Foundry

Foundry builds Nuke, the node based compositor that sits at the centre of most feature film and episodic visual effects pipelines. The Nuke family runs from Nuke itself through NukeX, which adds camera tracking, cleanup and the Cara VR toolset for 360 video, to Nuke Studio, which folds in a multi track editorial timeline and conform of AAF, XML and EDL. Foundry counts more than 200 nodes in the application, exposes a Python API alongside a C++ SDK and the BlinkScript node for custom image processing operations, and supports OpenEXR, Hydra, USD, OpenColorIO and ACES.

Gaussian splatting reached Nuke natively rather than through a plugin. Support first appeared in the Nuke 17.0 open beta in December 2025 and shipped in Nuke 17.0 in February 2026, which put splat rendering inside the same 3D environment compositors already use to place 2D and 3D elements and to set up projection work. Before that the route in was the Irrealix plugin, which continues to be updated and which also covers After Effects and DaVinci Resolve for artists on older Nuke versions.

Nuke 17.1v1 shipped on 20 August 2026 and turned the work shown in the 17.1 open beta into a release. A new GeoSequencer node reads a sequence of USD, USDC, PLY or SPLAT files and writes a time sampled USDC value clip, which is how an animated splat enters the comp, and Foundry states the value clip reads faster and holds less in memory than pointing Nuke at the PLY files directly. SplatRender now applies Direct, Point and Spot lights to splats, with knobs for ambient colour, lighting blur radius and shadow behaviour, and it will render normals and position data through when a splat carries them. GeoExport writes .splat files back out to the wider pipeline. A static capture composites like a matte painting, a splat sequence that moves and takes scene light composites like an element, and that is the distance 17.1v1 closes.

The same release sharpens the surrounding toolset. GeoDeletePoints accepts a fractional mask that acts as a probability of deletion, so a FieldConstant in scalar mode thins overall splat density from a single slider. FieldTransform gained Axis and Look inputs, and SplatRender gained an Overscan option controlling how many pixels render beyond the edges of the format. Foundry fixed eight splat bugs in 17.1v1, six of them crashes or blocking failures including a Linux crash when a PointLight was placed on a visible splat, and it lists four open splat issues, among them a GeoViewScene crash and a lack of splat support in GeoPointsToMesh. An experimental LABS node called FieldSurface builds a field from a point cloud, basis curve, mesh or Gaussian splat, which lets custom geometry act as a mask instead of the primitives in FieldShape. Hydra 2.0 brings third party delegates such as Pixar's RenderMan into the viewer through a new GeoRender node. Nuke 17.1 is the last release line to support Intel based Macs, and Foundry ships it as two separate downloads for that reason.

Foundry has pushed the same renderer past post production. Nuke Stage brings Gaussian splat rendering to the LED wall, so a capture drives in camera background on set rather than waiting for a comp. On the input side, Marble x Nuke loads World Labs Marble splats straight into Nuke's 3D viewport, which removes the conversion step between a generated world and the compositor.

Licensing is annual subscription or quarter rental. Nuke is $3,839 per year, NukeX $5,219 and Nuke Studio $6,379, with a headless Nuke Render license at $462 per year for farm rendering. Foundry bundles a free annual HieroPlayer subscription with a Nuke or NukeX license, sells a cheaper Nuke Indie tier for solo artists, gives students 90 percent off with a first year free programme, and publishes free non-watermarked non-commercial builds of Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio.