Leading software developer, The Foundry has announced at IBC that a brand new version of its industry standard compositing software, NUKE will launch later this year.

Timeline viewing and text
In NUKE 8 artists will notice huge enhancements to the Dope Sheet, allowing them see and move keys around in the context of a timeline style view. They will be able to see the results and each property of a node accurately displayed in context. The new viewing capability will make working with any scripts that involve time manipulation a much more simple process and give artists far greater visibility on their work.

One of NUKE’s most hotly anticipated features, a brand new Text node will allow artists to compose, edit and animate directly in the viewer.

Artist friendly colour controls
Enhancing NUKE’s grading and colour correction tools has been a big focus for the development team on this upcoming release. Updates to the UI will include a new intuitive in-panel colour wheel. NUKE 8’s wheel will control hue, saturation and value and offer artists an automatic precision mode or an optional absolute mode for finer tweaks.

There will also be a wide range of Scope tools to help users analyse the picture like Waveform, Vectorscope and Histogram viewers and a brand new Pixel Analyser. Other colour innovations will include a Match Grade node that will enhance NUKE’s grading capabilities to let artists get accurate results really fast.

Speed-ups and 3D workflows
Making environment work a faster and easier process, a further update to NUKE’s Camera Tracker will add to the set solve functionality and let artists track and solve cameras from reference stills, helping to assist object or set modelling within one integrated environment. The Model Builder will also feature UV creation for even greater 3D control.

Brand new 3D tools will include Viewer Capture to allow users to flipbook images from the 2D and 3D Viewer, a new Edit Geo node for greater control, a Particle Cache node to speed up rendering times and the Wireframe Shader node for various visual effects and increased control over projection mapping.

NUKE 8 adds Deep Output to the Scanline Renderer which will enhance the Deep Compositing workflow. Overall speed and performance will also be improved with the addition of OpenEXR 2.0 multi-part image read and write support, Alembic 1.5 and Planar Rendering. NUKE 8 also features a new intelligent in-context help system.

Jon Wadelton, NUKE Product Manager at The Foundry comments: “The really great thing about this release is that there will be something for everyone. The update will have features and improvements that will benefit users working on commercials, in film, television as well as developers and pipeline TD’s responsible for integrating NUKE at a facility. This version of NUKE is very exciting because I truly believe we’ve made NUKE accessible to users of other compositing applications. Additions like the new dope sheet, text tool and user interfaces such as the colour wheel will provide a familiar environment. NUKE is now so big and so powerful, we can’t wait to release later this year and see what people think.”

Pipeline tools for developers
With NUKE 8 developers will be able to write their own image processing operations inside of NUKE using the new Blink Script node to ensure they get the best possible performance from their teams hardware. The Blink Framework has been pioneered by The Foundry to allow users to utilise the power of their GPUs, when available, to speed up interactive processing.

The new Import NUKE function will also let developers use NUKE as a module in any Python interpreter, and developers of C++ plugins will be able to output planar data in more flexible ways thanks to new Planar Rendering Framework.

HIERO update coming soon
NUKE’s sister application HIERO, often described as NUKE’s timeline, will also receive an update later this year. HIERO 1.8 will feature greatly enhanced playback performance, innovative quicktime colour handling controls as well as new editing audio controls that will give users access to Per Track and Per Item Volume Controls to enable individual control over volume on differing tracks and differing items in the timeline.

Working together NUKE and HIERO offer a workflow that encompasses compositing, conform, review, editorial and shot management delivered across two advanced applications. They provide a comprehensive solution for artists and supervisors wearing many hats in the post-production process and taking on the challenge of whole projects and sequences.

About The Foundry
The Foundry was established in 1996. It is now the fastest-growing company in its field today, and is internationally renowned for its product design and collaborative and open approach to development.

Led by CEO Bill Collis and a management team that still includes the original founders, The Foundry is backed by The Carlyle Group with a substantial portion still owned by the staff. In September 2012, The Foundry merged with Luxology, an independent US-based technology company.

The Foundry develops award-winning computer graphics and visual effects (VFX) software used globally by leading artists and designers. The portfolio lets users create inspiring and technical
high-end visuals across a wide range of industries including film, TV, commercial and games, as well as the CAD, design and architecture markets.

The Foundry has a stable of award-winning 2D and 3D VFX software including NUKE, its industry standard compositor and MODO, the 3D software package that combines modelling, painting, animation and rendering.

The Foundry has established itself as a critical partner to major feature film studios and post production houses worldwide including The Mill, ILM, The Moving Picture Company, Walt Disney Animation, Weta Digital, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Digital Domain. The company's products have been used to create breathtaking effects sequences on a wide range of features, television projects and commercials. High profile examples include the 2013 Oscar® winner, Life of Pi (Best Visual Effects) and The Hobbit and the EMMY award winning Boardwalk Empire.

To date in 2013 The Foundry has been confirmed as a finalist in the 2013 National Business Awards’ INTERNATIONAL GROWTH BUSINESS OF THE YEAR category. In 2012 the company made the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for the third year, ranking in 70th position. In 2011 The Foundry also placed in The Sunday Times International Track at number 54, made the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list for the first time and was awarded a laureate in the Computerworld Honours.

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