Foundry has released Nuke 17.1, which adds fractional density masks for Gaussian splats in GeoDeletePoints and an Overscan option in SplatRender. Nuke 17.1 entered open beta in July with the GeoSequencer node for animated splat sequences, SplatRender relighting from Direct, Point and Spot lights, and .splat export from GeoExport, all of which arrives unchanged in the shipping build. Native import and rendering of static splats arrived in Nuke 17.0 in February.
A FieldConstant set to scalar mode and connected to the GeoDeletePoints mask input now reads as a probability of deletion, controlling the overall density of the splat from its Value slider. Overscan sets the number of pixels SplatRender draws beyond the left, right, top and bottom of the format. FieldTransform gains Axis and Look inputs.
FieldSurface arrives as a LABS node, producing fields from geometry that can be a point cloud, basis curve, mesh or Gaussian splat, which allows a custom mesh to serve as a Field mask in place of the basic shapes in FieldShape. Foundry marks LABS nodes as experimental and not intended for use in production.
Eight Gaussian splat bug fixes ship in 17.1. Three are crashes, changing the value of a FieldConstant connected as a mask to GeoDeletePoints, editing a GeoTransform with a splat while looking at the SplatRender, and, on Linux, placing a PointLight while viewing a splat. Adding a GeoDeletePoints downstream of an animated splat no longer breaks the animation, and dragging splat and ply files in creates a GeoImport instead of a GeoReference. SplatRender can still be slow when many splats sit outside the camera frustum, and Foundry recommends culling them with GeoDeletePoints and FieldShape.
Four Gaussian splat issues are open at ship. GeoPointsToMesh does not support splats or normals attributes, SplatRender does not support all camera projection modes in the Camera node, attaching GeoViewScene to a node containing a splat can crash Nuke, and TimeOffset nodes cannot be modified in the DopeSheet when connected to the GeoSequencer.
The 3D viewer moves to Hydra 2.0, which adds a GeoRender node that outputs delegate passes and accepts render settings from third party delegates, with Pixar's RenderMan named in the notes. Those settings are built nodally through GeoRenderSettings, GeoRenderProducts and GeoRenderVariable.
Nuke 17.1 is the last release line to support Intel based Macs, shipping as two separate downloads, one with Intel support and one without. Nuke 17.1 is available now.
