The Foundry Unveil MARI at NAB

The Foundry are collaborating with Weta Digital to bring to market their internally developed and highly regarded 3D texture painting technology MARI.

“We are thrilled to add Mari to our product line. The Foundry has worked hard to transform Nuke from an in-house application into the compositor of choice and will dedicate the same amount of energy and effort into ensuring that Mari becomes the ‘must have’ paint tool for artists. Mari is a great application that we will, with input from the community, make even better and more accessible to artists all over the world working in a variety of industries.” commented Dr Bill Collis, CEO, The Foundry.

We Love Plug-ins

New Plug-ins

FurnaceCore for Avid DS 10.3 is now available for open beta and pre-order.

Plug-in Offers

• 65% off Furnace for Autodesk.
• 30% off Furnace for Nuke.
• 50% off Furnace for NukeX.
• 50% off FurnaceCore for Final Cut Pro.

The Foundry Sell Tinder & Tinderbox to GenArts as Part of a Wider Strategic Alliance

© The Troop. Image courtesy of Nickelodeon and Tom Lynch Co. VFX created by Artifex using Sapphire on Nuke.

In recent years The Foundry’s plug-in strength has lain in complex research-based, image-processing technology such as Furnace, Ocula and RollingShutter. With this in mind it makes sense for The Foundry to continue following this path and for Tinder and Tinderbox to transfer to GenArts where we are confident they will continue to thrive. From today any Tinder or Tinderbox support or sales enquiries should be directed to GenArts. Got questions? Read the full Press Release and FAQ document.

Keylight 2.1v1 for Fusion

Support for 64-bit Fusion and built-in colour correction tools are in this latest release of Keylight for Fusion.

The Foundry Congratulates VES Award Winners

London, 20 January 2010. Visual Effects Software Company, The Foundry, is delighted to congratulate its customers on their Visual Effects Society Award Wins. 3D Films dominate with Avatar receiving 6 awards. Read the press release for more information or visit www.visualeffectssociety.com for a full of list of nominees.

Nuke Site License at Framestore

Where The Wild Things Are © Warner Bros. Image courtesy of Framestore

The Foundry is pleased to announce that Framestore has invested in a Nuke site license. Framestore have been using Nuke on all their recent projects including Avatar, the widely acclaimed James Cameron movie.

Christian Kaestner, Head of Nuke Compositing at Framestore, said “The decision to invest in Nuke came down to speed and flexibility. Nuke is simply incredibly fast, interactive, and flexible, even in quite complex comps with several hundred nodes.”

Read the full press release.

Svengali Embraces the Future with Nuke on Star Trek

Read why Svengali FX turned to Nuke to help them complete their shots on JJ Abrams’ Star Trek.

© 2009 Paramount Pictures, image courtesy of Svengali FX

“Having artists using software that is on the cutting edge, such as Nuke, helps us stay ahead of the curve” says Svengali owner Jamie Venable.

Read the case study.

ILM Purchases Nuke

8 June 2009, leading visual effects software developer, The Foundry, today announced that Industrial Light & Magic has purchased a site license of Nuke.

“ILM has a history in providing breakthrough imagery for production and to do that, our artists need to be equipped with the best possible tools. We believe Nuke is a forerunner in the compositing field. The Foundry’s investment in research and development and customer-focused approach has produced a flexible, artist-focused tool set. We are excited to work with The Foundry and see where these new possibilities will take our work.” commented Richard Kerris, CTO, Lucasfilm.
Read the full press release

The Foundry MBO

The Foundry announces a management buyout led by Advent Venture Partners. For more information, please read the Press Release.

Killer Tools for Sweeney Todd

“Keylight and Furnace plug-ins are very valuable to us in our day-to-day work,” says Marian Mavrovic, Compositing Supervisor at MPC. “They are standard tools we use to tackle all sorts of challenges that come to us in the compositing department and they helped us a great deal on Sweeney Todd”. Read the Sweeney Todd case study.

© DreamWorks, Paramount and Warner Bros. Images courtesy of MPC.

The Foundry on YouTube

We have started a youtube channel. We want to showcase your work. If you’ve got something you’d like to share that demonstrates Tinder, Tinderbox, Keylight, Furnace, Ocula or Nuke, please email a link and short description to marketing@thefoundry.co.uk. You can also subscribe to receive notification when new videos are uploaded.

Moving Picture Company Buys Nuke

The Foundry is pleased to announce that MPC has invested in a Nuke site license.

(c) Kerry LowLow. Image courtesy of MPC.

