Introducing the next generation of Nuke with the first stage of a completely new 3D system built on USD

Foundry, the leading developer of creative software for the Media and Entertainment industries, today announces the release of Nuke 14.0.

The first release of the Nuke 14 series brings a completely revamped beta 3D system that comes equipped with more than 40 nodes and a USD-based architecture, improving performance and scalability when working with large scenes. Foundry’s unique approach to USD-native workflows combines the scalability and performance of USD with maintaining the simplicity of compositing workflows and offering pipelines the flexibility to create new USD-based integrations. 

As part of this revamp, Nuke has introduced a dedicated scene graph. This allows artists to easily view, navigate and manage complex 3D scenes. Nuke 14.0 also gives users access to new path and mask knobs that work intuitively with their workflow, as well as new light nodes, material and shader workflows, and much more. 

Foundry is releasing the 3D system as a beta feature and has created a new forum space to allow artists to collaborate, feedback and build the next generation of 3D compositing workflows.

Alongside all of this, Nuke users can experience updates to the UnrealReader which enables support for Unreal Custom Render Passes, the introduction of cloud-based login licensing and Cattery, a free library for third-party machine learning models converted to .cat files and ready to be run as Nuke nodes, plus many other enhancements to help accelerate artists. 

Juan Salazar, Director of Product at Foundry, comments: 

“The new 3D system is one of the biggest updates to Nuke in its history at Foundry. Nuke’s 3D system was revolutionary in its time—however, as projects have grown in scale and complexity, it was no longer up to scratch. The new 3D system is the product of the best minds on both the Nuke and Katana teams applying a deep understanding of USD and production pipelines. We are building the next generation of 3D workflows in compositing on this more scalable and performant base. While we are dedicated to maintaining the speed and simplicity of 3D compositing workflows, this update introduces major changes for artists and releasing the new 3D system as a beta feature will enable us to capture critical feedback on how to make improvements in USD and 3D workflows. I’m excited to see what artists and pipelines do with this new system!”

To learn more about Nuke 14.0, visit the Nuke release page here.