Generate Pref data directly inside Nuke from geometry and a camera.
- Download the aeTools repository from GitHub as a ZIP, or clone it. One download brings every tool.
- Copy the
Aitor_Echevestefolder into your.nukefolder. - Add
nuke.pluginAddPath("./Aitor_Echeveste")to.nuke/init.pyand restart Nuke.
In the gizmo
- aePrefMaker — Geometry-based Pref generation
- aePrefMaker — Camera support
- aePrefMaker — UV handling
- aePrefMaker — Adjustable render quality
- aeUVChart — Inspect UV regions
- aeUVChart — Isolate specific UV areas
- aeUVChart — Export UV templates
Two small tools for the data behind a CG render: where a surface lands on its texture, and where it was in space.
aeUVChart: finding the right tile
A model with dozens of UV tiles can turn a simple texture fix into a scavenger hunt: which tile holds the hand, which one the collar? Leaving Nuke to find out and export a template breaks the flow of the work.
UVs are where each point of a 3D surface lands on a flat texture. They are texture coordinates, not positions in the world, and seams and stretching are what flattening a surface costs. aeUVChart makes that invisible map visible inside Nuke.
Beyond the 0–1 square
Multi-tile layouts place islands in neighbouring squares of UV space. aeUVChart scans the geometry for the tiles in use, previews them with numbers or colour on the geometry, and lets you pick the part of the model you care about by its position. From there it exports either one combined template or each tile on its own.
aePrefMaker: coordinates that hold still
Procedural detail on animated CG needs coordinates that don't move with the animation. If the render didn't include a reference position pass, the usual answer is another trip back to 3D.
A position pass stores where each visible point is in 3D, encoded in three channels. Its false-colour look depends on units and origin; it isn't meant to be looked at, it's meant to be sampled. Pref is that position frozen at a chosen reference frame, so effects driven by it follow the surface while the geometry moves, as long as the mesh keeps the same topology. It's separate from UVs: UVs say where a point lands on the texture, Pref says where it was in 3D.
Freeze a reference frame
aePrefMaker builds that pass in Nuke from the geometry: select the UV tiles and quality, choose the reference frame, and keep the position frozen there. Procedural tools such as aeDirtCG can then place detail that sticks to the object through the animation.
Questions people ask
- Is a UV tile the same as a texture image?
- No. The tile is a region of coordinates; the texture is the image those coordinates point into.
- What's the difference between Z and Pref?
- Z is a depth value along the camera's view. Pref is a full 3D position, frozen at a reference frame.