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For those who don’t know the tool: Nuke Stage operates between VFX content preparation and in-camera capture. Its Editor manages the project and creative adjustments, a Relay distributes network and tracking information, and RenderNodes drive the LED displays. The software brings Nuke-style image processing and scene control into the stage environment.
Our Nuke Stage coverage has already examined playback, USD, compositing and metadata workflows. This update concerns the practical control infrastructure around them: physical lighting, video-output assignment and external timecode. Those are less glamorous than a new rendering technique, but more likely to occupy a virtual-production technician before the first take.
The Mac can wait
Foundry’s latest announcement leads with macOS support, which sounds like a welcome expansion. There is a small scheduling detail: early access is expected in 2027. The current Stage 1.2 release remains a Windows product. What actually arrives now is a practical collection of control and setup improvements. DMX lighting support, a new Output Map panel and audio LTC input head the list. There are also changes to feed mapping, lightcards, viewport controls and diagnostic feedback. It is a useful update. We are not entirely convinced it needs a marching band.
DMX joins the project
The most substantial addition is control of physical lighting fixtures directly from Nuke Stage. The software sends DMX data over the sACN network protocol, allowing an operator to adjust fixture attributes such as intensity and colour without leaving the Stage project.
Fixture configuration lives in Project Graph > DMX. Operators select whether the Editor machine or a RenderNode sends the DMX data, configure the network connection and assign fixture profiles, modes and addresses.
The addressing follows DMX’s universe-and-slot structure. Each universe carries 512 data slots. A fixture’s mode defines which channels it exposes and how many slots those channels occupy. Individual fixtures are then assigned a starting universe and slot address.
Stage’s detailed setup documentation uses GDTF files to describe fixture profiles. These supply the available modes, channels and geometry information. Operators select the appropriate mode for each physical fixture and can then control its exposed properties. For RGB and RGBW fixtures, compatible colour channels belonging to the same geometry are grouped into a colour control. The white channel is represented by the alpha component of that control in the Editor.
There is one wrinkle. Foundry’s 1.2 overview says fixture profiles can be configured through GDTF files or manual settings. The detailed setup guide, however, says fixture profiles currently have to be configured from GDTF files. The documents do not establish a complete manual-profile creation workflow.
Stage’s DMX output is one-way. It can drive physical fixtures, but incoming DMX cannot be used to control Stage properties. Nor do the configured fixtures appear as lights inside the USD scene or illuminate virtual 3D assets. The system controls the actual lighting rig, not a second, imaginary rig inside the render.
Give the lights something to follow
Operators can animate DMX channel values using the Stage Sequencer. A fixture parameter can be placed on a timeline or keyframed directly, with the resulting changes sent to the physical light during playback.
The Pixel Map panel offers a more image-driven route for grid fixtures. It takes a selected texture from the Stage project and samples colours at the positions of individual controllable fixture regions.
The grid setup defines dimensions, pixel ordering, channels per pixel and any necessary padding between channel groups. Position and scale determine where the grid samples the texture.
During playback, the sampled colours update with the source imagery. A driving plate, for example, can supply colour variation to practical LED fixtures as the environment changes.
Physical lighting can follow the image content without requiring someone to reproduce every colour change separately in another timeline. Actual fixture response, colour matching and timing still need to be checked on the stage hardware.
Output Map: Which pixels go where?
The new Output Map panel addresses a different problem: assigning the imagery rendered by Stage to the physical video outputs driving an LED installation. In the Outputs workspace, operators create outputs for individual RenderNodes and define their dimensions. They then create displays representing sections of the physical LED wall, set their resolutions and assign representative meshes.
Displays may use planar or cylindrical geometry, or custom meshes loaded from FBX files. The custom mesh can contain sub-meshes, allowing a more complex wall arrangement to be represented within the setup.
The actual mapping happens through viewports. A viewport defines which portion of a Stage display is rendered into a selected output region. Operators can create mappings, position viewports visually and assign more than one viewport to a display.
