For some time, we've known that The Foundry, the company behind many of today's high-end VFX softwares, would be releasing a free non-commercial version of Nuke, its flagship compositing software that is a bonafide juggernaut in the world of Hollywood visual effects, but we were never quite sure when it would officially be released. Well No Film Schoolers, the time is now.

David Plummer recently caught up with Chris Kenessey of The Foundry to learn more.

And here's a little more information about Nuke and its new non-commercial license, and why learning this software is beneficial for those who aspire to work in the VFX industry.

For the most part, everything that you can do in the full paid versions of Nuke, you can also do with the non-commercial version as well. However, there are a few key limitations.

  • Licenses are not valid for commercial work at home or in a company, or for use in a commercial environment when completing work or in an educational institution.
  • Licenses cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of NUKE or in clusters of non-commercial licenses.
    • If you’re looking to evaluate the full commercial version, try the free 15-day trial here.
    • If you’re an educational institution, find out more about educational licenses here.
  • Key feature differences:
    • Output resolution up to HD (1920 x 1080).
    • Some nodes disabled including: the WriteGeo node, Ultimatte node, Primatte node, BlinkScript node, and GenerateLUT node.
    • 2D format support disabled for MPEG4 and h264.
    • Encrypted data storage and limited python scripting.

If you're interested in learning more about non-commercial Nuke, head on over to The Foundry's site to get started. Also, they have a handy step-by-step video guide to getting started here, and their Vimeo page is full of great tutorials. Now go forth and create!


No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2015 is brought to you by Color Grading Central, Shutterstock, Blackmagic Design, and Bigstock.

No Film School's coverage of NAB is brought to you by Color Grading Central, Shutterstock, Blackmagic Design, and Bigstock

Source: The Foundry