hello buddy,
i am a novice user of nuke..i would like to ask that is there any way to generate perfect shadow of layers in nuke..using any node or expresssion..ur help will be precious thanks
Well, I don’t know exactly what you mean. You can’t create shadows from your 3d lights in Nuke right now, however you can fake shadows by projecting the rendered geo on your surface. In your 2d world you can always use an offset to create a shadow, but there is no special node for doing so.
Hope this was your question.
cheers
franz
thanks a lot for an immediate reply…i got some basic idea what u are saying..but “projecting the rendered geo on your surface”…can u please elaborate or provide snapshot of the node tree for my reference…it will be a great help..my recent project is on hault !…an example node tree will be great !..thanks a lot
Ok, I’ve put together a quick script with the fake shadow. It is of course no perfect solution and you have to find out, whether this is a possible way to go for in your project. If you have any questions about the script or anything else, don’t hesitate to post here.
well thanks franz…the script is a bit complicated for me to understand i am trying to study it..hope it will help…from ur point of view if i am not able to compute shadow properly in nuke..to which comp package i should migrate where i get more shadow controls…
Well, as I said, right now Nuke does not allow for real 3D Shadows, so you can switch to Fusion, which has shadows in the 3d lights.
Hope this is an option
cheers
well…thanks for the good opinion..i am currently unknown to fusion but try to learn that..hope so
well another off point question
i seen all ur works..they are awesome and truely professional…what are the basic indegredients to be a compositor..i mean what a cg student needs to make through compositing.
First of all, once you know where you want to go - be it 3d or 2d - you have to focus. Get as much reference material as you can and try to learn to see the details. How was the shot put together, how is the light interacting, how are the colors variing and so on. The software is only the tool but what makes a good compositor is to see detail.
There are some principal rules you can follow (e.g. match black - and white-point, never clip the values, look for constant edgeblur….) . So I recommend to buy yourself Ron Brinkmann’s book “The Art and Science of digital Compositing”. It has all the informations you need learning to see. The rest is hard effort and of course experience that comes with time. I wish you all the best.
Hi Franz.How are you?
We are starting a new project on Visual Effects.
We are making i like an advertisement of a product.
“On a clean street[footage] we want show a meteor strike,followed by a huge crater.Then a medium size alien robot emerges from the crater.Then tries to put on his jet pack but due to hard hit it is no working.He grabs a can our lubricant product and then pours it in,activates his jet pack and flies away.”
I just wanted the work flow or technique which should be followed for this project.I mean from where we should begin.It will be very kind of u to reply.
Hi,
I am fine thanks.
Well the usual way to go is to scribble a storyboard, so you know what to shoot and will be visible in the end. At the same time you can start designing your character also fist with scribbles and then start buildingt it in 3d. Go out for shooting and try to gather as many information you can from your location:
-camera lens, camera arperture, camera focus and shutter settings, camera hight and distance to the object
-measure the environment
-take reference fotos of your environment, best would be to have a HDRI image so you can replicate your light situation in 3d
When you are back, load your footage and do a matchmove. Try to remodel the env with little details, only to have it for reflections and shadow casting. Place your 3d animated model in the scene and light it appropriate. At the same time you can examine the shot in your comp package, to find out if some rotoscoping is needed (may be when the 3d model goes behind a foreground element). In the meantime the rendering should be ready and you can now comp it in the scene. Take care for the shadow quality, grain, white and black point and so on.
That is how a professional workflow would look like in brief. Hope this helps, GOOD Luck
Thanks.that will really help.I will consider all of them.By the way what is black and white point?
Jason April 18th, 2009
2:16 pm
Hi, Franz,
Guess I should move my post to this “Chat” area.
Interestingly, I found your Urban Cruise post while searching for information regarding Image-Based Lighting. I was excited when seeing this post. By the way, great work on the Urban Cruiser. It’s top-notch!
