Major Kong

J_Ops 1.0v1a9 released for Nuke 6.3

2011-08-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Another few months, another Nuke release! J_Ops 1.0v1a9 adds support for 6.3, introduces a bunch of new utility tools and a number of improvements to existing ones.

Highlights include:

J_GeoManager: a 3D tool designed to give you access to info on the underlying 3D scene, as well as manipulating and deleting objects and attributes in the stream.
J_GotSomeID: fast and streamlined toolset for working with and extracting mattes from object ID and coverage passes.
J_ZKeyer: extraction of depth mattes and configuration of z blurring tools via an intuitive eyedropper based interface, as well as real world modelling of camera parameters for depth of field matching.
J_ZMaths: providing simple conversions between the variety of depth matte encodings used by different 3D renderers.
A whole bunch of cool new icons for the tools, courtesy of Mr Andrew Hake. Thanks Andrew!
An updated Libraw for J_rawReader, adding support for new cameras including as the Canon 60D & 1100D, faster decoding, and additional exposed functionality such as exposure compensation and a range of additional noise reduction tools.

Check out the below video for a whistlestop tour of the new ops.

Intro to J_MergeHDR from Jack Binks on Vimeo.

J_GeoManager

Hook up to the stream to see data on all the underlying 3d objects - their point & vertex counts, presence of material assignments, transforms, plus standard Nuke attributes such as UVs and normals. Manipulate this data to enable/disable certain objects, (ie object filtering) bake transformations down on point data, and pass through or strip attributes. Use the provided object selection tools to relate the table rows to the objects you see in the viewer.

J_GotSomeID

Easily extract mattes and premultiplied passes from both old style hue encoded ID passes (including using their optional accompanying coverage passes to obtain anti aliasing data), and new style float ID/element passes. Select objects for extraction either using an intuitive eyedropper interface or an automatic 'extract all' prepass. Manipulate selections using an extensive patch table, allowing configuration of matte & premult extraction, use of coverage passes ,and dilation to fix common issues encountered with occluding objects in such a pass.

J_ZKeyer

Hook up to cg with a depth pass and easily setup a z depth region using a combination of eyedropper based in viewer selection (ie clicking on the object you want to be in focus) and 'real world' camera configuration options. Output this region selection either by creating z blur tools or outputting a matte with optional curve controlled fall off profiles.

J_ZMaths

Easy conversion of different depth path encodings (a la those found on the input of Nuke's ZBlur tool). For example, take a pass from Maya and convert the depth values to normalised distance representation for use in tool's such as J_ZKeyer, ZMatte and so on.

As usual, grab the binaries themselves from the J_Ops project page over at Nukepedia.

Usual disclaimer: whilst I work at the Foundry, I'm not a developer, and these are in no way associated with the Foundry, they're simply tools I built because I find them useful, and thought you might too. By installing & using them you're taking all responsibility for any liability incurred. Check out the bundled manual for more information on all points mentioned, and let me know if you find 'em handy!

VFX Nation Goes Live

2011-01-26T05:52:00.000-08:00

Check out www.vfxnation.com - it's a new community backed set of forums with boards covering everything from general comping to software specifics.

I had the pleasure to be involved with the beta of the site and it's looking like it'll be a great resource backed by some really knowledgeable people. If that sounds like your sorta thing sign up and get involved.

J_Ops 1.0v1a8 released - Rewritten J_rawReader + Nuke6.2 support

2011-01-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

In case you didn't catch it already Nuke6.2v1 has been released, with a whole bunch of cool new tools and improvements. As an late christmas present for you all, I've put out J_Ops 1.0v1a8 in turn with support for this build, fixing a few bits and pieces, and with a completely rewritten J_rawReader.

Whilst the rawReader still supports reading of raw digital negative files from Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Adobe DNG formats, it has been altered to use the rather awesome LibRaw library to provide the underlying decoding, as opposed to the DCRaw tool used previously. This provides multiple benefits, from meaning you don't have to install any addition tools and faff around with your system path, through improving decode speed and adding additional decode algorithms to allowing me to build a much more intuitive and flexible interface around the underlying tool.

