I'm still learning, and the scene isn't done, obviously but wanted to know if those explosions assets can look good after finishing lighting shadows glow and the camera shake because I feel that I chose wrong assets to start with wanted to take opinions if I continued with those can I make something good or should I find other assets any additional advice I'll be happy to hear
My second VFX shot in this community, made with Blender and Nuke. It took me a few days to finish. I’m learning VFX on my own, so I’m always open to advice and feedback from the community..
This work was also inspired by a great artist from Weta FX. I’ll share his YouTube tutorial/channel in the comments for anyone interested.
Thanks everyone for the support! 🙏
87461 nodes...
So out of interest (and with the help of ChatGPT) I analysed the final versions of 234 shots/comps from 50 most recent project folders. There are plenty of WIP versions in there, but I only included one final-ish version per shot/comp.
My top 20 nodes:
Other (mildly) interesting bits:
Roto or RotoPaint didn't fit into the top 100 :D Still happily riding the good old bezier and transform masked instead.
Merge operations were fun too. About 58% (3923) were over, followed by multiply 660, copy 635, max 370 and plus 268.
About avg comp sizes: Median: 176 nodes. Mean: 374 nodes. The largest had 2,952 nodes, and 10% had at least 913 nodes. So a handful of monster scripts heavily skewed the average.
One in every seven nodes was a Dot. (Skipped this in top node analysis). Sounds neat, but as mainly working solo, it's usually somewhat spiderwebby.
(Only) 2.85% of all nodes were disabled. I really dislike leaving disabled nodes in the graph.
There was 98621 connections in total.
Ask me anything!
The bokeh node that comes with Nuke and a lot of gizmos used for defocusing uses real lens and camera values(f/stop, focal length, focus distance and sensor size) to calculate the defocus. My question is that in the sensor size knob do we enter the actual size of the camera’s sensor or the image circle size of the lens that was used?
In my mind when shooting with a real camera and lens the level of defocus shouldn’t change when mounting the lens on a full frame camera compare to when we mount it to a camera with a smaller sensor size, the only difference should be that the latter have a smaller fov/a bit zoomed in. So shouldn’t we input the size of the image circle of the lens instead? Or am i just thinking about this all wrong?
Can someone make gamepad support for nuke cuz i wanna work when i was chilling on the coach.
Besides the joke i am really curious about is this possible to do
I have done quite a few Nuke tutorials in the past and a few of Alex's small tutorials, which I loved. His Nuke tutorial package (NK101-NK104) honestly looks like a lot of fun and right up my alley, but I just can't swing the price tag right now (I work in the film industry here in Los Angeles, which basically means I am unemployed these days lol). Any other suggestions for a comparable, more affordable course? Or if anyone has taken this course, was it worth the steep price tag? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's unfairly priced. I know the amount of work he put into it, and he's a wonderful teacher, and I have paid similar prices for other courses in the past.
Hi everyone,
I have a question about lens distortion. I’m currently working on an animated/fully CG project, and I’ve been given some lens distortion data that I need to apply to the CG renders.
I have two distortion maps:
Our test render resolution is 2048 × 858.
My current workflow is to directly use the Distort map with an STMap, and then Reformat the Distort map to 2048 × 858. However, I’m still getting incorrect results, especially around the edges. No matter how much overscan I add to the CG render, I still seem to have problems.
I realize that my current approach may be wrong. Most of the tutorials I’ve found online seem to start with live-action footage and then generate/solve the lens distortion data from the plate. In my case, however, the distortion data has already been solved and provided to me, so I’m trying to figure out how I should properly use it for a fully CG image.
So my questions are:
If I’m working with a completely CG image and I already have both an Undistort map and a Distort map, what is the correct workflow for applying the lens distortion in Nuke?
Is my current approach of simply connecting the Distort map to an STMap and then Reformatting it to 2048 × 858 incorrect?
Also, how should I properly deal with the different resolutions of the two distortion maps (3856 × 1756 vs. 3656 × 1556) and the CG render resolution of 2048 × 858? Should the CG render be rendered with a specific overscan or resolution before applying the distortion?
