Loading Gizmos, NDK Plug-ins, and Python and Tcl Scripts

On start-up, Nuke scans various directories for files that customize the behavior of Nuke. It looks for information on favorite directories, menu options, image formats, gizmos, NDK plug-ins, Python scripts, generic Tcl scripts, and preferences.

Warning:  It’s worth saying that you should edit Python files with care as mistakes could stop Nuke from running.
For more information on Python in Nuke, see The Script Editor and Python or the Python Developer’s Guide (Help > Documentation).

To make your customizations available to all versions of a particular release, place them in the following directories:

• Linux: /usr/local/Nuke/<version>/plugins/

• Mac: /Library/Application Support/Nuke/<version>/plugins/

• Windows: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Nuke\<version>\plugins\

If you want Nuke to look for plug-ins somewhere else rather than in these default locations, you can also define a common plug-in path yourself. Thus, by defining the Nuke plug-in path, you can assign yourself a common shared directory from which to control Nuke for multiple artists. See Defining the Nuke Plug-in Path for more information.

Nuke also looks in specific sub-directories of your home directory and the Nuke application directory in the order shown by platform:

Note:  If you place customizations in the application directories, they'll only be available for that release.

• Linux:

/usr/local/Nuke12.0v8/plugins

/usr/local/Nuke12.0v8/plugins/nukescripts

/home/login name/.nuke

• Mac:

/Applications/Nuke12.0v8/Nuke12.0v8.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins

/Applications/Nuke12.0v8/plugins/nukescripts

/Users/login name/.nuke

• Windows:

drive letter:\Program Files\Nuke12.0v8\plugins\nukescripts or

drive letter:\Program Files\Nuke12.0v8\plugins

~\.nuke

Note:  On Windows, the .nuke folder can be found under the directory pointed to by the HOME environment variable. If this variable is not set (which is common), the .nuke directory will be under the folder specified by the USERPROFILE environment variable - which is generally of the form drive letter:\Documents and Settings\login name\ or drive letter:\Users\login name\

To find out if the HOME and USERPROFILE environment variables are set and where they are pointing at, enter %HOME% or %USERPROFILE% into the address bar in Windows Explorer. If the environment variable is set, the folder it’s pointing at is opened. If it’s not set, you get an error.

In addition to setting up your Python/plugin environment using the init.py and menu.py files, Nuke Studio also allows you to run Python code automatically on start-up. The default location for this Python code is:

<STARTUP_PYTHON_PATH>/Python/Startup

Where by default, <STARTUP_PYTHON_PATH> is $HOME/.nuke as described in the OS breakdown above.

Any Python .py modules or packages containing __init__.py found within the /Python/Startup directory is imported when the application launches, and added to the hiero.plugins namespace.