Nuke 16.0 is the first major step by Foundry towards integrating built-in support for multi-frame composition workflows within the software. While Nuke was originally designed to work with individual frames, with a clear correlation between a frame and the Nuke.nk script, Foundry is now focused on enabling artists to reuse scripts across multiple frames.
The core of the system is the Graph Scope Variables (GSV), which allow for defining the data needed for different contexts and scopes within a single Nuke script, while group nodes define the nature of these "scopes" and enable inheritance and overriding of variables.
This release introduces many everyday features needed to work with GSVs and group nodes, including the new VariableGroup node for defining variables or scopes and the VariableSwitch node for switching between different shots or scopes using those variables.
The new variable panel allows artists to interact with available variables in the script, while the group view lets them edit the contents of multiple group nodes without the need to switch tabs. GSVs are also now supported in LiveGroups and when rendering from the command line, enabling scripts to be displayed in the correct shot context.
Some features were introduced in Nuke 15.1, but the user interface for the new features was hidden by default.
Workflow improvements in the Nuke node graph include node linking — a new type of node that allows the creation of a linked copy of nodes. Changes made to one node are automatically propagated to the other, though users can still manually override any controls.
The USD-based 3D compositing system, introduced two years ago in Nuke 14.0, has been updated, although it remains in beta. Despite the addition of several new nodes, the key focus has been on the simple update of the most commonly used nodes, including GeoCard, GeoTransform, GeoMerge, and GeoScene, based on user feedback.
Foundry has also "launched the development of components for ray tracing," and ScanlineRender2, the new version of the ScanlineRender node, represents the "default ray tracing architecture," although shader support for lighting and materials is still not fully implemented.
This functionality is intended for compositors — specifically for creating accurate render passes in the later stages of production — and "should not be considered a replacement for large-scale scene rendering."
Additionally, the new version includes several changes aimed at improving performance during rotoscoping, especially when using large numbers of rotoforms or working with motion blur. These changes are designed to reduce user interface latency and increase the frame rate achieved during playback of complex shots to a level sufficient to resolve issues like stuttering.
New features in Nuke Studio include the contact sheet viewer. This simplifies the comparison of multiple shots and supports custom rules for the order of shots on the contact sheet, as well as filtering shots by tags.
The Soft Effects system now supports multi-channel effects, allowing users to view and modify multi-layer EXR files on the timeline. Possible applications include masking color effects using layers other than RGBA, such as matte images or depth transitions.
The support for layer conversion on the timeline is designed to reduce the need for slap setups and enable supervisors to provide more accurate feedback when creating frame samples. Additionally, the new rendering engine, based on Nuke Studio's real-time playback engine, speeds up the export of sequences as ProRes, DNxHD, DNxHR, and H.264 videos. This provides an “average 12-fold performance improvement” over the existing export system.
In Nuke 16.0, the software has also been updated to support the VFX reference platform specification CY2024. A parallel release, Nuke 15.2, is aimed at studios that do not want to update their pipelines according to the CY2023 specification and includes some of the same features, including multi-frame compositing.
In both releases, Nuke switches from Apple's OpenGL system library to Foundry's own alternative, FoundryGL, when running on macOS, as Apple declared OpenGL deprecated in macOS 10.14.
Nuke 16.0 is compatible with Windows 10 and later, RockyLinux 9.0, and macOS 14.0 and later. The software is available by subscription only. The annual subscription for Nuke is $3,649; $4,969 for NukeX; $6,069 for Nuke Studio. Nuke rendering licenses cost $440 per year. The Nuke Indie subscription, a commercial edition with limited features and resolution for artists earning less than $100,000 per year, costs $499 per year.