The ULTIMATE VFX WORKFLOW 

Great vid, I use the exact same work flow except switch Nuke for Fusion (I have a few less guitars and a smaller drum kit though!). I also have scripts in Resolve that allow me to mark clips from a timeline to generate the EXR's. Switched to ACES a few years ago and it has really streamlined my workflow and removed all of the headaches involved with the various camera inputs and delivery outputs. Switched to Blender a few years back as well, glad I did as it is evolving so fast, just wish Cycles was a little more photoreal but amazing otherwise. As an indie operator I think this is a great workflow with tools that everyone can access.

Hi Alfie, with regards to this it’s very similar to mine except from blender, question: I have a custom .DCTL for resolve but how do I export it as a IDT to bring into nuke so it would appear in my drop-down menu of IDTs then I can export as ACES? Thank you again for the great content!

Worth to know that the nuke free version doesn't allow you to use some key nodes that you need to compose 3D models-animations

There's a few that are limited but I've never found I needed any of them

@@AlfieVaughan Why not Fusion, which is free and used in high end production?

I think Fusion is pretty good but I don't know a single VFX studio that uses it. I use Nuke because I work as a compositor on "high-end productions" you're talking about and everyone either uses Nuke or Flame. It wasnt really that I picked it over fusion, it was simply that I was trained in Nuke and continue to use it because it's the best compositing software

@@AlfieVaughan Fair enough! Thank you for your reply. I asked you because you use Blender, And Maya is industry standard for 3D as Nuke is IS for VFX. About VFX studios that use Fusion, from BM site: "Fusion has been used on feature films like Ant-Man, Red Sparrow and London Has Fallen, as well as hit television shows like Empire, NCIS and Emergence." And many more ...

Glad you liked it!

Thank you very much Jason! It's lovely to hear that people with your level of experience still find these videos useful!! As one of the flame guys I work with always says, "everyday is a school day." 😁

Thank you! :)

Thanks! It's very handy 😁

Thanks!

No problem! Glad you liked it!!!

Haha thanks man!

Glad you liked it!

Thanks! No problem :)

Thanks Prashan! :)

Glad you liked it!

Thanks :)

Thanks!

No problem!

Thank you! ♥️

No problem!

Thanks a lot! The learning curve is a little steep but the sooner you start learning the sooner you'll be good at it. If you get scared and keep putting it off you'll never get there. Just start 💪

I only realised a few months ago! Game changer

Good isn't it! I don't totally understand every aspect of it either but it just works and I love it 😂 you don't even need the paid one to use it. It works in the free version too!

Thanks!

Thank you!

How are you learning nuke? There are very little resources online. Please share

Same 😜

They do indeed! All the VFX studios I've worked at use Linux. I just use Windows at home because I also play games etc. on my home PC

@@AlfieVaughan I get it! My company uses an all Linux pipeline and it works great. I use Linux personally too, but I'm not a big gamer and the ones I do play are supported well thanks to Steam's great work.

I was hesitant for a while but I haven't looked back since. I think it's a lot better having used both!

@@AlfieVaughan Thanks for the reply. Yeah I am tempted. Maybe use my usual workflow for pro jobs and try the other one out for personal stuff. Love your work btw.

@@ukmonk good idea so the moment you feel you're ready to choose you already tried the 2 workflows

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! They're definitely rendered in AcesCG. I have the sequencer set to aces under the colour management settings. I've installed the aces config files so my blender isn't setup with the default colour management so it works a little differently. It defaults to acesCG which is linear

It basically just tells nuke to replace the file path with whatever the script is called but it trims off the ".nk" on the end. Then the rest of it is similar to blender how it looks at where it's saved, goes up a level and saves it in the comp folder instead!

Nice! 3DE is great. I should learn it really...

I have a video on it where I go a bit more in depth here - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RQGRYmVkizo.html

I don't use after effects anymore, sorry!

Thanks! A viewer actually made me a little program that makes my exact structure just by typing how many shots I want. Very handy! But good suggestion :)

@@AlfieVaughan That's awesome! It just great how cmmunities can form and mane cool lil tools to make life easier.

Yep that's correct. But the only reason I export to 4k is because RU-vid increases the playback bitrate on 4k videos. So a 1080p video rendered and uploaded at 4k will look better than uploading in its native resolution

@@AlfieVaughan Cool that was my next question. Cheers! Keep up the good work.

Thanks! Do you mean the computer specs of my machine at work?

I could have done. It gives the same result really so it doesn't matter. I was just using that as an example of the grading process

Thanks! I work as a compositor at a VFX studio and everyone uses Nuke. It's the best compositing software really. Fusion is pretty good but Nuke is the best!

I've got an i7 6700k, 32GB of RAM and a 3090 but you don't need all that to use this workflow!

​@@AlfieVaughan Thanks man for replying, Appreciated it.

I only use about 3 haha 😅

Thanks! Vectors and depth will be ok as 16 but cryptos have to be 32bit so I tend to just render all my utility passes together as 32bit

@@AlfieVaughan Got it. Thank you for the reply.

Oh interesting. I don't think I've ever tried. Have you tried renaming them differently? It's based on the clip name so if they're called different names I can't see why it wouldn't work

Couldn't name the clips differently. Changing the second clip would also change the first. Same when using any other metadata field, like 'shot' for example. Seems to be a shortcoming

Ah that's annoying. Not a great solution but I guess a workaround would be exporting the second one as a new piece of footage and bringing it back in

You need to setup blender to use ACES, not filmic. It's a totally different colour management system. I think the new versions of blender ships with it by default. Before around 3.2 you have to install it yourself. It's really easy. I show how in my video about using aces

@@AlfieVaughan Rad! I'll check it out. Thanks.

I use Nuke because I work as a professional compositor and everyone uses Nuke in the industry. Fusion is good but I don't believe it's as good as Nuke

It does indeed! I started noticing this and have since switched to working in rec709 in all software. Ideally you should work in your monitor colourspace which is why I chose sRGB but like you say, it was messing with the gamma when posting on social media

It depends on the person and how quickly you learn I think. It took me about 2 years of 8+ hours a day to be a decent junior. Another year to be more of a mid level artist. If you're doing 3-4 hours a day then probably 3-4 years. But also keep in mind i was in a studio environment with some of the best compositors in the world. If you're not around really artists to learn from it might not be as fast.

There's an overscan addon for Blender! It was made by Barnstorm VFX I think... It's great! developer.blender.org/T49068

@@AlfieVaughan Thank you for the quick reply. Is this also included in the exr so that it is only used when the lens distortion comes into play or do you have to extract it with a reformat node and if so, how? Because if what I have read about the addon is correct, it just extends the focal lenght. But it could also be that I am wrong. (Too bad Blender doesn't have something like that built in). Anyway, thanks for the answers despite the late time.

Not quite, it actually keeps the focal length the same but increases the image size. So the resolution is scaled up slightly. Then in nuke you reformat it back down to the original plate size but keep the extra overscan pixels in the bounding box. Then when you add lens distortion those pixels are dragged inwards

@@AlfieVaughan That's great news for me. Thank you very much.

Thanks! Yes you could use the timeline in Nuke studio to remove resolve from the workflow. It's not quite as user friendly but works fine

@@AlfieVaughan Hi Alfie and thanks for the answer. I use the Indi version, so maybe I will need the other piece anyway, AE in my case I assume.

The timeline is in Nuke indie :)

Yeah it's kinda the same workflow. You just work in with linear EXRs with the viewer set to rec709 i believe

From resolve? I think you have to install the codec or something. I've never done it. If I have to deliver a shot as prores I render as prores directly from nuke because it comes with it built in.

No it won't change anything. I could be wrong but I believe ticking that makes it a 32bit float EXR because it greys out the colour depth dropdown menu. So I never tick it because it makes the files needlessly big. Also neither of the studios I've worked at use that feature when we work in ACES

There's an overscan add-on for blender that I use. A few people have asked about that! Scene scale I don't change I just make sure it's real world scale

I'm using paid versions here but this all works in the free versions too. I used the free versions of both for about 6 months before deciding to buy them

It's quite unusual to grade before VFX because if you do any keys in grade and then try to track or key that in comp it could cause problems. Most places do the VFX work and then grade as the final stage. And you wouldn't grade the BG and FG separately in grade. They should be balanced in comp and then a colourist will just grade the entire picture as one image

By default yes but there's a couple of work arounds! The one I use is you can set it's render location to your recycling bin. If you do that, blender won't even generate the files so it doesn't create any extra renders. Or you can set it to a default folder and just write over the renders each time. I've used both and either work fine! :)

@@AlfieVaughan oh i see does it effect on render time?

