Despite the fact that I’ve been working in matchmove for some time now, I still had yet to learn to use Nuke. For my showreel shots, I’d previously been simply rendering out a geo wireframe render, a cones render, and a polish pass, then using Adobe Media Encoder to convert the EXR sequence to a video.
As I worked on my showreel for my term 3 work, I hit a road block: rendering out wireframe sequences with the image plane showing results in a very dark background plate, as Maya Hardware Renderer cannot render out an Arnold skydome. I talked to Dom about this and he informed me that I must always use Nuke for these shots; it’s the last step to tracking, I must place the alpha layer over the background plate in order to get the final product.
For an hour and a half I took notes as he walked me through exporting a Nuke script, rendering out an alpha channel, and correctly setting up the nodes I’d need to render out of Nuke. After lots of practice rendering out my individual project (“subway shot”) and the dynamic shot (“choppers shot”) as both geo and cones wireframe, I feel a million times more confident in the software as well as my abilities as a layout artist, and my tracked shots look much more professional.
I’d say now that the helicopter shot is among my most impressive showreel pieces.