The panel provides selection filters to prevent an accidental drag from moving the wrong item. Viewport Z-index controls rendering order where regions overlap, while a per-viewport display-view transform can override the global output transform.
These controls do not introduce a new rendering engine. They make the relationship between a physical screen, its logical Stage display and the signal leaving a RenderNode easier to configure and inspect.
That relationship is particularly important when a wall spans several machines or several output regions. A mapping panel cannot repair a bad cable, but at least it should make the intended routing less mysterious.
Feed Map is not Output Map
Stage introduced the Feed Map panel in version 1.1. Version 1.2 improves its tools for placing, moving, scaling and locking imagery on displays.
The two panels operate at different levels. Output Map determines where a display is rendered on the hardware outputs. Feed Map determines how an image or display override is positioned across displays that have already been configured.
Feed Map provides a 2D canvas, automatic display layout, selective movement of displays or textures, and per-display live-update controls. Once an image is placed, its live updates can be disabled or its position locked to avoid accidental changes.
Operators can also enable or disable display overrides over an existing USD scene. That permits a prepared image or lightcard to be shown on a particular display without permanently replacing the underlying scene content.
It is workflow refinement rather than a new concept, but that is exactly where a stage operator benefits from fewer unnecessary trips through a properties panel.
Audio LTC enters the timing chain
Nuke Stage 1.2 adds Linear Timecode input from an audio source. Previously documented options include the system clock and timecode received through a Blackmagic capture device. With Audio LTC, an incoming analogue audio signal can provide the timecode reference through an audio input on the Relay machine.
The operator selects Audio LTC in the project’s hardware settings, identifies the input device and chooses the audio channel carrying the signal. Channel numbering uses a zero-based index.
he incoming frame rate must be configured to match the LTC source. An extrapolation option allows Stage to advance the timecode using wall-clock time between received values. Reference and playback times are shown in the Editor. If the timecode connection is lost, the display flashes red and Stage generates an error notification.
Audio LTC governs the playback timeline. It does not replace the hardware synchronization needed to ensure that several RenderNode GPUs present their frames together. A scene may be playing at the correct time while two sections of the LED wall still disagree about which frame they are showing.
Small changes, useful places
The remaining 1.2 improvements mostly concern direct interaction and feedback. The Image Viewer gains 2D manipulators for nodes including Crop, Rectangle, Radial and Transform. Operators can adjust the relevant parameters in the viewer instead of relying entirely on numeric controls. The colour popup adopts a Nuke-style colour wheel with RGB, HSL and TMI controls. Lightcard creation is more direct from the Scene Graph. A newly created lightcard is associated with a node and texture override, and its colour can be edited using Kelvin or RGB controls. Stage also documents creation of basic USD meshes, including planes, cubes, spheres and cylinders, within an existing or empty scene. The sync-debugging tools include visual overlays that help operators inspect whether RenderNode outputs are aligned. The Render Debug panel provides moving grid lines and a strobe pattern, while the Network panel exposes timing information such as the sync barrier.
These are useful diagnostic aids. They are not evidence that the underlying synchronization hardware requirements have disappeared. Foundry also mentions improved metadata tracking in its announcement, but the 1.2 feature overview does not identify new metadata fields, a changed schema or a new export mechanism. There is too little technical detail to treat that claim as a separate documented workflow addition.
The hardware still gets a vote
Foundry’s current hardware documentation specifies Windows 11 for the control machine and RenderNodes. For synchronized multi-node configurations, each RenderNode requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU and an NVIDIA RTX PRO Sync card, together with a suitable external genlock reference. The sync card is unnecessary for a single RenderNode installation that does not require synchronization between nodes.
Output setup has specific requirements. An output intended for synchronized playback should match the full resolution of its Windows display, even if Stage only uses a subsection. Borderless output, VSync and framelock need to be enabled.