Nope it should be the same! It's just saving 2 files as the render completes instead of one. The rendering itself is what takes time. The saving is instant. Although if you do the recycle bin thing I don't think it even saves them

I've got a couple of videos on it. These should help ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3fyFkQiQrGQ.htmlsi=sPEWuZ-DM-32J368 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aw1xjChY_9U.htmlsi=8EnrZFDWLx4_cbsD

I haven't really used fusion personally. I've heard it's good but Nuke is the main compositor used for professional level VFX. It's what I was trained on at work which is why I use it at home. From what I can see it's still the most powerful compositor by a fair way. Especially for CG stuff

It shouldn't be... it's the footage raw? It's so it auto detectes colour space

@@AlfieVaughan According to the meta data one of the videos are DRAGONcolor color space and REDgamma4 gamma curve

@@AlfieVaughan False alarm, all the footage was Raw, popped in a prores clip and I got the option to change the ACES input transform.

Ah thought so!

I'm not entirely sure to be honest! I've never worked with linear EXRs in a non-ACES workflow at home. We did it at work at The Mill before switching but it was a custom made view transform similar to rec. I don't know the specifics. I think if you work in the davinci colour managed workflow instead of the yrgb one then there's options for outputting in linear. I've not tried it though

@@AlfieVaughan right, there's a linear output. But still not quite giving me wanted flawless roundtrip. Well, thanks anyways!

As long as you use the same view transform in all software's it shouldn't really matter what you output it from resolve as. If you're just avoiding ACES because there isn't a transform for your camera then maybe just use a similar one. The transform is just to get it to look like rec709 anyway. You could apply a similar one and then do a tech grade to tweak it if needed before exporting VFX plates

I have an i7 6700k, 32GB of RAM and a 3090 :)

Because un davinci i understood you rendered acescg but them in nuke It was linear renders you were working with

Linear and aces are basically the same. AcesCG is still linear EXRs. But yes technically it's always acesCG. Nuke just refers to it as scene linear

​@@AlfieVaughani seee, that explains it. one other matter, in order to render in blender 4.0 in aces would i need to install anything or am i good by just setting the output color space mode to "override - acescg"? or should i set something up aswell in the scene color management settings? i dont really see much info regarding aces and the new 4.0 in the web, so a video about that would be really great. im sorry if im a bit asking too much, im pretty much new at this. Thanks so much!

I already have a video on it! I think you still need to manually put the aces files into your blender folder even in 4.0. watch this video and follow the steps ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aw1xjChY_9U.htmlsi=cYM0AH52RxQHhGNm

Definitely Nuke! Fusion seems really good but it's not as powerful for high end stuff. I've been using Nuke as a professional compositor for the last 5 years at VFX studios and I can pretty confidently say it's the only compositor that can do some of the shots I've done in that time. When you get into depth with CG, projections, 3D geo etc in compositing Nuke is the king

@@AlfieVaughan oh I'm fully aware it's industry standard, will be interesting to see tho will bmd put more into it to make it compete more with the foundery 🤔🤔, even a shuffle mode would help but I have a strange suspicion that the foundery has a patent on shuffle nodes in conpositors hmmmm, care to go into debth what's missing in those fusions tools 🤔

It's a very long discussion haha! There's just a lot of tools that are superior or don't exist at all in other software

@@AlfieVaughan fair enough guess I'll learn eventually from what I've heard fusion is 95% overlapping with nuke but that 5% must be very important 😉, bmd will hopefully catch up eventually ❤️❤️

Personally I'd pick the Ursa mini out of them. I'm quite interested in the latest mini pro myself for my next camera at some point! As for bitrate, technically yes it's better to have more but not sure you'd notice much difference. 12bit is still vastly superior to 8bit from most consumer cameras. My a7iii is only 8bit but it looks great 😂 There's not really much between them in the specs that would make one better than the others for VFX. For me camera selection is more about the image itself. Dynamic range, formats and log profiles are my main interests

@@AlfieVaughan thanks also the sony fx30 is 14bit idk if its anygood its so new still

@@silverbulletin846 Yes sorry I was talking about the difference between 14bit of the fx30 and 12bit of the others

Thanks! Yes I did do it that way for a little while but for matching colour charts etc I want the plate footage and CG to all be exactly the same. And seeing as the CG is acesCG, I also work in that for my resolve exports. It's been the same at both VFX studios I've worked at and I really like that workflow. But to each is their own!

