Enabling real-time playback of photoreal environments onto LED walls, the hardware-agnostic solution features enhanced metadata tracking to ensure every on-set creative decision is recorded, and now includes support for NotchLC playback and Gaussian Splat rendering. According to Foundry, “Nuke Stage has advanced greatly over the past 12 months, informed directly by customer feedback from the first uses in production”, including the upcoming Amazon MGM Studios feature film “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
Aligned with the updates in the recent Nuke 17.0 release, Nuke Stage takes advantage of the new 3D workflows in Nuke, allowing artists to work natively with USD in both tools. Artists can easily create assets in Nuke and import the USD scenes into Nuke Stage, providing them with full control to edit and override in real time, adding extra flexibility in production meaning creative decisions can be made earlier and quicker.
“Our goal with Nuke Stage has always been to break down the barriers between on-set production and post-production to make it easier to refine assets across stages of production, rather than start over. The tremendous engagement from studios since the initial launch has been guiding the ongoing development of Nuke Stage and the wider Nuke family, creating a more iterative and interconnected pipeline,” says Christy Anzelmo, Chief Product Officer.
“Nuke Stage is really exciting because it’s a product designed from the ground up for virtual production. It takes the best of what we see in plates, which is fidelity and high quality playback, as well as a degree of flexibility that we see with game engines, and puts them together into one package,” shared Christopher Simcock, Founding Director of Sensel Studio, which specializes in live events, immersive experiences, and virtual production. “Using Nuke Stage, we can set up scenes in half the time.”
A key principle of Nuke Stage is the ability to run on standard hardware, removing the need for proprietary infrastructure or specialized expertise. With shorter setup times and repeatable processes, the focus remains on the storytelling.
Through the pipeline centric approach of Nuke Stage, VFX artists can create, refine, and deliver content that transitions seamlessly from pre-production through real-time iteration on set and into post production. Core features include a shared color management system; support for open file formats like OpenUSD, OpenEXR, and OpenColorIO, and a Node Graph-based compositing environment that mirrors the familiar workflows and interface of Foundry’s compositing toolset, Nuke.
This latest version includes an enhanced sequencer and one-click key framing, enabling virtual production operators to quickly build the story they want to tell, and respond iteratively to creative requests on-set. An accessible design language means everyone from compositors to media server operators have the ability to pick up and successfully use Nuke Stage in a live production environment quickly and efficiently.
— NotchLC support: Productions can seamlessly harness the efficient GPU-powered video codec’s playback capabilities to run high-resolution, high-fidelity environments on LED walls. Studios can generate, prepare, and validate NotchLC media directly within existing Nuke workflows across Windows and Linux.
— Live metadata capture: Scene data, camera tracking, lens metadata, timecode, scene settings, and color decisions are automatically logged and preserved in the Vault, ensuring all the critical information is available in post.
— Gaussian Splat support: Native integration with 3D Gaussian Splats enables productions to more easily integrate captured content and deploy it as a photorealistic virtual environment on LED walls.
— Standard hardware to scale with your needs: A single machine can drive multiple LED wall sections while remaining fully genlocked, reducing the total number of nodes needed on set and creating cost efficiencies.
— Improved operator functionality: An enhanced Sequencer and a new Media Gallery simplifies show programming and Feed Mapping functionality gives greater control of the content on screen.
— Expanded Python capability: External devices can hook into Nuke Stage, allowing on-set control to be given to relevant production teams.