Equivalent to AE layer in and out points?

[dennitzio]

I'm working on a very complex script on a very long shot, and despite nodes being totally transparent or hidden behind masks that are out of the timeline, I'm seeing the node tree light up almost everywhere almost all the time. The only exception is when I've used a merge node and mixed a layer to zero. Generally I don't want to sully my merge nodes with time-specific elements - I'd rather keep time separate - or I am using non-merge nodes to combine layers and still need to turn them off at some point. In AE, I'd simply set the layer in and out points and that'd be the end of it. Since Nuke doesn't show time, I want to use separate time nodes also so I can label them with the frame ranges. Is there any other way to do this? Anyone have preferred methods that can be placed on a single connector?

Thanks!
Den

[gkocov]

You can animate a node's/group's disable button or use a Switch node to switch between different branches.

Goran

[dennitzio]

I did happen to try adding switch nodes last night, though not to go between branches (there's no second branch). But it seems to do what I need, and it seems to help cut down on memory drain. Not terribly elegant, but then again "elegant" is definitely not a word to describe Nuke in any context. I didn't realize you could animate a disable button, though that certainly must create problems of its own if you need to check a part of a script by disabling other pieces - and then you've added animation points...

[gkocov]

I did happen to try adding switch nodes last night, though not to go between branches (there's no second branch).

When using a Switch node as an "enable/disable branch" control, instead of switching to an empty input, I always connect a Constant to it, because of potential problems when the main branch resolution and the project resolution don't match. That's why I mentioned a second branch.

Not terribly elegant, but then again "elegant" is definitely not a word to describe Nuke in any context.

If you come from an After Effects background, doing some things in Nuke (especially time related operations and multi-shot comps) can seem incredibly convoluted (and you wouldn't be far from the truth). Nuke is in dire need of a well designed timeline and/or dopesheet. On the other hand, try making even a remotely complex comp in After Effects and it's inevitable becoming entangled in a mess of compositions inside compositions inside compositions inside compositions... Please don't understand this as bashing After Effects, since it's an excellent app for what it was designed to do (i.e. motion graphics and relatively simple single and multi-shot comps), but so is Nuke.

In any case, I definitely wouldn't say that "elegant is definitely not a word to describe Nuke in any context". If anything, IMO Nuke, along with Houdini, is the most elegantly designed VFX application available. It's easy to use and learn, it has a consistent interface, it's flexible, powerful and has a very open architecture.

Goran

[dennitzio]

Do you then set the constant with zero alpha so it has no effect? I didn't realize an empty branch was an issue, thanks for pointing that out.

I think there's a big difference between elegant and effective. Nuke, Houdini, Shake, Fusion - the whole node model - is very powerful and is a huge improvement over pure scripting for those of us who need to think visually. And Nuke is a more ergonomically designed node program than some of its brethren. While I grant that elegant can be applied in an engineering concept - the way one might say a hammer is an elegant tool, for its simplicity and pureness of function - I mean it in a more aesthetic and user-focused manner. Not that AE is exactly elegant either, and certainly not when it comes to nested comps. But I think of elegant as a gorgeous woman in a Versace dress, or a supple sports car like a Lamborghini Miura, or Beethoven's 9th. But in that way, Nuke is as elegant as, well, a nuclear bomb - but also as effective as one.

Now I have a far from complete knowledge of VFX software, but I do have a long history in UX Design, and I think for a VFX app to become elegant, a lot more design is going to have to go into the user process and layers of interaction that make it truly metaphorically intuitive and open to the creative mindset. When a child is given a paintbrush, paint, and paper, she can intuit what to do even if she still needs training to express what she feels. But as you increase the toolset, the analogy remains consistent between the desired result and the process. VFX software is generally designed by VFX experts and software engineers, not by interaction design experts, therefore the analogy usually goes all over the map. It's like having a writer and actor make a movie without a trained director or editor - it can still be good, but not as good, and is often inconsistent because there's no eye to watch for the most important thing - the audience's POV. Moreover, over time, it's easy for the layers of abstraction to become more and more tortured and for the actual aesthetics of the interface to get thrown out in favor of function.

Sometimes a minor revolution occurs, like Shake's taking the flowchart/node-link model from early software design, but that metaphor shows its limitations with very complex shots when you can spend hours trying to parse even your own tree. Wouldn't you agree it fails utterly when you add the third dimension of time - it's incapable of representing it directly and instead requires additional levels of abstraction like Nuke's weak-ass timeline or the slightly more effective curves. You've already pointed out the failings of AE's old-school photographic metaphor - they really stink when you have a lot of elements because it can only show them vertically - and I think other layer-based programs handle issues like nesting better. There's other models out there for compositing (like Inferno or Scratch, modeled on NLEs, themselves based on flatbed film editing stations), and occasionally UX Designers like Kai Krause got their visions into some niche programs like Bryce, and some apps absorbed bits of their interface genius. This is where engineers and designers diverge, and where visual effects artists are at their weakest - because they are often both - and the apps end up being purely utilitarian (and often buggy). Frankly, most VFX apps are too niche to be able to afford a genius UX Designer anyway and Adobe and Autodesk are too invested in their existing designs.

But there is another revolution out there, don't you think? Heck, even the existing Nuke interface could be overhauled with the same functionality and work a LOT better. Maybe a new layer of abstraction on top of Nuke can be built? A new product entirely? I wonder if Apple had UX guys working on a new Shake before it was killed? Well, it might happen when gesture interfaces arrive in VFX in a bigger way... I'm already going to drop my trackball and get a new Apple Magic Trackpad to go with my Wacom...

[gkocov]

Do you then set the constant with zero alpha so it has no effect? I didn't realize an empty branch was an issue, thanks for pointing that out.

Glad to be of help. I generally just set the resolution (if needed), leaving the color settings for the RGBA channels at 0.

I think there's a big difference between elegant and effective. Nuke, Houdini, Shake, Fusion - the whole node model - is very powerful and is a huge improvement over pure scripting for those of us who need to think visually. And Nuke is a more ergonomically designed node program than some of its brethren. While I grant that elegant can be applied in an engineering concept - the way one might say a hammer is an elegant tool, for its simplicity and pureness of function - I mean it in a more aesthetic and user-focused manner. Not that AE is exactly elegant either, and certainly not when it comes to nested comps. But I think of elegant as a gorgeous woman in a Versace dress, or a supple sports car like a Lamborghini Miura, or Beethoven's 9th. But in that way, Nuke is as elegant as, well, a nuclear bomb - but also as effective as one.

I think that you are talking about elegance in completely unrelated context. The thing is, none of your examples are primarily tools. As far as I understand, you list them as an example of elegance for their aesthetic qualities, not for their utilitarian qualities.

In a tool related context, elegance is not about effectiveness, but about being utilitarian, about enabling the user to realize what it's in his/her head, without unnecessarily encumbering him/her with it's interface. Simply said, an elegant tool is one that doesn't feel as a burden when working with it, while at the same time being full featured and productive (in respect to what it was designed to do). Of course, this is much easier to accomplish with simple tools, than with complex tools such as multi-purpose 3D or compositing software.

IMO Nuke balances the intuitiveness of it's interface and the underlying complexity that's necessary for it to be powerful and flexible much better then a lot of other VFX apps.

EDIT:

I reread your message and I think I somewhat misunderstood it the first time read it. It seems we're both talking more or less about the same thing, just from different perspectives, you from a perspective of somebody who has a lot of experience with user interface design, me from a perspective of a long time user of VFX tools. I agree with a lot of what you said in your message, although I don't agree that aesthetics of the UI design is as important as you seem to suggest. The purpose of a tool is to be productive. Anything that goes contrary to this, including sacrificing the usability of the interface for better aesthetics, is just bad design IMO.

Goran

[dennitzio]

I think that you are talking about elegance in completely unrelated context. The thing is, none of your examples are primarily tools. As far as I understand, you list them as an example of elegance for their aesthetic qualities, not for their utilitarian qualities.

I brought up Nuke in both contexts, I suppose, and I agree that it is more closely resembling your tool definition than my aesthetic one. And I also agree that Nuke is probably the best node-based interface out there for the experienced user. But I disagree entirely that aesthetics are divorced from utility. Some of the best designers see design as entirely about creating the ultimate in utility - and that "aesthetics" as such are unconsciously our own interpretations of utility, even if moved to another context (like a woman's utilitarian curves transferred onto a Miura).

One of the best examples of utility meeting aesthetics I've read (from Donald Norman's book The Design of Everyday Things is a glass door that opens out in a glass outer wall - the door is inherently overly complex because we may be occupied with another task, looking through the door at the traffic beyond, or not even seeing the door at all. Therefore the interface for the door has great impact. With a well-positioned, large, contrasting pushbar - where the size of it tells you where the door is, the material brings attention to the bar, it looks and feels appropriately "push me", and the offset even tells which side the hinges are on. You instinctively know what to do with it - the well-designed pushbar reduces the complexity of the situation.

In that school of design, Nuke's interface is not utilitarian per se, it's simply cluttered and inconsistent. It looks very clean at first, with the single icon column for the nodes and the tabs, but once you become more of a power user it become clear that it was put together by a lot of different people over time. Many of the nodes use different interfaces and the timeline feels almost tacked on. I'm also not convinced that the node/flowchart model is the best metaphor, but it's certainly capable of handling greater complexity than the nested timeline. Aesthetically, it's not garish, so it doesn't visually compete with the shot itself. But it also cold and distant. It doesn't invite users to experiment, it doesn't encourage creativity, nor does it feel like a tool anyone can learn. The fact that it feels like an old Linux X11 app - and that it launches a console on Windows - I think confuses "professional" with "hacker", and makes potential users feel they need to be a hacker to use the app. Frankly, if DD had invested 1/4 as much into Nuke's design as they did in training their artists to use it, they probably could have saved tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now that the Foundry has it, though, and is marketing it to a much wider audience, they have an incentive...

[gkocov]

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then

I've used Nuke for a long time now, often on very complicated shots where I had to use every part of the app with the exception of the programming API in order to complete the shot, and I really feel that it has a very consistent, intuitive and well designed interface, especially considering how complex can the tasks that it is used for be. I also don't mind (and even prefer) the UNIX-y feel and the cold minimalistic look that it has, but I also come from a "command line" background, so maybe it's just that I've been brought up with this kind of app design and am used to it. I can certainly see how this could be a problem for users that are more accustomed to the "fancy" look and feel of most of today's apps.

On the other hand, maybe it's just that I'm not able to visualize how radically better can Nuke's UI design be, so I would love to be proven wrong if The Foundry decide to redesign the Nuke interface again

Goran

[dennitzio]

Well, if I ever get the time, maybe I'll take a crack at it! Meantime, we'll both be using Nuke - and thanks for the advice!