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For those who don’t know the tool: Nuke from Foundry is a node based compositing application used in feature film and episodic VFX. It ingests multi pass renders, deep data and USD scenes, and sits downstream of layout, animation and lighting while feeding DI and delivery.
Gaussian Splats go native
Foundry has released Nuke 17.0 with native support for Gaussian Splats. Artists can now import, view, manipulate, render and export splat data directly inside Nuke without third party conversion tools. Gaussian Splats are point based scene representations in which radiance is encoded as collections of anisotropic Gaussians rather than polygonal meshes. In Nuke 17.0, splats can be imported via GeoImport or GeoReference nodes and visualised in the Hydra based 3D viewer.
Rendering is handled through the SplatRender node, which supports depth output, deep output and motion blur. GeoDeletePoints enables non-destructive point removal, while GeoGrade allows colour grading operations on splat data. Field Nodes integrate with splats, enabling combination and transformation of point data. According to Foundry’s documentation, these nodes allow non-destructive masking and manipulation of 3D data, including Gaussian Splats.
USD 3D system leaves beta
The new USD-based 3D system is now fully released. It is built on Pixar’s Universal Scene Description and is intended to bring structured scene management into Nuke’s compositing context. A new import dialogue enables selective loading of data from complex USD scenes, including payload control and item-activation toggles. GeoImport supports USD with scene graph metadata as well as Alembic cameras and geometry. Axis nodes now include new constraint input pipes such as LookAt, Translation and Rotation constraints, alongside a Snapshot function to freeze transforms.
Camera workflows have been extended. Viewer locator visibility is improved, GeoCamera nodes can be created directly, and GeoEditCamera allows direct editing of USD camera data. Projection tools have moved into ScanlineRender. Cylindrical projection and UV Unwrap are supported, including UDIM tile outputs.
Material workflows have been aligned with USD and MaterialX. MtlXStandardSurface supports MaterialX Standard Surface preview and render in the Hydra viewer. New shader nodes include ReflectiveSurface for reflections and refractions, BasicSurface and WireframeShader. Legacy equivalents such as ConstantShader, FillShader and MergeLayerShader are retained.
Material binding is handled through GeoBindMaterial, which includes Binding Strength and Purpose controls to balance performance and render fidelity. Lighting nodes have been expanded. USD light attributes can be pulled directly into Nuke without baking. Updated DirectLight, SpotLight, PointLight and EnvironmentLight nodes include shadow toggles and output channel controls.
New USD aligned light nodes include GeoEditLight, GeoDistantLight, GeoDiskLight, GeoSphereLight and GeoDomeLight. Controls extend to intensity, exposure, falloff type, focus and colour temperature, with terminology aligned to physically based workflows. ScanlineRender now exposes explicit ray tracing controls, including Max Ray Depth and separate depth limits for reflection, refraction and diffuse rays. Motion blur controls include Shutter, Shutter Offset, Shutter Segments and Shutter Bias.
AOV output control has been expanded with Z depth, motion vector variants and independent surface AOV toggles. GeoMask and GeoClearMask nodes enable 3D masks to cascade down the node graph with visible indicators, improving readability in complex setups. GeoPython provides direct Python access to USD prims and schemas inside the scene graph, allowing scripted edits to USD data within the comp context. Graph Scope Variables can now operate inside USD scenes to swap geometry, cameras and textures based on variable logic.
BigCat scales machine learning
Nuke 17.0 introduces BigCat, extending the existing CopyCat machine learning toolset. While CopyCat focuses on shot level training, BigCat is designed for large scale dataset training across tens or hundreds of shots. BigCat supports data augmentation to generate variation for lighting and motion conditions. Validation tools include validation loss graphs and a validation contact sheet. Custom loss functions such as LPIPS are supported to encourage structural and semantic alignment beyond simple pixel difference metrics.
Graph Scope Variables mature
Graph Scope Variables receive a production ready framework update. Python callbacks and API integration allow custom code to be triggered on variable events. Root node knob expressions such as frame range and fps can drive dynamic variable values. Variable names can now be displayed in node labels for improved script readability. Foundry reports performance improvements for large scripts using Graph Scope Variables, though no numerical metrics are published.
Annotation and UI refinements
The annotation system has been overhauled. Drawing tools are more responsive, brushes are redesigned and a dedicated comment panel is introduced. Visual indicators aim to clarify review notes within the node graph.
In the 3D workspace, node colour coding, mask icons, scene graph filtering and live read indicators have been updated to improve clarity. Error and warning visibility in the viewer and node properties has also been enhanced. By the way, if that person looks familiar: You’ve read a whole story about that project in Digital Production:
Core performance and colour
Core image processing updates include significant acceleration in TVIScale. Foundry states that GPU upscaling can be up to 98 times faster and CPU upscaling up to 26 times faster than previous behaviour. Deep composite rendering is reported to be up to 1.88 times faster to viewer and disk. Test conditions are not detailed in the documentation.
OFX plugins are no longer artificially resolution-limited. Plugins, including Furnace OFX, can now run at full hardware resolution. HDR MOV reading and writing now preserves YCbCr matrix, colour primaries and transfer functions. Native ACES 2.0 configurations are included. NotchLC codec support for MOV ingest and export is available on Windows and Linux.
Platform alignment and SDK updates
Nuke 17.0 supports USD 25.08 and aligns with VFX Reference Platform 2025. Third party libraries updated under this platform include Boost, OpenColorIO, OpenEXR, TBB and OpenVDB. OpenAssetIO and OpenAssetIO MediaCreation libraries are upgraded to version 1.0.0, with MediaCreation at 1.0.0 alpha.12.
Camera format support is updated via the latest Sony SDK and SMDK, including support for Burano firmware version 2 and 3.8K and 4K formats. Monitor out updates include AJA NTV2 17.5x, DeckLink 14.4 and NDI 6.x SDKs, with 10-bit support.
Parallel release for conservative pipelines
Alongside Nuke 17.0, Foundry has released Nuke 16.1. It includes most of the same feature updates but is built on the VFX Reference Platform 2024, allowing studios additional time to migrate their infrastructure.
Nuke 17.0 is available to customers with an active subscription. Pricing details are available from Foundry’s official product pages.
As with any major release that modifies 3D scene handling, machine learning workflows and core processing behaviour, facilities should validate performance, memory usage and pipeline compatibility before deploying to live productions. New tools and innovations should always be tested in controlled environments before use in production.
// Foundry Nuke 17.0 release notes
// https://learn.foundry.com/nuke/17.0v1/content/release_notes/nuke_17.0.html
And, if you want, you can compare it to the release of the Beta version in November:
