The Foundry’s After Effects To Nuke Training Series (2013)

The “step up to nuke” videos were a series The Foundry put together in 2013 to help After Effects users get used to the Nuke way of working. The jump from a layered based comper to a node based one can be quite a shock to the system (as can going from nodal to layer), so it was great they made this series. I’m lucky to have used both (After Effects for a lot of TV work and Shake/Nuke for film work) and appreciate the benefits of both. For me it was always a case of which tool for which job, …if it was going to involve a lot of quick changes in timings of elements possibly with a director lurking over my shoulder, then After Effects would be used (timeline is so quick and easy plus the Ram preview is super quick compared to previewing in Nuke). If I wanted to build a big or complex comp, then Nuke was the way to go due to its flexibility and ease to see an overview of everything, without the layering of precomps (as you would do in After Effects). Especially useful if you are handed someone else’s script or come back to one of your own from ages past. Nuke thankfully is catching up in the timeline stakes with giving us the ability to slide timings of layers and keyframes around a lot easier in the dopesheet, so I don’t really miss After Effects these days. But enough of me blabbing. Below is a quick blurb why some FX artists have made the swap from AE to Nuke, then there are the 11 quick introductory Nuke tutorials geared towards After Effects users. It is for v7 of Nuke but the fundamentals are the same in more recent versions of Nuke.

Here is a link to get a 15 day trial of Nuke to try out if you wish to see if you like the interface.