MPC have been using Nuke successfully in their commercials department for some time producing spots including Kerry LowLow ‘Mouse’ (above) which recently won MPC two VES nominations. The decision to switch their motion picture compositing pipeline to Nuke makes them one of the largest Nuke sites in the world.

Stephen Newbold, 2D VFX Supervisor for Commercials at MPC, said,
“There were numerous factors which led to the decision to switch to Nuke as the primary compositing tool for CG heavy commercials at MPC. The raw speed of Nuke has been a huge benefit, the linear workflow merges seamlessly with our 3D pipeline and the 2D/3D environment has allowed our compositors to take on a lot of the set-extension and matte painting projection that would historically have had to be dealt with by the 3D department. Nuke has allowed us to maintain the quality of our compositing while tackling more complex jobs yet meeting the ever-tighter deadlines.”

Read the full Nuke MPC Release.

Avatar

(c)2009 Fox. All rights reserved. Image courtesy of Weta Digital.

Avatar has broken all box office records. Read how and why Weta Digital, ILM and Framestore utilised The Foundry’s software on the project. You can also see The Foundry’s Simon Robinson on BBC London News discussing their involvement.

Nuke Democracy at The Lab

(c)2007 Fox. All rights reserved. Image courtesy of The Lab Sydney.

“What a product like Nuke is doing for VFX, is to democratise the business in the same way that developments such as RED and DSLR cameras have done in cinematography. With Nuke, more people have access to faster and more intelligent tools to create VFX in new ways.” says Senior Visual Effect artist, Bertrand Polivka at The Lab in Sydney, Australia. Read all about The Lab compositing with Nuke.

Sony Pictures Imageworks and The Foundry Share Technologies

The Foundry formed a unique collaboration with Sony Pictures Imageworks in 2009. Read the press release. A few months in, Richard Shackleton, Head of Product Development at The Foundry answers your questions and gives his perspective.

Screenshot of Katana.

Soho VFX Finalise Nuke Roll-out

London, 20 January 2010. The Foundry is pleased to announce that Soho VFX, a world-class visual effects facility with studios in Toronto and Los Angeles, has invested heavily in Nuke. Read the press release.

Nuke Tutorials Now Online

Over the last few months The Foundry have enlisted the help of industry professional Frank Rueter (Weta Digital, Digital Domain, www.ohufx.com) and renowned trainer, Steve Wright (www.swdfx.com), to assist our in house demo team in producing a comprehensive set of Nuke tutorials available FREE.

Basic Workflows, General UI, Python, Keying and Colour Space are all covered in this series of more than 50 tutorials. We hope that you’ll find them useful.

You can find them on the Nuke page and selecting the Tutorials & Example Images link from the right hand menu. They are also available on our YouTube channel.

Nuke’s a Smash with Rise

Image courtesy of Rise and fxguidetv.

See how Rise|FX tackled the compositing on a 14 second long car crash shot filmed hand held from the back seat of the car. This 20 minute presentation by Florian Gellinger of Rise|FX and courtesy of fxguidetv shows how the road intersection was built in Nuke as a 3D environment. The shot was completed for director Matthias Glasner in the film “This is Love”. Download the breakdown here.

Image Engine Nukes District 9

Image courtesy of ImageEngine and fxguidetv.

Armed with The Foundry’s Nuke compositing software, Image Engine was the lead VFX vendor on District 9. The Vancouver based VFX studio completed 311 shots on the film, which grossed $130m worldwide in its first five weeks. Read the full case study or download a 17 minute video breakdown of various shots in District 9 by Shervin Shoghian, Compositing Supervisor at Image Engine, pictured above.

Nuke Breakdowns

Ever wondered how they did that shot? Here’s a breakdown of Nuke comps on our YouTube Channel. Thanks to Intelligent Creatures, Furious FX, Filmgate, Entity FX, Rising Sun Pictures, Elephant Studios, Mikros Image, Mad Crew and Passion Pictures.

Passion Pictures Harness Nuke for Audi Spot

© 2009 Audi. Image courtesy of Passion Pictures

“The 3D space is a really impressive feature of Nuke.” says Neil Riley, VFX Supervisor at Passion Pictures. Go to the case study. View the Audi Q5 spot.

Weta Digital Purchase Site License of Nuke

Weta Digital, New Zealand’s multi award-winning VFX studio has purchased a site license of Nuke to enhance their in-house pipeline.

Paul Ryan, Chief Technology Officer at Weta Digital, comments: “With ambitious projects on the slate, we need to ensure we have the best tools at our disposal. Our long-standing relationship with The Foundry and our faith in their product development, support and focus on producing a truly useful artist tool set has given us the confidence to make this investment.” Read the full press release