Full changelog lifted from the release notes:
• J_rawReader: rewritten to use the rather awesome LibRaw, under CDDL license. New version has:

No external dependancy on DCRaw, so nothing extra to install or configure.
Significantly improved performance, thanks to LibRaw and new internal RAM and disk caching mechanism.
Additional decode features present in LibRaw not available in DCRaw (at time of inclusion for example, DCB debayer interpolation and FBDD pre-debayer denoising.
Progress feedback.
Improved interface, presenting underlying options as series of knobs, as opposed to the flag knob on the previous build.
Inserts metadata into the stream in a more compliant manner. Direct matches to exif data go into the exif namespace, and the remainder into a new raw namespace.
Note that the defaults now use the camera metadata for white balance, as opposed to the DCRaw default illumination. Coupled with the change in knobs note that this makes this build incompatible with scripts saved from the previous build.

• J_rawReader: fixed bug when using a forced reader type (ie putting 'raw:' at the start of the filename). This technique should now successfully work to force use of the rawReader when attempting to read in a file format for which no redirect has been included. Of course, if you find yourself often doing this, let me know on the nuke users list and I'll add support natively.

• J_MergeHDR: altered to set shutter speed from metadata as an expression, as opposed to evaluating the fraction. This allows you to hover over the relevant knob to show tooltip, or pop up the expression box, to see the fractional representation of the value (ie 1/20 as opposed to 0.05).

• J_3Way: set up knob_changed to handle animated GLG knobs.

•Appended icon search path to init.py, to ensure icon found when running from a custom path.

•Added some J_MergeHDR bracketed set screengrabs to the docs, kindly provided by Rhys of Filament VFX.

•Centos4.5 32bit platform dropped, inline with Nuke's supported platforms.

Download the binaries from the J_Ops project page over at Nukepedia.

First Cut

2010-09-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

So, just finished a first cut of a test production being put together as part of a research project The Foundry is involved in. Lots of fun, slightly miffed I missed the shoot due to IBC ;) . Can't wait to see how the research tech being applied comes out!

Punch Drunk, a short I worked on for fun and mentioned briefly before, went online a while back as well.

Punch Drunk from Ben Kent on Vimeo.

Ant Nascè's NukeControl with J_3Way

2010-09-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Foundry's Nukepedia demo on the stand yesterday. Ant Nascè showed a tech preview of NukeControl, likely to be the first part of the shift to Joint Ops. It's most definitely pre-alpha and proof of concept at the minute (as evidenced by the flipped colourwheels), but very cool stuff. Check out the shaky (due to pre lunch lack of sugar on my part!) handheld iphone footage of it hooked up and running.

J_3Way & an iPad with NukeControl from Jack Binks on Vimeo.

Joint Ops@IBC

2010-09-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

If you're at IBC, come along to the saturday 4pm session on the Foundry stand (7.J18), listed as 'Nukepedia' on the schedule. Ant Nascè, a compatriot over here at the Foundry, is going to be showing a rather cool preview of something that may well find it's way into the J_Ops package (or Joint_Ops as it'd become ;) ). Here's a hint; it'll involve J_3Way and an iPad.

Other ones that I'm looking forward to - everything from our clients - always awesome to see tools we've laboured over being used in production. The 3rd party plug-ins for Nuke session should also be pretty cool - Francois from Trinity College Dublin is going to be showing some funky previews of some tech TCL, the Foundry and others have been working on as a joint research project.

Coming to IBC 2010?

2010-09-07T02:19:00.000-07:00

If you're there, drop by the Foundry booth (stand 7.J18) and say hi. We've got some awesome demos lined up as well. If you want sensible chat, I'd recommend fri-sun, after that point everything gets a little hazy from lack of sleep :)

J_Ops 1.0v1a7 released - J_MergeHDR

2010-09-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

Finally had a bit of time off, which gave me a chance to finish off the latest build of J_Ops (sounds pretty sad, but tbh it was mostly when hanging as a result of SW4 ;) ).

This is built against Nuke6.1v1, adds OSX 64-bit binaries, fixes a few bugs, adds Panasonic raw file support, and last, but by no means least, adds J_MergeHDR.

J_MergeHDR assists in generating high dynamic range radiance maps by merging multiple low dynamic range images together. Check out this introductory video for a bit more info.

Intro to J_MergeHDR from Jack Binks on Vimeo.

J_MergeHDR's response estimation function is based on Debevec et al's 'Recovering High Dynamic Radiance Maps from Photographs', and the alignment calculation on Greg Ward's 'Fast Robust Image Registration for Compositing High Dynamic Range Photographs from Hand Held Exposures', though all mistakes and bugs are entirely my own!

Note that if you've got a previous build of J_Ops installed you'll need to delete it prior to installing this build (the change in plugin install location to take advantage of Nuke 6.1's centralised install location, has the downside of being 1 less in precedence than the previous .nuke location, and so the old builds will preferentially get picked up.).

