Nuke Studio
Integration with Foundry Nuke Studio with extensive features
Mattias Seebergs avatar
Written by Mattias Seebergs
Updated over a week ago

Please note: We are currently in the middle of a technology transition, and some integrations are not yet considered production-ready to be used with the updated Connect version.

  • To see what integrations are already supported, you can check this page or install the new Connect version and see what's available in the Plugin Manager.

Tip: You can also check our public roadmap to follow the integrations we are working on.


The integration unifies the Nuke Studio / Hiero workflows with ftrack.

Requirements

Centralized storage scenario or a custom location available and working.

Note: Please avoid using previously saved presets as they change from each release and older versions are prone to break. It is suggested to remove the ~/.nuke/TaskPresets folder as well as removing all the tags from the project before running new versions of the integrations.

What you'll learn 

Launching the integration

When the new integration is installed and a project selected a new entry in ftrack-connect will be shown as Nuke Studio / Hiero:

Exporting Project and clips

Once the application starts and your project is loaded, open the Nuke Studio Tags window and select the tasks from ftrack that you want to be created and drag them over to the timeline’s clip.

Select the clips you are interested in exporting

Then right click and select Export.

Once open, the usual Nuke Studio / Hiero Export interface will show.

Processors and Tasks

The export drop down will show two new entries you can select from:

  • ftrack Shot Processor

  • ftrack Timeline Processor

Selecting individual Tasks will show the properties and options, these will be customized for the integration at a later stage.

ftrack Shot Processor

This processor includes four default tasks.

Each task will expose a Component name field which can be used to define the final ftrack component name output it will be published to.

ftrack Nuke file 

  • Will generate and publish a Nuke file containing for the selected clips.

  • Allow selecting the source from an existing transcoder

ftrack Nuke Render

  • Will generate and publish a sequence of frames for the selected clips.

ftrack Reviewable Render

  • Will generate and publish in the file system and as reviewable (mov) for the selected clips.

ftrack Audio Export

  • Will generate and publish a wav file containing audio from the selected clips.

ftrack Timeline Processor

This processor includes one default task:

ftrack EDL Exporter

  • Will generate and publish the current EDL from the project.

Processor and task options

Processors expose custom ftrack options, which can be used to define the exports behavior.

Processor options

  • Shot template: Ability to choose how clip names will be parsed

  • Publish to task: Select from the tasks to publish to

Note : if no task is chosen a default one will be used
Note : this task will be created even if the task tag has not been added

  • Asset type: Select the asset type to be used for the publish

  • Asset name: Specify the asset name to be used to publish to

  • Publish thumbnail: Check to produce thumbnails

  • Publish reviewable: Check to produce and publish as reviewable

Shot template:

Each template in the drop-down list contains a rule for parsing of clip names.
Once matched, the correct entities will be created on the server.

By default we provide the following templates:

  1. Full, episode, sequence and shot
    Episode exporter with sequences and shots

    Example:
    EP001_SQAA_SH010 will be matched as Episode with name 001 , Sequence named AA and Shot named 010.

  1. Classic, episode and shot
    Episode exporter with shots

    Example:
    EP001_SH010 will be matched as Episode with name 001 and a Shot named 010.

  1. Basic, sequence and shot
    Match Sequence and Shot by underscore naming.          

    Example:
    SQ001_SH010 will be matched as Sequence with name SQ001 and a shot named SH010.

  2. Classic, sequence and shot
    Match SQ or SH and any subsequent numbers.

    Example:
    SQ001_SH010 will be matched as Sequence with name 001 and a shot named 010.

  3. Classic, shot only
    Match SH and any subsequent digits.

    Example:
    vfx_SH001 will match 001.

  4. Full name, shot only
    Match entire clip name.

    Example:
    vfx_SH001 will match vfx_SH001.


Any task tag which is valid for a given project schema and available on the clip will be used to create extra tasks under the shot on the ftrack server:

Validation

Note: This process might take some time. The interface may appear to hang, an indicator will display the progress of the validation and project creation.

Depending on the settings stored in the processor and tasks not matching the selected project schema a validation window could be raised for:

  • Wrong task types

  • Non-existing asset types

  • Duplicated components

The interface will allow you to pick from the available task types in the current selected schema and replace the wrong one.

Or create a missing asset type defined in the processor itself.

Once done, click Accept.

Exporting

User will select existing project name from list.

Once the Export button is pressed, the Processor will start executing the tasks for each clip.

During this process, the project structure will be created on the server. Components will be populated when the tasks finishes rendering.

Once all tasks have finished, you should see the following:

  • Clips tagged with ftrack tags, representing the exports run

  • The project structure created on the server, with shot metadata updated

  • An Asset version for each clip, containing a component for each Task executed in the processor.

  • Folder structure and asset generated on the filesystem

Rebuilding tracks

Clip context menu now adds a new rebuild entry from ftrack server, which allows users to select which component, task/asset type  to rebuild the tracks should be taken from

Once executed a dialog will appear, allowing you filter down to entities you want to rebuild the tracks from:

Note: The title area will reflect the amount of clips found based on the given settings.
If no result is found the build button will be disabled.

  • Track name: The name of the track which will contain the result build

  • This will be suggested based on the selected fields of the widget

  • Task type: The type of task from which to rebuild

  • This will show the available task types of the published clips

  • Asset type: The asset type to be used to rebuild

  • This will show the available asset types of the published clips

  • Asset Status: The asset status (if any) to be used to filter the assets

  • This will show all the available status

  • Component Name: The component name to be used to rebuild the clips from

  • A list of available components to import from

Once the Build button is pressed a new Video track will be built and show the imported clips.

Versioning

The integration supports clip versioning. Once the tracks are rebuilt you can click “V” to show the available version of the selected clip.

As well as using the “version” context menu which allows you to check if any new version has been published and quickly jump between versions.

Building from source

If you prefer to build the plugin from source the process is straightforward:

  1. Clone locally the repository from: 

$ git clone git@bitbucket.org:ftrack/ftrack-connect-nuke-studio.git

  1. Change folder to cloned repository:$ cd ftrack-connect-nuke-studio

  1. Change branch with:$ git checkout  backlog/unify-nuke-studio-and-hiero-plugins/story

  2. Run the python setup:$ python setup.py build_plugin

After step four you should end up having a folder called build, under the ftrack-connect-nuke-studio folder containing a plugin folder and a zip ready to be installed.

Note: If you want to develop and check quickly the results, you can otherwise symlink the plugin folder in build, directly in the connect’s plugin directory, so you can build on any change and restart connect to pick up the changes. 

Reporting issues

The new integration will be output a log file in the ftrack log folder.
If a problem arises, please ensure to include this file with your bug report and send it to our support at support@ftrack.com.

Note: The log folder can be accessed from ftrack-connect -> About -> Open log directory

Features list

  • Create project structure on selected server project 

  • Validate against selected project schema

  • Create extra tasks on clips through tags dropping

  • Publish to given selected task

  • Customise asset name to publish to

  • Customise asset type to publish to

  • Rendered Plates (Shot Exporter)

  • Rendered Audio (Shot Exporter)

  • Rendered Quicktime (Shot Exporter)

  • Upload for review on server

  • Generate and upload Thumbnail (Shot Exporter)

  • Publish EDL (Timeline exporter)

  • Rebuild tracks from server

  • Allows versioning of rebuilt tracks

  • Reintroduce and expand the clip template parser 

  • Simplify the path management 

  • New ftrack icons

  • Nuke studio tokens can be used as asset name

  • Task presets can be duplicated

  • Task presets allow changing of the output component name

  • Nuke script are assetized through Transcode processor selection

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