I am a nuke user too, but not really into its 3D part yet. While reading your post, I was really interested in the workflow you mentioned, where Nuke and ImageModeler were used to extract information from 360 panorama for 3D reconstruction in Nuke. Would you elaborate a bit more about the workflow of this project especially the interaction between the ImageModeler and Nuke, and how you deal with lighting and reflection? Was the 360 panorama playing an important role in this project?
Hi,
Image Modeler is pretty much a 3d tool, that has no direct exchange tool to Nuke. But what we did was, we used the fbx import options inside Nuke, to get the reconstructed street into it. The good thing about Image modeler is, that it can save exr 32bit files for all the textures and it also does provide us with clean UVs on the geometrie. So we simply loaded the geo and the exr textures and had a great reconstruction of the street. The 360 Pano was further used to generate the reflections on the floor. Because we wanted the street to be a bit wet, we had to add the set reflections. Instead of doing this in Maya, we simply set up a Card inside Nuke that represented the street, and used the specular shader to make it reflective. The Pano was piped into an Environment Node, so that it was used as a lightsource that can be reflected by the Card.
I will make a clear making of in the next days on this shot so keep on checking out the site. For now I hope I made it a bit more clear to you. Keep on asking if you have questions.
cheers
Jason April 20th, 2009
3:09 am
Thanks a lot Franz. Really looking forward to seeing the “making of”! I’ll definitely stay tuned.
Before that, I have couple questions for you.
1) When using ImageModeler to reconstruct the set, extract EXR textures, and generate UVs, did your colleague use single HDR panorama or multiple still HDR images? I tried ImageModeler 2009 with single JPEG panorama (loading either .hdr or .exr will show me underexposed preview) and had to down-size from 8K to 2K to have basic inactivity. Since you mentioned the geometries were mapped with HDR textures, I assume that the set was reconstructed based off of HDR source material. However, I cannot figure how it was done according to my experience with ImageModeler.
2) Were the reconstructed 3D environment being imported into Maya for lighting or other purposes? Or, Maya is basically skipped and everything (geometries and extracted HDR textures) was imported into Nuke to form a hybrid environment including 2D and 3D elements for lighting?
3) As described in your post, the reflective cards and 360 pano were used in Nuke for providing lighting and reflection. Was there any ray-tracing being performed inside of Nuke, or it’s basically scanlined environmental reflection of HDR pano and HDR-textured card?
I am really interested in how the 3D feature of Nuke can help on set lighting reconstruction and would love to hear your thoughts.
Hi:
To your questions: We did use a single HDR panoramic image. I don’t exactly know whether it was downsized, but I don’t think so. The projection it self did output exr files that were not underexposed, so we had no problems with that. The geo was brought into MAya for reference and placing a shadow plane only, but the lightsetup was based on the HDR pano image. So we did not render the Car or light the car in Nuke. We brought the geo and the exr textures there to build an environment, where we could create cameras for our purpose, and we were able to create environment reflections inside Nuke. The other advantage was, that we had a 3d environment, so we knew where the lightstreaks would be and so on. We simply used the scanline renderer for the reflections, which were based on the HDR files. So to speak we got ImageBased Floor reflections, that were rendered inside Nuke.
Hope that makes sense.
Jason April 22nd, 2009
12:40 am
Thank a ton, Franz. Now, I have a better grasp on how the HDR files and reflections were handled inside of Nuke. It seems that Nuke’s 3D feature is really powerful and efficient. I gotta dig into this feature sooner.
Still looking forward to seeing your “making of” of this project. I will be checking periodically.
Cheers,
Jason
Sabbath April 23rd, 2009
2:46 pm
Hi man, your tutorial on 3d stereo inside nuke is offline,
can you repost it? thanks
Hi, I got it running again, so the stereo tut is online.