Grab the binaries from the J_Ops page on Nukepedia:

http://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/plugins/other/j_ops/

Kudos to Frank R for the original gizmo which inspired this plug-in.

Nuke6.1v1 & central NDK plug-in locations

2010-07-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

Amidst the raft of awesome new features in Nuke 6.1v1, as detailed in the pics below, there's one, seemingly minor one, which is utter awesomeness for 3rd party plug-in devs using the NDK.

Up until now, to persuade Nuke to pick up your plug-ins on startup you've needed to either:

-Install into the Nuke bundle directory itself. Thus anytime you update to a new v release of Nuke you'd need to reinstall or copy across all your plug-ins.

-Install into the .nuke folder in your home directory, and run the risk of overwriting custom items already available in there when dropping menu.py/init.pys into place to persuade the plug-ins to appear in Nuke's menu items. Equally, NDK incompatible versions would subsequently appear in all versions of Nuke you have installed, not just in the target one.

-Install into a random harddrive location and then persuade the user to go through the rigmarole of setting their NUKE_PATH environment variable.

All of which have their significant drawbacks. As of 6.1v1 however the guys have introduced something that OFX plug-in writers have enjoyed for ages - the concept of a central install search path, localised to that major.minor version of Nuke. Now you can write your installers to install to the locations below, avoid all of the pain of the above solutions, and have Nuke pick 'em up when you fire it up.

OSX 32bit:
/Library/Application Support/Nuke/x.x/plugins-32/

OSX 64bit:
/Library/Application Support/Nuke/x.x/plugins/

Linux 32bit:
/usr/local/Nuke/x.x/plugins-32/

Linux 64bit:
/usr/local/Nuke/x.x/plugins/

Windows 32bit:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Nuke\x.x\plugins\

Windows 64bit:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Nuke\x.x\plugins\

Nuke 32bit on Windows 64bit:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Nuke\x.x\plugins\

Where x.x is the major.minor version number of the Nuke build in question.

So what else is there?


New Ops - Ultimatte, giving you the 3 top industry keyers in one package & GeoSelect - a nodal version of the new viewer feature discussed below.

3D System & Viewer improvements - Update camera & light positions dynamically in the viewer by locking to the current viewport, GeoSelect for selecting vertices (with and without occlusion clipping) & snapping 3d objects to 'em, FBX export and FBX point clouds, plus access to 3d object's local and world transform matrices

Other improvements - Updated CameraTracker with refine workflow, rewritten error handling to reduce spurious error states, tab completion in the script editor, updated RED SDK, postage stamps on groups & gizmos, rotopaint improvements and roto node, and all sorts of other good stuff.

Plus let's not forget the open beta of OSX 64-bit builds

So go to the Nuke product page and grab the downloads. And yes, I am working on updating J_Ops for the new changes, plus with some other new goodness. More to come, stay tuned!

Join us on the unofficial Nuke IRC channel

2010-07-27T02:04:00.000-07:00

Chat about Nuke, general vfx industry, and miscellaneous chewing the cud over at #nuke on irc.foonetic.net.

For those new to IRC you can either use a web client such as mibbit - the link below will take you directly to the Nuke channel, all you need to do is type in your desired nickname.

http://mibbit.com/?server=irc.foonetic.net&channel=%23nuke

Alternatively you can use a desktop client. Couple I've used in the past listed below, leave other recommends in the comments:

OSX - Colloquy
Win - mIRC

Nukepedia!

2010-07-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

Nukepedia launched! Brainchild of, and helmed by, the ever resourceful Mr Frank Rueter, Nukepedia brings together the Nuke community, providing gizmo, plug-in and python downloads, tutorials, articles, interviews and all things Nuke. Binaries of J_Ops 1.0v1a6 are up there now.

Anyone else see any similarity between the J_Ops icon and the Downloads->Plug-ins icon? :)

Couple of great interviews from two of the fathers (slightly disturbing mental image there) of Nuke - 'Wild Bill' Spitzak and Egg. Both well worth reading - gotta love the Nuke splash screens through the ages; there'll be a new one to fill the gap at the end soon!

J_Ops 1.0v1a6 available

2010-02-14T09:38:00.000-08:00

adding J_rawReader - a DSLR RAW file reader, based on the pre-existing Nuke crwReader, with control over the DCRaw command line flags, injecting metadata into the stream and adding support for Nikon raw files and Adobe DNGs.