For media delivery, Foundry recommends fast local SSD storage and identical file paths across Editor and RenderNode machines. If content is served from shared storage, its documented network recommendation is 40GbE or 100GbE.
Running several Stage processes on the same workstation requires memory planning. Each process may otherwise target a substantial portion of available RAM for image caching. The documented NUKESTAGE_IMAGECACHE_CAPACITY setting can be used to limit cache allocation.
None of this is new to version 1.2. It remains relevant because a more convenient output panel does not remove the underlying stage infrastructure.
And now, the Mac announcement
Foundry says its planned macOS implementation will support Apple ProRes, genlock and synchronization across multiple Mac RendreNodes and iPhones. The company specifically names MacBook Pro systems with M5 Pro and M5 Max, and Mac mini systems with M5 Pro, when discussing genlock capability.
Those are announced plans, not characteristics we can confirm in a shipping Mac version of Nuke Stage. Foundry has not supplied a generally available macOS build, a final compatibility matrix or performance measurements for production workloads. Interested users can register for updates ahead of the expected 2027 early-access programme. For now, the Mac announcement is a roadmap item. An interesting one, certainly, but a roadmap item all the same.
Education: A previously undiscovered species
Foundry appears to have discovered an intriguing demographic: people who are learning production software might eventually become people who purchase production software. One imagines the meeting was electrifying.
To be fair, Foundry has offered educational licensing for years. What is new is the inclusion of Nuke Stage in a dedicated Virtual Production Collective for eligible educational institutions.
Each annual seat combines one Nuke Studio licence with one Nuke Stage RenderNode licence. Foundry lists the price as $499, £305 or €370 per collective seat per year.
The distinction between Editor and RenderNode matters here. Stage Editor is free, so students can prepare and work on scenes outside the classroom. The licensed RenderNodes needed to drive an LED stage are available to institutions under this programme.
Foundry’s educational licence terms do not grant general commercial-use rights. Schools must request the institutional package through the education team. There is also a free 30-day Nuke Stage trial. Foundry handles commercial RenderNode pricing rather than listing a universal public price.
It is a sensible way to put the software in front of future operators. Whether it makes virtual production accessible to a particular school will still depend on the cameras, tracking, display hardware, synchronization and storage infrastructure the school already has. A free Editor is welcome. It does not come with a free LED volume.
A useful update, without fireworks
The smaller interface and diagnostic changes should help operators who spend more of their working day configuring a stage than admiring the marketing material. There is no demonstrated performance breakthrough here, and the promised Mac version is not yet in users’ hands. The education programme is welcome, even if the underlying business logic is hardly revolutionary.
For an existing Stage installation, the strongest reasons to examine 1.2 are its lighting, mapping and timing controls. Studios should test the release with representative production assets, actual fixtures, tracking sources and target hardware before deploying it on an active stage.
| Product | Nuke Stage |
| Developer | Foundry |
| Current release | 1.2v2 |
| Operating system | Windows; current hardware guide specifies Windows 11 for control and RenderNodes |
| macOS | Early access expected in 2027; no generally available Mac release confirmed |
| Main 1.2 additions | sACN/DMX lighting, Output Map, audio LTC, Feed Map improvements |
| DMX | Outgoing sACN; GDTF fixture-profile workflow documented |
| Multi-node synchronization | NVIDIA RTX PRO Sync and compatible GPUs required for synchronized Windows RenderNodes |
| Network | 40GbE or 100GbE recommended when using shared media storage |
| Education | Virtual Production Collective: one Nuke Studio licence plus one Stage RenderNode licence per seat |
| Education price | $499 / £305 / €370 per seat, billed annually |
| Stage Editor | Free; institutional licensing required for education RenderNodes |
| Trial | 30 days |
| Documentation | Nuke Stage 1.2 What’s New |
| Education licensing | Foundry Education FAQ |
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Article details
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- Bela Beier
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