I’d really appreciate any advice from experienced Nuke/VFX artists. If possible, I can also provide the two distortion maps and my .nk script. If anyone is willing to take a look at the files and help me correct the setup, I’d be extremely grateful.
Thanks in advance!
doing some cleanup for the first time.. any suggestions to improve for better results?? would be much appreciated
Deep compositing has been a standard tool in high-end VFX pipelines for years, especially for shots where characters, environments, volumes and FX are rendered separately and need to intersect correctly in comp.
I have been working on Deep EXR output for Cycles as part of Industrial CG Platform, a Blender-based project focused on bringing more film/VFX-oriented rendering and compositing workflows into Blender.
deep compositing using exrs rendered by Industrial CG Platform
In a normal 2D workflow, characters, environments, smoke, particles, hair, and FX can be rendered separately, but their foreground/background relationships usually need to be decided before rendering. This creates a growing network of holdouts and mattes.
A small change — such as adding smoke behind a character — can require several existing layers to be rendered again.
With Deep EXR, each pixel can contain multiple color, alpha, and depth samples. The Cycles renders can therefore be loaded into Nuke with DeepRead, combined using DeepMerge, and flattened only after their spatial relationships have been resolved.
Deep Character ───┐
Deep Environment ─┤
Deep Volume ──────┼─ DeepMerge ─ DeepToImage
Deep Particles ───┘
The practical result is that separately rendered elements can be recombined without permanently locking their depth order into holdouts.
For example, smoke can pass both behind and in front of a character, particles can intersect other CG elements at different depths, and new elements can be inserted without rebuilding all the surrounding holdouts.
There is also a DeepRecolor workflow, where the Deep render provides the spatial information while a separate 2D render provides the final image data.
This is mainly aimed at complex shots involving hair, fur, volumes, particles, destruction, crowds, or heavily layered environments.
But for the right shots, render layers can be separated around production needs — departments, sampling and revisions — instead of being dictated entirely by foreground/background order.
The implementation is part of Industrial CG Platform. Visit the official Industrial CG Platform homepage, download the current build or grab the source code from GitHub, and integrate Blender into a more precise, low-re-render-cost Nuke deep composite workflow.
STMap_BBox is a C++ Plugin for Foundry Nuke. It does the same thing as Nuke's native STMap node, but with one additional calculation for warping the Bounding box.
Download and try the STMap_BBox plugin here:
https://github.com/CreativeLyons/STMap_BBox-public/releases/latest
Visit my blog for a more extensive write up:
https://compositingmentor.com/2026/08/15/stmap_bbox/
As a comp supervisor or comp lead, what's your workflow for reviewing a bunch of shots and for reviewing a sequence creatively, technically, and sequentially?? What tools are typically involved?
I am very glad to share my first post in this community!
This is a VFX shot I created using Blender and Nuke. I’m completely self-taught, so I’m always open to feedback and advice. I’d really appreciate any tips that could help me improve.
Thanks for checking it out!
Firstly, I solemnly swear, this is not spam. I have this form, for my final year research, and I need like 100 submissions minimum. I have 58 so far. The research topic, in short is whether/how the things you watched growing up has had an influence on your creative practice today or contributed to where you are as a creative today. This research is targeted towards VISUAL Creatives, so animators fall right in my demographic.
If as many people can fill this today it would mean the world to me. I just need 42 responses more. Its a 10 minute survey. Everyone who fills it would be a lifesaver.
https://forms.gle/QF4KWhqyomAWKa2F9
Thank you in advance!
Hello everyone,
Hope everyone is doing fine,
I am working on this shot, what I want to do is remove man and keep the background. So I am trying camera tracking and projection, card seats on ground and I projected from single framehold but after few frames I get this tearing, how can I properly handle this shot for cleanup
Any suggestions would be appreciated, I am also attaching link for this shot from Action VFX
https://www.actionvfx.com/practice-footage/agent-runs-from-explosion/16014