I've seen quite a bit of noise on the various Nuke forums recently asking for recompiles of the crwReader shipped with Nuke in the NDK example folder, with a variety of different flags enabled or disabled. Since I'd done something similar for a project recently I figured I'd clean it up and roll it into J_Ops.

J_rawReader, when installed to your .nuke directory, will override the standard Nuke crwReader, and provide a reader with knobs to control the flags passed to the underlying DCRaw process. It'll also use DCRaw to rip any metadata it can see out of the image file and inject it into the stream.

I've also include a couple of extra redirects into the package, so not only does it support Canon raw formats, it also supports Nikon raws and Adobe DNGs.
Grab the binary for your platform from the options below. Disclaimer as before. Use implies agreement. Thanks to ChrisB for helping out with my foolish NDK reader questions :)

J_Ops 1.0v1a6 for Nuke6.0v1 Windows 64bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a6 for Nuke6.0v1 Windows 32bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a6 for Nuke6.0v1 OSX x86 32bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a6 for Nuke6.0v1 Linux 64bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a6 for Nuke6.0v1 Linux 32bit

Stereo Shoot over at Pinewood

2010-02-11T03:12:00.000-08:00

Had the pleasure of heading along to a stereo shoot over at the Baker St set at Pinewood a couple of days back, put on by the Foundry and the talented guys over at Inition.
Few snaps. Hadn't realised how teeny tiny the SI modular stereo rigs really are. Or how chilly it really is at the minute!

Twitter added

2010-02-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Thought I might try this twitter malarky out. Given it's only 160 chars, then it's gotta have a greater likelihood of being updated than a blog!

twitter.com/jackbinks

J_Ops 1.0v1a5 Released

2010-01-24T05:44:00.000-08:00

J_Scopes, plus J_3Way - an ASC CDL compliant grade tool, with a 'poor man's control surface' interface

Well, here it is. The first public release of the J_Ops bundle. This is the J_Scopes tool, coupled with the all new J_3Way, wrapped up in an installer with supporting docs. All built against Nuke6.0v1, so grab the package for your platform and you're good to go.

J_3way is a lift/gain/gamma style grade plug-in using the ASC CDL transfer functions, coupled with an interactive in viewer interface I like to think of as a kind of 'poor man's control surface'. Using this interface you can set up a basic grade very rapidly without taking your eyes, or cursor, away from the image canvas.
To use it, simply hook up to a source clip and the viewer, click on an empty part of the viewer, then use the z, x and c keys to toggle in and out of lift, gain and gamma modes respectively. When in a particular mode, any mouse cursor move is mapped to a colour shift on that knob, as though the move was on a hue/saturation colour wheel. In fact, there's also a HS wheel included in the in viewer interface, which you can use to judge the current state of play, and to interact with directly. You can also use a number of modifier keys to impact the ratio of move to cursor shift, interpret as a luminance change, and so on - check out the in node tooltips, and the bundled manual available from the J_Ops toolbar entry for more detail. Works particularly well when using a trackball I find.

Additionally, it both makes the underlying ASC CDL params available as knobs (so you can translate external references in directly), and includes an extensible python framework for importing and exporting various CDL file types. As it stands I've implemented a pair of importer formats, namely for CCC and CDL XML file types, and provided the hooks for any python head to add in any other CDL I/O format. The only thing I ask is that if you do so, share it back with us (if you want I'll stick it in future versions and credit you as due for any resultant praise!).
It also has a gpu engine, so if you have a meaty enough gfx card, you can set it up to do the processing on that, to give you lighting quick feedback.

Thanks to some Nuke side API work by 'Wild Bill' Spitzak, J_Scopes has also had a bit of love. Namely it should now more robustly update the scopes drawn.

J_Ops 1.0v1a5 for Nuke6.0v1 Windows XP 64bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a5 for Nuke6.0v1 Windows XP 32bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a5 for Nuke6.0v1 OSX x86 32bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a5 for Nuke6.0v1 Linux 64bit
J_Ops 1.0v1a5 for Nuke6.0v1 Linux 32bit

As before, please note, whilst I work at the Foundry, I'm not a developer, and these are in no way associated with the Foundry, it's simply tools I built because I find them useful, and thought you might too. Check out the bundled manual for more information on all points mentioned, and let me know if you find 'em handy!

