nuke

搭上阿凡達（Avatar）高速列車的寵兒：Nuke

Framestore Joins the Nuke Crowd, 一則在 fxguide 上頭剛剛上線的新聞，指出 Avatar 的大紅大紫，所帶來的連帶效應之一：Nuke 也跟著又紅了一次。

繼 Sony Pictures Imageworks, ILM 與 Weta Digital, Framestore 也一併採購了 Nuke site license，亦即整個 studio 將不再有 license 個數的使用限制，只要是使用在 studio 裏頭，某個不致於不合理的狀況下，都可以用。

加上原來就是 Nuke 的發源地的 Digital Domain，目前的大廠，還有 Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, Blue Sky Studios, Double Negative, ... 等，還沒直接發表對外的聲明指出全數導入 Nuke（這不代表沒有用，只是沒有非常正式的官方友好聲明），Nuke 算是整個完全取代掉 Shake 的地位了。

• Nuke is fast and interactive.
• Nuke is flexible.
• Nuke's integration with Python is awesome.
• Nuke's scientific and technical development team is reliable.

3D Compositing in Nuke

We all know that should be a trend for compositing softwares to switch to real 3D compositing. That is, you do composite by not only images/channels/layers but also the (rendered) results of 3D scenes (models, materials, animation, lights and cameras). It is so trivial to forecast this trend and all we are hesitating is the cost of migrations from our current working pipeline. And most difficult part of the migration is human being itself...

Convert Filip's Wedding Photos into 3-D

The interesting is, we, as artists and engineers, do really can convert 2D images into autostereoscopic ones, as long as having skilled rotoscoper with patience and cooperative computer graphics geek. What we did is just as normal as everyone could thought of:

• define our targeting quality and appearance first and clearly
• pick up candidate wedding photos with remarks of importance and focus points
• for each photo, circle out spatial layout according to aesthetics and logistics. furthermore, having well-designed depth gradient is the most important to achieve nice quality result
• rotoscoping, the most time-consuming but artistic process
• 3d image warping, or so called depth image based rendering is used to generate the desired multiple novel views
• finally, (auto)stereoscopic device related content generating

Does a pure computer graphics researcher need to know and even involve in those stuff to this extreme? Yes! Because...

• there are seldom "pure" researchers for this field though~
• your research result needs some proof, which requires other talent's help.

I love to cooperate with other talents :)

Sony Pictures Imageworks 的 Katana 將整合進下一版的 Nuke

The Foundry have acquired the technology of Sony Pictures Imagework's (SPI) Katana 3D lighting & compositing package. Katana's hardcore lighting node based technology will be integrated into an upcoming version of the Foundry's Nuke 2D package. We spoke to both companies about why SPI would part with such a great in house tool and why the Foundry needs another compositing lighting system, in this online exclusive.

• Katana Application
  • Python application
  • Lighting, rendering, and image compositing
  • Facility funnel from data to images
  • Team of six developers for 3 years
  • Passed 300,000 lines of code
    • 190,000 C/C++
      • 45% image operations
      • 20% scene processing
      • 20% plugins to external apps
    • 120,000 Python
      • 75% interface and pyqt widgets
  • Current Projects
    • Spiderman 3
    • Surf's Up
    • Beowolf
  • User Python Interfaces
    • expression evaluation as field values
    • interactive shell
    • macros as directories of .py files
    • pixel processing and scene processing
  • Weekly release cycle
    • Development and maintenance
  • Plugin extensions in Python

Notes:

• 介紹這則新聞
• 介紹 Katana in Python
• 介紹 Nuke 原來的 3d lighting 功能
• 我的觀點：
  • 3d compositing by nuke chief scientist
  • comp-oriented lighting需要直接與 shader, lighting, rendering 做結合，才符合 pipeline 的精神。
  • python application: ui, extension, integration, ...

Filip's wedding photo in Autostereoscopy

Visualize Binocular Disparity by Nuke

While you are learning something, the best and mnemonic way to be aware of the details and possible utility behind is try to use different viewpoints on it, try to explain one thing in different languages or images, or even convince someone else the idea. And luckily, you have this "something" all along your life...

The below is just a normal view (the left view) of a cloning project of another autostereoscopic video clip.

與 Matt Plec 的一頓飯

工作上，有沒有機會遇到聊得過來的朋友呢? 尤其是跨公司認識的~ 我也不曉得，不過我很珍惜也很尊重一路走過來結識的朋友，即使我常常會發懶不去寒喧問暖。

Matt Plec目前是 The Foundry 裏頭，負責亞洲區的 Nuke 推廣的成員之一，隨行的（我認識的）還有 Joanna Tso 與 Jenice Tso，我已經忘了是怎麼開始的，好像是 Joanna 很積極地主動來太極推廣 Nuke 這個優秀的軟體開始的。

前天，在 Matt 結束了與公司的合成同仁的「問與答」後，Matt, Timothy 與我三人溜去金色三麥，一邊享受美食，一邊小酌一下啤酒（我知道這樣實在很遜，不過我就只喝這麼一杯，應該是小酌吧）。然後就是閒聊了。

Matt 非常認真地在向我們介紹 Nuke X 將會有的新功能之餘，更認真地問我一些，像是「如果 Nuke 裏頭有個這樣的新功能，然後它運作起來是這樣的，可以拿來那樣那樣…你會覺得這對太極來說，是很重要的功能嗎?」喔…這實在是大哉問，這時突然希望深入 production 泥沼的 Mao 或是 Ahdee 出來回覆，因為我更相信他們的回覆會直接地反應太極現在的 pipeilne 的需求。不過我終究是回覆了，以一位 R&D 的人員來看待，以預測未來專案會發生的問題的角度來看待 pipeline tools。但這實在很抽像，一時也寫不出什麼有說服力的文字來，就先擱在腦子裏就行了。

SIGGRAPH 2009 期間，去了趟 Nuke User Group

SIGGRAPH 2009 活動的第一天（8/3），我放棄了幾乎所有人都會前往的 Technical Papers Fast Forward 這個 session（對於一位以 RD engineer 的身份去的人來說，實在有點大不應該呀。不過在我研究了很久，覺得「懂得捨棄不錯的 session，只專注在幾個 session 好好參與」。不僅是聽課，同時做好應有的 social connection，才是比較正確的作法。當然啦，這只是目前的看法而已），轉而提早一個人搭著巴士前往為於 French Quarter 上的 Le Petit Theatre 這個戲院裏頭，為的不是看電影，而是來親臨一下第二屆的 Nuke User Group。

在 Shake 不再販賣與維護；Toxik 也停止單獨開發；After Effects, Combustion, Fusion 這些軟體，在 pipeline 有點規模的 animation/vfx/film studio 裏頭，很少成為主角的情況下… Nuke 這個軟體，可以說是合成界的明日之星，成為當紅炸之雞，只是時間早晚的問題。至少就一兩年這樣的短時間來看，還沒能看到什麼競爭對手。

Nuke 最早是 Digital Domain 裏頭自行開發的合成軟體（proprietary compositing tool），當時它使用了同樣來自於 Digital Domain 內部開發的 FLTK 做為 GUI。於 2007 年左右，由位在英國的 The Foundry 正式整個接手 Nuke 的軟體開發與業務，The Foundry 也於同年開始大量釋出 Nuke 相關的新聞、新功能與影片等。同時，Nuke 還間接造就出了 OpenFX 這個開放格式的 plug-in standard。