Jason May 12th, 2009
2:46 pm
Hey, Franz,
Just want to drop by and say “Hi” and let you know that the eager anticipation of the “making of Urban Cruise” is till there. I check your site periodically and looking forward to seeing your new works, tuts, and update.
hello buddy,
i am a novice user of nuke..i would like to ask that is there any way to generate perfect shadow of layers in nuke..using any node or expresssion..ur help will be precious thanks
Well, I don’t know exactly what you mean. You can’t create shadows from your 3d lights in Nuke right now, however you can fake shadows by projecting the rendered geo on your surface. In your 2d world you can always use an offset to create a shadow, but there is no special node for doing so.
Hope this was your question.
cheers
franz
hi again,
thanks a lot for an immediate reply…i got some basic idea what u are saying..but “projecting the rendered geo on your surface”…can u please elaborate or provide snapshot of the node tree for my reference…it will be a great help..my recent project is on hault !…an example node tree will be great !..thanks a lot
Ok, I’ve put together a quick script with the fake shadow. It is of course no perfect solution and you have to find out, whether this is a possible way to go for in your project. If you have any questions about the script or anything else, don’t hesitate to post here.
The script can be found here
well thanks franz…the script is a bit complicated for me to understand i am trying to study it..hope it will help…from ur point of view if i am not able to compute shadow properly in nuke..to which comp package i should migrate where i get more shadow controls…
Well, as I said, right now Nuke does not allow for real 3D Shadows, so you can switch to Fusion, which has shadows in the 3d lights.
Hope this is an option
cheers
well…thanks for the good opinion..i am currently unknown to fusion but try to learn that..hope so
well another off point question
i seen all ur works..they are awesome and truely professional…what are the basic indegredients to be a compositor..i mean what a cg student needs to make through compositing.
are you busy?
First of all, once you know where you want to go - be it 3d or 2d - you have to focus. Get as much reference material as you can and try to learn to see the details. How was the shot put together, how is the light interacting, how are the colors variing and so on. The software is only the tool but what makes a good compositor is to see detail.
There are some principal rules you can follow (e.g. match black - and white-point, never clip the values, look for constant edgeblur….) . So I recommend to buy yourself Ron Brinkmann’s book “The Art and Science of digital Compositing”. It has all the informations you need learning to see. The rest is hard effort and of course experience that comes with time. I wish you all the best.
i will surely get that book..thanks for ur time
Hi Franz.How are you?
We are starting a new project on Visual Effects.
We are making i like an advertisement of a product.
“On a clean street[footage] we want show a meteor strike,followed by a huge crater.Then a medium size alien robot emerges from the crater.Then tries to put on his jet pack but due to hard hit it is no working.He grabs a can our lubricant product and then pours it in,activates his jet pack and flies away.”
I just wanted the work flow or technique which should be followed for this project.I mean from where we should begin.It will be very kind of u to reply.
Hi,
I am fine thanks.
Well the usual way to go is to scribble a storyboard, so you know what to shoot and will be visible in the end. At the same time you can start designing your character also fist with scribbles and then start buildingt it in 3d. Go out for shooting and try to gather as many information you can from your location:
-camera lens, camera arperture, camera focus and shutter settings, camera hight and distance to the object
-measure the environment
-take reference fotos of your environment, best would be to have a HDRI image so you can replicate your light situation in 3d
When you are back, load your footage and do a matchmove. Try to remodel the env with little details, only to have it for reflections and shadow casting. Place your 3d animated model in the scene and light it appropriate. At the same time you can examine the shot in your comp package, to find out if some rotoscoping is needed (may be when the 3d model goes behind a foreground element). In the meantime the rendering should be ready and you can now comp it in the scene. Take care for the shadow quality, grain, white and black point and so on.
That is how a professional workflow would look like in brief. Hope this helps, GOOD Luck
Thanks.that will really help.I will consider all of them.By the way what is black and white point?
Hi, Franz,
Guess I should move my post to this “Chat” area.
Interestingly, I found your Urban Cruise post while searching for information regarding Image-Based Lighting. I was excited when seeing this post. By the way, great work on the Urban Cruiser. It’s top-notch!