J_Scopes 1.0v1a2 for Nuke 5.2

2009-09-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

Given Nuke 5.2 was released a few days back, I figured it was time for a new build of the plug-in. This is compiled up against the 5.2v1 build, and in addition adds a number of new bits and bobs, notably;

-Improved vectorscope graticle, with labels and minor target boxes.
-A number of additional waveform and parade scope types, including Y and YC waveforms and YCbCr and RGB parades.
-The ability to switch colourspace maths between 601 & 701 standards (note the graticles are calibrated for 701 regardless).

See the changelog included in the bundles for more details. Note the original occasional refresh issue from the first build is still present, and I can't do anything about it until an API change, kindly done by Mr Spitzak before he left, kicks in (6.0 builds hopefully). Select your operating system from the below, note the original disclaimer still stands. This is compiled up for 5.2, so only works there.

J_Scopes 1.0v1a2 for Centos 4.5 Nuke 5.2v1 32bit
J_Scopes 1.0v1a2 for Centos 4.5 Nuke 5.2v1 64bit
J_Scopes 1.0v1a2 for OSX 10.5 x86 Nuke 5.2v1 32bit
J_Scopes 1.0v1a2 for Windows XP Nuke 5.2v1 32bit
J_Scopes 1.0v1a2 for Windows XP Nuke 5.2v1 64bit

Tracking Foundry Progress

2009-04-30T04:38:00.000-07:00

Back from NAB, and still somewhat lagged! Sam's posted some neat stuff to the Foundry blog showing using the camera tracker the r&d team have been working on for Nuke6 to extract camera info in this case to stitch environments together; check out muggins on the right hand side!

J_Scopes 1.0v1a1 for Nuke5.1v4

2009-04-07T08:55:00.001-07:00

EDIT 01/06/09: Added XP64 binary (same as that circulated on Nuke-Users mailing list.

Another year, another blog post! Makes me about a successful keeping this up to date as I expected to be :)

A few months back I was doing some cc work in Nuke on some stills I'd shot and I was seriously missing any kind of half way decent histogram and vectorscope tool, so I put a basic one together. I pretty much forgot about it until a few posts on the nuke-users mailing list brought it back to mind, so I've spent a bit of time knocking the edges off it.
Unfortunately, I'm now hitting NAB run up time, so I'm not going to get chance to work on it any time soon. I've compiled it up in the state it's in at the minute for Nuke5.1v4, on a bunch of platforms; hopefully it's of some use to you all!

Grab the archive for your platform from the link below, unzip and read the included readme file for installation and usage. Would be great to hear how you find it on the nuke-users mailing list.
Sorry, no XP64 build at the minute - it's a PITA (if not impossible - not sure) to build using VS2005 Express. Shout if you really want it and I'll see what I can do. I've also not optimised it in the slightest so it can be pretty slow. The skip lines drop down (coupled with active downrez in the viewer) allows you to trade off accuracy against speed.

Important Disclaimer: Although I work at the Foundry, I'm not a developer by trade, and this is something I've done entirely outside of work - so don't go to them with any issues you find! In addition, if one of the Foundry devs did this, I'm sure they'd do a much better job!
By downloading and using this you are accepting responsbility for any issues it may cause; be it crashing, wiping your machine or emailing those drunken university pictures to your wife/girlfriend/mother.

Select your operating system. Note this is compiled up for Nuke5.1v4, so only works there.

J_Scopes for Windows XP 32bit
J_Scopes for Windows XP 64bit
J_Scopes for Centos4.5 32bit
J_Scopes for Centos4.5 64bit
J_Scopes for OSX Intel 32bit

Stereoscopic Nuking

2008-05-19T03:05:00.000-07:00

Franz put up an tutorial on his blog looking at Nuke 5.0's stereo workflow. Interestingly this is something I actually did at NAB for a couple of on the fly demo's (basically with an already existing multi-plane projection setup, just adding another view and splitting the camera out). Franz uses a pair of scanline renderers, one for left one for right, followed by a joinviews, but you can actually just split the position knobs on the render camera and do it all within one 3d renderer, which is neat.

Location Scouting

2008-04-29T03:32:00.001-07:00

Spent 4 hours of sunday being driven around the south east coast, looking for locations for the intro scene in the next film project. I'm collaborating with my workmate Ben again; our previous effort, put together for laughs and for the Orange 60s film fest is here.

The premise for the new short is of a middle aged Punch (of Punch & Judy fame) finding the nefarious wife beating activities of his younger self have not left him in good stead for his middle years. Shot on S16, with one of the spitting image guys doing the puppet handling (bizarre thinking we're working with someone who's tv puppeteering antics kept me amused when growing up!). Most of the short was shot whilst I was over at NAB, and we're just waiting on some telecine flex files before we get stuck in to the edit.

