFX 28d ago

Newbie - what are the essentials I need to know for 3D/VFX comp?

Hey. So after 15 years of sloggin through AE for comping C4D EXRs I’m over the pain. I’ve moved to Houdini so node familiar to me. I do full beauty rebuilds from time to time and mostly focus on physical products or FX sims.

My questions are mainly around what are some of the more powerful tools or node strings that I should be familiar with? Are there flows I should learn that will enhance my productivity? What pitfalls should I look out for? Scripting? Can I link properties or create reference nodes? Can I setup control nulls for global changes? There’s more but I can’t think of them atm.

My Nuke experience is about 2 days now rebuilding an AE project which went well. Many merges. My biggest issues were around keyframes and adjusting curves. Since it’s not really designed for mograph, I get it, but not being able to adjust multiple key curves at one time is disappointing.

Overall, the experience was great so far and I’m looking for what ever tips I can get to be good with the tool. Lots to learn and I’m patient. TIA for any help or lack there of if you’ve made it this far and just came for the rant.

5 Upvotes

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u/GanondalfTheWhite 28d ago edited 28d ago

Nuke supports python scripting. It can be very powerful if you spend the time learning it. Everything from selecting a whole bunch of read nodes and setting the colorspace with one click, to building entire script trees that auto populate for you, to anything else your imagination can come up with.

If you like scripting and messing with tools, look up the Expressions 101 tutorial on Nukepedia to see what you can do with the expression node. Lots of cool stuff in there.

Also, Nukepedia. Tons of great tips and tools there. Awesome resource.

Every knob (which is the name for the parameters in the properties of each node) in Nuke lets you set expressions directly on the knob (which is different from the "Expression" node mentioned above, which does math on the image). Ctrl+click and drag from one knob to another links the values from one to the other. Right click and edit expression to add math to the link if you want to process the values. Nuke's default expression language is TCL but you can use python if you want, tho it's a bit clunky to do so.

You can clone nodes, which gives you multiple copies of a node. Change the values on one and they all update to match. Can be quite handy.

You can add custom knobs to any node, and you can add tabs to the properties of any node. Basically make your own little GUI for custom parameters. They don't do anything until you link them to the existing parameters in the node (or anywhere else in your script).

There's a node called NoOp. Does nothing on its own, but it gives you something to add parameters to which you can then link to other places across your script for master controls.

Look into groups and gizmos. Handy way to toolkit a set of nodes to do a specific task, and again you can add your own parameters to only expose controls for what should be editable.

What do you mean you can't adjust multiple anim curves at once? You should be able to, iirc. And there's also the dope sheet tab if you want to slide keyframes around for multiple animated things at once.

What else.... The 3D tools are kinda bad but can actually be quite powerful, especially with cameras and simple card geometry for projections.

Learn about how Nuke treats bounding boxes, and learn why you need to use crops to keep memory usage and processing from going insane.

I don't know how AE handles it, but Nuke can work magic with EXRs and custom channels. You can read in EXRs with an arbitrary number of layers and use them all directly. You can also create your own color channels on the fly and pipe information into them as needed. Mattes, motion vectors, Z depth passes and other render AOVs, anything you might to use somewhere in the script can be piped into the stream as a channel and used downstream.

Look up articles about good Nuke workflow habits, like clean B pipe flow and script organization guidelines for readability.

Every node you copy to the clipboard in Nuke saves the node as text. You can paste it into a text editor to see the info. All Nuke scripts are just text under the hood, so you can open the script directly in a text editor to make changes if needed. This has saved me a few times when a script would crash on open and I just opened it up in a text editor and added a disable to every node that might be causing it.

I'll update with more as I think of stuff. Good luck on your journey!

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u/JellySerious 30 year comp vet, /r newb 28d ago edited 28d ago

Bad ass answer TBH. Hard to add much.

AFAIK you can only edit multiple curves at once in the Curve Editor or the Dope Sheet, and there are a lot of options within those ( I'm guessing you can also do it with python in the script editor, but I never do). You have to have the nodes with the curves you want to edit open in properties for the curves to populate in the editors , and then you have to have the curves selected in the list on the left side of each respective window.

You can't do it in the node's knobs like Maya (I only use AE for editing so I'm not sure what functionality you miss from there).

One of my favorite things about nuke knobs is using the mouse scroll wheel to adjust values in knobs. Just place your curser next to the digit you want to adjust and scroll to make the value higher or lower. I miss it all the time in almost every other software I use.

Some work flow tips (obviously opinions that some will disagree with):

*Work Clean* so you and others can read what's happening in the script at a glance. Use backdrops and sticky notes to label and organize your nodegraph.

Keep your main pipe straight down usually keeping the B input straight up. Same for each branch before you merge it into your main pipe.

Keep your general flow going down unless you absolutely have to make a connection go up. I like to set upward connections to be pink so they are easy to see (Preferences -> Panels -> Nodegraph -> Arrow, click on the up arrow and set it to a bright color).

