We've written before about the rise of virtual production as a major VFX and 3D art trend as Unreal Engine as LED volume stages start to make green screens redundant, and Unreal Engine and Unity make it possible to create virtual sets like never before.
Now the software maker Foundry has announced a new advance with its Nuke Stage Virtual Production Product. The solution aims to provide end-to-end creative content control with consistent colour, flexible data format support, and interoperability with industry-standard VFX tools (also see our guide to the best 3D modelling tools).
Purpose-built for virtual production and in-camera visual effects, Nuke Stage links pre-production to final pixels in a single pipeline, giving VFX artists creative control while increasing efficiencies and simplifying virtual production workflows.
It allows real-time playback of photo-realistic environments onto LED walls, as well as live compositing and layout, enabling teams to blend virtual and physical sets and iterate on content in industry-standard formats, including OpenUSD and OpenEXR, OpenColorIO, and established creative toolsets, like a node-graph-based compositing environment.
The new tools is hardware agnostic, so there's no need for specialist media servers or bespoke equipment, while the linear workspace provides full support for OpenColorIO and HDR for a clear colour pipeline and the UI should be familiar for anyone who's used Nuke products before.
Dan Hall, Head of ICVFX at virtual production studio 80six says: “Nuke Stage offers a handshake between VFX and virtual production, which has been missed in VP until now. With VP and ICVFX it’s all about trust. Getting VFX teams on board will help to push the use of virtual production, in a meaningful way, and I see huge potential for Nuke Stage to do that.”
You can learn more at the Foundry website.
