Andy Price reviews the highlights of The Foundry's user event at Siggraph 2009, including early details of NukeX 6.0

Monday night saw New Orleans‘ small but well-attended Le Petit Theatre play host to The Foundry’s Nuke user group for compositing artists.

Getting off to an explosive start, a ‘best of‘ effects reel played on the big screen, featuring work by the likes of Digital Domain and Intelligent Creatures from films including Watchmen.

The event, the developers’ second at Siggraph, was then introduced by Foundry CEO Bill Collis, who provided an overview of the company.

News of a two-fold increase in the Nuke user-base was highlighted by an extensive ‘thank you‘ list.

New product lines
The introduction continued with some words from marketing manager Lucy Cooper, in which details of Nuke’s product roadmap were laid out.

This included the mention of a full release, version 6.0, later on in the year, as well as the ‘elusive‘ NukeX.

Details of exactly what will be included in the new product weren’t cleared up until a Q&A with Nathalie Bergeron, director of customer relations, and scripting artist Jon Waddleton.

The software, it was said, is a more expansive version of Nuke 6. Version 6’s new features are set to include new roto and keylight tools, whereas NukeX will come with Furnace Core, a 3D camera tracker and lens distort tools.

Other prospective updates include a 64-bit version for Mac, “in 6.1, maybe.”

The presentation of Nuke features were balanced by well-informed and succinct talks from the likes of Ben Fischler, VFX supervisor at Laika Studios, explaining that after the discontinuation of Shake, the studio “needed something to commit to.”

Key Features:

– 200% Faster

– More Multi Processor Support

– Better Memory Management and Stability

– New Color Matching System Technology for better color correction tools

– More RAW and HDR editing tools

– Easier to User and Better Work flows

Download: www.supportingcomputers.net/Applications/Artizen/Downloads/ArtizenMP28_beta.exe