Creating and Accessing Gizmos

Nuke enables artists and technical directors to create gizmos, which are groups of Nuke nodes that may be reused by other artists. Studios commonly use gizmos to consistently apply certain color grading techniques, process incoming footage according to a particular conversion formula, and process outgoing footage in preparation for film printing.

A gizmo is a Group Node that you create and save in a separate .gizmo file in your Nuke plug-in folder. Nuke scripts can use this gizmo just like any other node type. Saved scripts only contain the name and control settings for the gizmo; the definition is in the gizmo file and it is read at the same time the script is loaded into Nuke. Thus, you can alter the implementation of the gizmo and change all the scripts that are using it.

Note:  Unlike other nodes, gizmos cannot be cloned. For more information, see Working with Nodes.

Tip:   You can register gizmos as soft effects in Nuke's Timeline environment. See Adding Effects on the Timeline for more information.

Creating Gizmos

A gizmo is a Group Node that you create and save in a separate .gizmo file in your Nuke plug-in folder. Nuke scripts can use this gizmo just like any other node type.

Using Nuke’s Export gizmo command, you can export nodes inside a Group and explicitly control which controls may be edited by the artists to ensure the processes within the gizmo are consistently applied.

To create a gizmo:

1.

Select the nodes you want to include in the gizmo.

2.

Select Other > Group from the Toolbar (or press Ctrl/Cmd+G) to group the nodes.

3.

You may want to rename the group by entering a new name in the Group properties panel title field. This step is optional, and has no effect on the saved gizmo. However, it is often a good idea to give the Group the same name you intend to use for the gizmo.

4.

To expose which controls the artists can adjust, see Managing Gizmo Controls.

5.

Click the export as gizmo button.

6.

In the file browser that appears, click Home. Type .nuke/ after the path displayed at the bottom of the file browser.

7.

Enter a name after the path, and append a .gizmo extension after the name. This is the name of the command that is written to any saved script that’s using the gizmo. It’s a good idea, and common practice, to begin the name with a capital letter, because Nuke uses this as an indication that the command is a node or a gizmo.

8.

Click Save.

See Accessing Gizmos in Nuke for information on how to access your gizmo in Nuke.

Note:  Nuke does not allow you to Overwrite and Save as gizmos by default, without copying the gizmo to a Group. If you want to allow this behavior, so artists don't need to copy a gizmo before editing it, set the NUKE_ALLOW_GIZMO_SAVING environment variable to 1. See Environment Variables for more information.