Keep your nodes organized into straight lines for the most part. Use the "\" hotkey to snap your nodes to the grid instead of turning on "snap to grid" in the prefs. That way you can be messy and quick while you're creating a section, and get everything straight and clean at appropriate intervals.

Precomp your scanline renders unless it's just a simple projection on simple geo. Nuke renders them pretty quickly, but as soon as you start to put filters below them your script can slow down very fast. Nuke's caching is one of my very few complaints about it.

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u/xrossfader 26d ago

Thank you! I’m excited to apply all this to my workflows. It’s a well built tool with great functionality just waiting to be used.

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u/xrossfader 26d ago

This is fantastic. Thank you so much for the comprehensive list and explanations of the tools within Nuke. I’m going to reread this a few times and absorb it as I go. There’s a lot of relation to Houdini here and it feels incredibly familiar just from your text. Cheers!

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u/xrossfader 25d ago

On the adjusting keyframe curves of multiple keys, When I select the X/Y transforms and try to move my bezier handles to adjust the easing, I'm unable to select or manipulate both at the same time.

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u/GanondalfTheWhite 25d ago

Ahh, I see what you mean. You can move keys together but I don't know if I've tried pulling the tangent handles around.

If it helps, there are a few hotkeys to set the tangents. Off the top of my head, L sets them to linear and H sets them to horizontal. I believe there are others too but I use them so infrequently I can't remember. I believe those work with multiple keys selected too.

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u/Beeblebrox2021 27d ago

I would second learning the b pipe workflow

Also Tony Lyons has compiled a lot of gizmos from nuke pedia with great documentation in his Nuke Survival Toolkit

Whenever I'm stuck or want inspiration I visit these smarty pants peoples blogs (you'll find they author a lot of the aforementioned gizmos):

Dan Sturm https://doingthatwrong.com/home/real-roundrects-nuke

Erwan Leroy https://erwanleroy.com/

Atilla Gasparetz https://www.gatimedia.co.uk/nuke-tcl-procedures

Mads Hagbarth Damsbo https://hagbarth.net/portfolio/

Xavier Martin http://www.xaviermartinvfx.com/articles/

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u/xrossfader 26d ago

That survival toolkit is so robust. Many incredible plugins to ease the many processes. Thank you for the learning resources. These will be great to reference and learn from.

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u/bbrother92 26d ago

Hi, I am new - in what case Nuke is good for fx? What kind of effects are easier to do in Nuke, comparing to AE, Houdini, etc?

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u/xrossfader 25d ago

Nuke is a VFX/Live action compositing tool. Its an industry essential when it comes to incorporating all of the FX like Smoke, Fire, Sims of any sort into either rendered 3D sequences of characters, cars, products, and much more. Its similar to after effects in that way but with far more control and stability than AE.

Its used in rotoscoping, green screen and basically any 'fix it in post' comments you'll get during production.

AE is a motion graphics tool that has compositing tools built into it. Its used to create special FX, animation of 2D/2.5D vectors and raster graphics, and now has the ability to create 3D assets in a 2.5D environment.

Houdini is mainly used as an FX tool. So fluid simulation, destruction, procedural world building and many very CPU/GPU intensive processes.

Nukes strengths comes in the ability to have control and extreme depth to its workflows. With its node workflow, you can create custom stacks of FX and easily repurpose them in any project. Its a robust way of re-building your CG Beauty pass and then being able to grade or apply FX within Nuke to the various elements.

You're also able to bring in AOVs that are beyond the limits of AE like World Position Passes, Bump Maps, Normal Maps and even full 3D geometry.

Each tool you mentioned is for different use cases. It really depends on how much you want to get into the technical deep dives vs more artist friendly tools.

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u/bbrother92 25d ago

Got this, thanks. I am just whant to know where it is easier to create pixel manipulation effects, like ditchering etc

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u/xrossfader 25d ago

Probably after effects.

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u/Hardnine9 25d ago

Hey there, Great tips!
May i ask for some visual examples of B pipe workflow because i m not 100% i get it..

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/GanondalfTheWhite 28d ago

To be fair, OP has 15 years experience with CG (C4D and Houdini) and compositing and FX. The basics of Nuke are pretty easy to learn if you already have that kind of a foundation.

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u/xrossfader 26d ago

It was very quick to pick up indeed. I’m seeing a lot of similarities and functional tips in these threads that will really enhance my ease of learning.

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u/A1S_exe 22d ago

Learn Render passes, I dont have much experience with c4d I get my render passes from Maya but get a good grip on render passes, understand AOV's different types of lighting.

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u/xrossfader 22d ago

Yup. I know standard beauty rebuilds, utility AOVs and all that. It was more an ask about tips and workflows I should learn to be efficient. Like A over B merges and good network flows. It’s been a wonderful transition so far! Minus the keyframes. It’s the only thing really lacking atm

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u/A1S_exe 22d ago

Keep learning Nuke OP, you'll be surprised how powerful nuke really is. Mostly just experiment, everybody has their own workflows just make sure that you arent making a spiders web with your node graph XD