I am a nuke user too, but not really into its 3D part yet. While reading your post, I was really interested in the workflow you mentioned, where Nuke and ImageModeler were used to extract information from 360 panorama for 3D reconstruction in Nuke. Would you elaborate a bit more about the workflow of this project especially the interaction between the ImageModeler and Nuke, and how you deal with lighting and reflection? Was the 360 panorama playing an important role in this project?
Best,
Jason
Hi,
Image Modeler is pretty much a 3d tool, that has no direct exchange tool to Nuke. But what we did was, we used the fbx import options inside Nuke, to get the reconstructed street into it. The good thing about Image modeler is, that it can save exr 32bit files for all the textures and it also does provide us with clean UVs on the geometrie. So we simply loaded the geo and the exr textures and had a great reconstruction of the street. The 360 Pano was further used to generate the reflections on the floor. Because we wanted the street to be a bit wet, we had to add the set reflections. Instead of doing this in Maya, we simply set up a Card inside Nuke that represented the street, and used the specular shader to make it reflective. The Pano was piped into an Environment Node, so that it was used as a lightsource that can be reflected by the Card.
I will make a clear making of in the next days on this shot so keep on checking out the site. For now I hope I made it a bit more clear to you. Keep on asking if you have questions.
cheers
Thanks a lot Franz. Really looking forward to seeing the “making of”! I’ll definitely stay tuned.
Before that, I have couple questions for you.
1) When using ImageModeler to reconstruct the set, extract EXR textures, and generate UVs, did your colleague use single HDR panorama or multiple still HDR images? I tried ImageModeler 2009 with single JPEG panorama (loading either .hdr or .exr will show me underexposed preview) and had to down-size from 8K to 2K to have basic inactivity. Since you mentioned the geometries were mapped with HDR textures, I assume that the set was reconstructed based off of HDR source material. However, I cannot figure how it was done according to my experience with ImageModeler.
2) Were the reconstructed 3D environment being imported into Maya for lighting or other purposes? Or, Maya is basically skipped and everything (geometries and extracted HDR textures) was imported into Nuke to form a hybrid environment including 2D and 3D elements for lighting?
3) As described in your post, the reflective cards and 360 pano were used in Nuke for providing lighting and reflection. Was there any ray-tracing being performed inside of Nuke, or it’s basically scanlined environmental reflection of HDR pano and HDR-textured card?
I am really interested in how the 3D feature of Nuke can help on set lighting reconstruction and would love to hear your thoughts.
Best,
Jason
Hi:
To your questions: We did use a single HDR panoramic image. I don’t exactly know whether it was downsized, but I don’t think so. The projection it self did output exr files that were not underexposed, so we had no problems with that. The geo was brought into MAya for reference and placing a shadow plane only, but the lightsetup was based on the HDR pano image. So we did not render the Car or light the car in Nuke. We brought the geo and the exr textures there to build an environment, where we could create cameras for our purpose, and we were able to create environment reflections inside Nuke. The other advantage was, that we had a 3d environment, so we knew where the lightstreaks would be and so on. We simply used the scanline renderer for the reflections, which were based on the HDR files. So to speak we got ImageBased Floor reflections, that were rendered inside Nuke.
Hope that makes sense.
Thank a ton, Franz. Now, I have a better grasp on how the HDR files and reflections were handled inside of Nuke. It seems that Nuke’s 3D feature is really powerful and efficient. I gotta dig into this feature sooner.
Still looking forward to seeing your “making of” of this project. I will be checking periodically.
Cheers,
Jason
Hi man, your tutorial on 3d stereo inside nuke is offline,
can you repost it? thanks
Hi, I got it running again, so the stereo tut is online.
Hey, Franz,
Just want to drop by and say “Hi” and let you know that the eager anticipation of the “making of Urban Cruise” is till there. I check your site periodically and looking forward to seeing your new works, tuts, and update.
Happy nuking….:)
later,
Jason
thanks dear
its nice tute for begineras