What's New in Nuke, Nuke Studio and Hiero 11.3

This page provides an overview of the updates included in Nuke, Nuke Studio, and Hiero 11.3.

Note:  See the navigation bar on the left for links to specific release notes by version.

ARRI SDK Update

ARRIRAW has been updated to version 6, including various improvements and bug fixes that have introduced subtle image differences that are within tolerance. The Read node's Properties panel includes the following changes:

• The sharpness control now ranges from -5.0 to 5.0. Legacy scripts using the previous 0 to 100 range are remapped to [0,5] when opened.

• A new detail control.

Note:  The ARRI look settings are not currently supported.

The full ARRI SDK release notes are publicly available from: http://www.arri.com/support/downloads/searchable_downloads/

Bounding Box Improvements

Node Graph indications have been added to show changes in bounding box size. You can now tell at a glance the state of the bounding box, even when the Viewer is zoomed in.

The new indications are:

• red rectangle with dotted stroke - the indicated node creates a bounding box greater than the format.

• dotted stroke without the red rectangle - the bounding box size is greater than the format at the indicated node, but the bounding box size has been set by an upstream node.

You can enable and disable these indicators, set a threshold for the warning, and choose the color of the rectangle in the Preferences.

See Bounding Box Warnings for more information.

Channel Limit Warning

We've added a new warning in Nuke's GUI to tell you when you're approaching or exceeding the 1023 uniquely-named channel limit in Nuke.

You can set a channel count threshold in the Preferences > Project Defaults > Channel Management, and Nuke warns you when a newly created Node causes you to exceed that threshold. Additionally, the currently used channel count is displayed in the status bar - color coded to identify if you're below the threshold, above the threshold, or above the maximum channel limit.

See Channels for more information.

eGPU Support

Support has been added for AMD cards in eGPU set-ups for macOS 10.13.5 (High Sierra), and later. The Sonnet eGFX Breakaway box and BlackMagic eGPU have been tested.

Live Groups - Locking and Overrides

Locking

In previous versions of Nuke, a published LiveGroup could be made editable by any change to the LiveGroup script or various changes to the parent LiveGroup node.

Now, once a LiveGroup is published, its contents are locked. This means that any action that could modify the script is disabled. Nodes and their inputs/outputs are locked in position, node property panel controls are grayed out and a padlock icon is displayed on the Node Graph tab for that LiveGroup. To unlock a LiveGroup, click Make Editable.

See Editing and Publishing LiveGroups for more information.

Overrides

Live Group overrides build on the existing functionality, taking the workflow a step further by allowing knobs at the level above to act as overrides rather than modifying the knobs inside the LiveGroup script.

Override knob values replace those beneath them in the Live Group hierarchy without changing the original value in the LiveGroup script. Override knobs are marked with yellow squares in the Properties panel.

See Overriding LiveGroup Controls for more information.

Python Callbacks

The Python API for LiveGroups has been extended to include a number of new callbacks, all of which support a return value (True by default). This enables you to control the LiveGroup workflow based on user defined criteria. The Python tab has been removed from the LiveGroup properties.

The callbacks are as follows:

nuke.LIVEGROUP_CALLBACK_CAN_PUBLISH

nuke.LIVEGROUP_CALLBACK_PUBLISHED

nuke.LIVEGROUP_CALLBACK_CAN_MAKE_EDITABLE

nuke.LIVEGROUP_CALLBACK_MADE_EDITABLE

nuke.LIVEGROUP_CALLBACK_RELOADED

nuke.PRECOMP_CALLBACK_OPENED

Particles Performance Improvements

The Particle system has been optimized to produce up to 6x faster particle simulations and 4x faster playback of particles in the Viewer. In our internal tests, improvements are seen at any scale, with more improvement in simulations with a higher number of particles.

Note:  These improvements are a rewrite of some of Nuke’s core particle code, and may result in some differences in output from previous versions of Nuke. Simulations still have similar levels of realism as previous releases.

For custom Particle plug-in developers, you can take advantage of new ParticleSystem class accessor methods, which return pointers to attribute arrays. Using these is much faster than calling the individual methods for each particle. See Nuke's NDK Development Guide for more information.

Smart Vector Toolset Improvements

A new node, VectorCornerPin, has been added to the Smart Vector Toolset in NukeX. Using the VectorCornerPin can reduce the need to create multiple VectorDistort nodes with different reference frames and mix between them.

VectorCornerPin uses SmartVector to warp a corner-pinned image between keyframes. You can set keyframes using User and From controls, just like in the CornerPin node, causing the Source image to warp according to the additional SmartVector input.

See Warping Images Using VectorCornerPin for more information.

Sony SDK Update

Sony SDK has been updated to version 3.1, adding support for the Sony VENICE camera, and X-OCN encoded footage from the F5, F55 and VENICE.

Timeline Multiview Support

In addition to multi-view formats such as .exr and .sxr, Nuke Studio, Hiero, and HieroPlayer now allow you to define views using separate files on a single track item, similar to Nuke's Node Graph %V Read functionality. For example, if you read in image.left.dpx and change the name to image.%V.dpx, both image.left.dpx and image.right.dpx are read using the same Read node, provided that views called left and right exist in your Project Settings.

Tracks can display all views or any single view using the view button, allowing you to set up stereo and VR timelines for review. Once tracks are set, you can use the new export structure to create Nuke scripts with stereo setups for compositing.

See Stereoscopic and Multi-View Projects for more information.

Viewer Selection Modes

The selection tool has been improved in both 3D and 2D views, including new modes. You can now select areas of a certain shape with the marquee tools or use the lasso tool to make a selection by tracing the edges of any shape. Additional hotkeys have been added, allowing you to draw a rectangular/ellipse selection from the center and constrain it to square or circle.

See Selection Modes for more information.