The webcam has nothing to do with VFX 😉 It's because it was super dark in the room so the webcam shutter speed was really slow to compensate!

It's definitely possible but I personally wouldn't want to use blender for editing or compositing. Those parts of it are a long way behind it's competitors in terms of features and ease of use. but maybe one day!

In the thumbnail of this video? I bought them into blender as images and cut them out with a knife tool and then just extruded them back and added a subdivision surface modifier

@@AlfieVaughan you have provided me a holy grail of information that not even hours of google & reddit search can accomplish, i have no problem learning on my own just from your comment but would your channel happen to have tutorials on things like that?

Thanks! I'm afraid I don't have a video on it but it's very simple. My first reply is quite literally the whole process 😂

@@AlfieVaughan many thanks i appreciate it!

If you tag them both as the correct colourspaces when they come in it should just work really. The movs with the LUT are probably rec709 and presumably the EXRs are linear ACEScg?

​@@AlfieVaughan Thanks for your quick answer ! I really appreciate ;) Ok I've got something now. The only thing is how can I put the LUT on the EXR to match the MOV clip now?

@oliviermancardi4680 that's odd... That should work correctly. Perhaps the LUT is doing a different transform. It's difficult to diagnose just from this description I'm afraid

@@AlfieVaughan Sorry for my last question I found what I was doing wrong... My bad... 😞

@AlfieVaughan Sorry I've got a last question... When I try to put the LUT on my EXR to match the MOV clip, I just have a dark clip... I tried both method : on the color page or right clicking the clip on the media page... Unfortunately none of them work... Do you have any idea? Thanks again for your help !

Do you mean file size? The EXRs will probably be bigger than the original file. You don't normally share XML files with VFX artist unless they're running the timeline.cuou just export plates

@@AlfieVaughan if i have like 200 VFX shots is that possible replace each and every shot 1 by1?and if they not use XML my speed change of the clip will not translate...what should be the best approach?I am little bit confuse...

Yes they can be replaced 1 by 1. If the speed change hasn't come across, ask for an exported edit with it in and eye match it

😂😂😂

👋

Yeah it's quite annoying. You can set the output properties one to your recycle bin which instantly deletes the renders as they're created. That seems to be the best work around. Would be nice to be able to turn it off though!

@@AlfieVaughan Do they get deleted because there's no original file path to reference? Thanks for the tip tho!

I think so yeah! Or it just realised it's a recycle bin folder and it doesn't make them in the first place. Either way, seems to work

Tried this again with version 3.4.1 on a workstation pc, but it haults the render after one frame because the recycle bin isnt a valid path. In earlier versions it would at least continue to the next frame. Now i have to define a path in output properties. Hate to see a fundemental part of a 3d software still being this wonky.

Yeah I've been having the same issue after updating recently. I've just set up a folder on one of my drives called "frame bin" 😂 I'm rendering black and white highly compressed jpegs into there. I set it as the default so it goes there all the time without me having to change it and it just overwrites the frames every time I render a new project as I don't need them. The JPEGs are so small it doesn't take up much space at all

Chill out mate 😂 someone made me a little program so when I run it I just type in how many folders I want and it does it. It's great

@@AlfieVaughan I wouldn't consider, the "freaking" as a none chilled answer. It would be so much easier to use a dedicated software to also create your folder structure and your comp and blender files, along with any other documents you might need, so autosave will work immediately when you open them up. It's not a NukeStudio solution, but it is a very good safety net. And please don't tell me you have never forgot to save once in nuke and started working on a shot only for it to freeze and loose a couple of hours worth of work. So, unless this bat file is strapped in a pipeline line API, you might get a better working experience using Post Haste. And since you are showing a pipeline, you should consider also folks who won't be in you Patreon, that still want a nice pipeline, so at least give them an option instead of forgetting about them or giving them a half baked solution. At least consider it (or any other pipeline software, that can help) next time you do a pipeline video.

Thanks! I'm not really sure how you would automate that without some sort of software like shotgun that's used alongside all the work being done. You could make the spreadsheet and fill it out manually I guess!