More production stills are over on flickr

Think we've settled on Broadstair as a good option for the intro location, as it seems to have all the locations needed, and looks pretty 1950's in a well kept manner, so we can shoot his heydey life there.

Knowing when to stop?

2008-04-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Some advice I think Pierre could have done with finding when arriving into Vegas, rather than 3 days in, and the contents of his wallet down....

Foundry Loafing in Las Vegas

2008-04-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when Burno first started quoting lines from Fearing & Loathing at me. Unfortunately, the I15 seemed to differ somewhat from the 60's version I pictured from the book, and the fact that Burno, Matt, Jon & I were wallowing down the road in a bohemoth of a vehicle, rather than tearing it up in a red shark, wasn't doing anything to help. To top it off, the only serious collection in the boot (sorry, 'trunk'), was a batch of IT equipment, intended for a convention centre.

Abandoning the f&l parallel from this point forwards, given, as parallels go, its pretty weak, and given about a million post nab blogs have probably already used it....

who, what, how, why etc?

I have a propensity for blathering at people, generally on any topic that interests me, so I figure start a blog, maybe relieve some of those good people around me from listening to drivel on a daily basis (or at least cut down how much). As an additional advantage, I'll have an archive of drivel, which'll perhaps help prevent repetition of the stuff in future.
Anyway, I work at The Foundry (purveyors of fine quality vfx software), and given I tend to rattle on about the associated areas, I'd advise anyone reading, who's not a bit of a vfx geek like me, to stop right now...

...I mean it, stop right now...

Ok, so as you probably guessed given the vegas thing, and the date, this is going to be one of those irritating NAB roundup threads. For those of you who were there, you've got all this already, for those who weren't, you've probably also seen all of this already on other blogs/news sites, and if you haven't then it'll just make you cross that you weren't there....

Foundry Excitement

I didn't get off the stand much so I saw a lot of our own stuff, which is no bad thing as we were showing some cool bits and bobs this year.

Nuke 5 - Been out a few months now, but if you havent seen it, its got an accessible & pretty interface, python scripting, native stereo workflow, and some other gubbins.

Nuke 5.1 - very early development build of, which, rumour has it (can't say for sure of course... thanks legal types ;) ) will have 64bit support on xp & linux, improved steer-eo, fbx import for 3d scene elements (and, of course, bug fixes), plus a PLE version I think.

Ocula 1.0 - early development build of a plugin set for Nuke for dealing with live action stereo. Sam's & his crew have been working on these for quite a while now, and the concept is taking some of the fundamental Furnace processes and adapting them to tackle common issues when dealing with live action stereo (rather than those working on reprojected 2.5d, which is where Nuke's 3d system really comes into its own). Mainly based around uses of disparity vectors, mapping left to right & vica versa, and applying them to generating new views, shifting interocular distances, and calculating roto stroke correlation between views. Clever stuff.

On top of that, a whole bunch of plugins, including the new Furnace on FCP fxplug set ('bout 6 of the full set), and updated Furnace/Tinder/Keylights on Nuke.

Of course, none of this topped the excitement of seeing Bill's unusual methods for dealing with media types:

(embedded from Jeff Heusser of fxguide fame's flickr account)

Other Excitement

So, from the few moments I did get off the stand to see what everybody else was doing, it seemed if people weren't pushing stereo, then they were going for asset & workflow management. To be honest, the stereo demos I did manage to catch were kind of fun, since on two occasions people tried to push the idea of panning one view over the other to change interocular distance.
On the asset/workflow management front however, it would seem that it's another year for it. Autodesk were pushing the integration front with some slick multi-station demos, and Final Cut server was doing the rounds.

GridIron's Flow - pretty nifty tool which delves inside files you save, to figure out all the referenced media. Pretty cheap for what it promises to do as well. Knows the After Effects binary format, so shows you a ui of all associated files. Hopefully they'll do Nuke integration at some point, given the .nk format is plain text it shouldn't be too tricky, as this would have saved my arse a few times (I have a rather itchy delete trigger finger). Would You Like to Know More?

Eyeon Generation - judging by this I guess Eyeon have had a few requests from the Flame guys for a desktopy versioning type tool. Reminds me somewhat of Scratch's conforming and versioning timeline (which incidentally Nuke hooks up to using some bundled tcl scripts, which is pretty nifty). Would You Like to Know More?