Nuke in London

[hugo_guerra]

Hi all, I am trying to find companies that use Nuke in there pipelines in London or in the London surrounding area.

I know that MPC. Mill, Double Negative and Framestore are using, even if only in preview stage but what about more places?

I know it has been talked before in VFXTalk, but since that post is 1 year old now, maybe there are some new info. since Nuke is spreading more and more.

Thanks

[Pnagle]

If DNeg is using Nuke it is very minimal since the whole pipe is based around Shake and we are developing it (extensively) in house. I know Framestore is pushing for Nuke a bit, but the pipe around Shake there is less than ideal anyways. No idea about the Mill or MPC.

I would say that Shake is still the dominant platform in London by far.

I don't know of one house in London that uses Nuke solely for the Compositing pipe.

[hugo_guerra]

Of course, Shake is still the software of choice, but aren't companies trying Nuke?

At lease small and new companies will probably go for Nuke or Fusion now, since Shake is over, regarding updates or new features like, for example 3D integration or a 64 bit version.

[beaker]

Dneg, Framestore, etc.. all bought the source code of Shake and like many have recompiled it for 64 bit. Though they leave that out of most interviews because the Shake source has this weird wording where you can't talk about Fight Club if you use it. For example the recent Batman interviews talked about some unnamed "64 bit in house compositor" that they used to handle the 5.6-8k frames which was a customized Shake recompiled for 64 bit.

[Vinteg]

So does that mean that each of the big London houses will have a different version of Shake compared to each other?

[hugo_guerra]

Dneg, Framestore, etc.. all bought the source code of Shake and like many have recompiled it for 64 bit. Though they leave that out of most interviews because the Shake source has this weird wording where you can't talk about Fight Club if you use it. For example the recent Batman interviews talked about some unnamed "64 bit in house compositor" that they used to handle the 5.6-8k frames which was a customized Shake recompiled for 64 bit.

Yes, I also saw that, I would guess it was Shake with a re-code, but no talks about it's name.

Anyway, I guess Nuke will still be several years to come to those pipelines in full, but I guess if people that they wire use Nuke a lot, maybe they will start integrating it more and more in productions like DD, Weta and Sway do.

But my question still remains, is there no company using Nuke, even if only in some productions, in London? Is it that unpopular? because as far as I am concern Nuke is a very good compositor, at lease I like it a lot.

[aneks]

maybe they will start integrating it more and more in productions like DD, Weta and Sway do

.

Animal Logic went Nuke earlier this year, Blue Sky have just gone over too. As have Eyeqube in Mumbai. Although I can't mention names another 2 or 3 medium size studios are about to convert after their current projects are through.

Writing is on the wall methinks......

[Vinteg]

I know at least 4 medium size companies here in LA that has either incorporated Nuke into their pipeline with other packages or has gone completely Nuke. Blizzard has also switched to Nuke for all of their cinematic work. I think I know of one of the companies in Australia has started to switch to Nuke as well.

[aneks]

I think I know of one of the companies in Australia has started to switch to Nuke as well.

shhhhhh.... it's a secret !

[hugo_guerra]

Ok, thanks for the info, I already knew about these companies, but still, I feel strange that London is falling behind?

Maybe I am wrong here, but isn't Nuke like pretty much Shake's replacement?
I can get the Framestore as made a super duper Shake 64 edition, but for most common men, Shake is getting a little slow and a little old fashion, at lease for me with a work flow with VRay, multipass and 3D camera sharing from Max, I can't really see the point of using Shake, bith Fusion and Nuke are better at that.

[aneks]

The things that make Shake a great compositor are still there. Most of the time it does most of the tasks we require of a hardcore feature compositor. Only in comparison to a few of the newer fancier implementations does it start to fall down.

I think that the post market in the UK is incredibly savvy and I would not be surprised if folks start to take up the reigns very soon. AS much as people may like it switching mid-project is not possible for many houses and finding quality artists to fill the pool is always gonna be hard initially.

[[x_x]]

There are some very small places in London that are using Nuke, and some non-Soho type of places that do animation/broadcast as opposed to film. I know someone at Framestore who is a pipeline TD and has been assigned to a small group to develop the Nuke thing there, so I'm guessing they want to ramp that up a lot more.

[beaker]

Maybe I am wrong here, but isn't Nuke like pretty much Shake's replacement?
I can get the Framestore as made a super duper Shake 64 edition, but for most common men, Shake is getting a little slow and a little old fashion, at lease for me with a work flow with VRay, multipass and 3D camera sharing from Max, I can't really see the point of using Shake, bith Fusion and Nuke are better at that.

As for the speed everyone I talked to said the 64 bit version was extremely fast over the 32 bit version. Dealing with float is near Nuke speed and rendering went down by 1/4.

The trouble is that when your a large company like Framestore or Dneg, the thought of buying 50+ copies of Nuke is pretty daunting and paying your engineers to rewite all their pipeline tools for it and your looking at a few million dollars. ILM is probably sticking with Shake for the same reason. Also on top of that the trouble of finding freelancers. Everytime I get a Nuke job the common theme is "OMG I'm so glad you know Nuke. It is so hard to find experienced Nuke People". That was at a small company with 3-5 compositors, imagine the same thing with a large company who has to hire 25-50 compositors tomorrow for a big show?

Anyways, always takes 4-5 years for major architecture changes in large companies. It was same with the PA to Maya switch, Soft to Maya switch, Prisms to Houdini switch, Illusion to Shake, etc... I know companies still using Illusion for all their work 5 years after Avid had pulled the plug.

[Vinteg]

Is the "Shake" 64-bit near Nuke's speed as in Nuke's 32-bit or the new Nuke 64-bit?

[beaker]

Is the "Shake" 64-bit near Nuke's speed as in Nuke's 32-bit or the new Nuke 64-bit?

Nuke 32 vs 64 is pretty much the same speed until you get images at a certain size. Think of it like Gasoline in your car, you can still go 100mph with both but 64 bit you get a larger gas tank.