After effects vs...

[Infrared digital]

Ah ok, so you mean that with Nuke you can bring in all your render passes in one exr and pull out each pass using a Shuffle node whereas in Fusion the same passes would have to be extracted from mutliple Loader nodes.

[instinct]

Sure. In nuke every node and every connections pipes through an arbitrary amount of channels whereas in Fusion and AE you are limited to a few designated channels (mostly RGBAZ with some additions in Fusion if i recall right?).
So for example if you where to load a full VRay rendering with all of the renderelements that will always be a single read node in Nuke whereas in non multichannel applications you can read all of the channels but have to select
which you want to read and end up with multiple read nodes or layers.

Cheers,
Thorsten

[Infrared digital]

I think I know what you mean but could you clarify what you mean by multi channel support ?

[instinct]

There are a lot of things that may or may not play a role here. First of all: There is no blank "Fusion is faster" or "Nuke is better" or similarly broad statements. It depends on what you do and your requirements. The one thing that sets Nuke apart from Fusion and AE is true multichannel support. If you need that than there is hardly any alternative. If not, then you may as well not care at all. Another thing nuke is particularly strong at is loading and calculating only what it needs (it has a very nicely adapting scanline based renderer that will only load and process scanlines (and even only the part of the scanline) that is needed. This is great for ROI or even simply when zooming in. This is not available in any alternative afaik. Natron may aim to be a copy but it also fails in many ways. Which - again - may or may not be relevant to your workflows

Cheers,
Thorsten

[Infrared digital]

I am a seasoned AE user and it definitely has it's place in my workflow. I am about as good at Nuke and Fusion which is pretty basic - I have also tried Natron and it seems to try emulating Nuke. So, I have gone for Fusion as it is surprisingly powerful and the cost of Nuke is way too high especially when I am not compositing all day. I would imagine that when I get good at Fusion, the cross over to Nuke wouldn't be as difficult. Fusion has a full 3D workspace with alot of built in functionality but the free version cannot export at more than HD, which is one of it's only drawbacks - stereoscopic is another.

[crazy homeless guy]

As far as rendering speed... Fusion wins hands down.

Fusion is mature program that had been neglected for a few years but is still extremely robust and will easily hold its own against Nuke/AE. The free version is fully enabled for commercial production as long as you are working under 4k resolution and don't need additional plugins.

[m_hinks]

Good question, I don't know! But if it doesn't, you can ask them, and they get it added.

[cheerioboy]

Natron is good, been using since an early beta.

You can load in .exr's split them up with shuffles, and put back like in Nuke - in fact its a near exact copy of Nuke, but freeeeeeeeee!

I'm currently trying to get Natron to render over the network with Deadline which helps with the frame times of large comps.

Would recommend a try.

Does Natron allow for customized write nodes - being able to put timestamps, etc. into them?

[kimgar]

sounds almost too good to be true

I will give it a go on the next project

[m_hinks]

Natron is good, been using since an early beta.

You can load in .exr's split them up with shuffles, and put back like in Nuke - in fact its a near exact copy of Nuke, but freeeeeeeeee!

I'm currently trying to get Natron to render over the network with Deadline which helps with the frame times of large comps.

Would recommend a try.

[kimgar]

nuke vs. ae? i prefer nuke, but they are two very different software imo. i mostly use ae for quick effects and nuke for the comping stuff.

i'm also very curious about natron, anybody tried it?

[Ihno]

Thanks for the reply.
Will give them a try than.

I think Nuke will be to expensive in my chase.
But I think I'll try it too. At least it will be worth to do it for comparison.
I'm very curious about Natron.

[Neilg]

Most peoples fusion/nuke files when doing simple things like masks and fading clips up and down go in a straight line - basically someone tipped over the layer stack. masking and timeline stuff is exactly the same in node based software, it just means that creating branches and nested compositions are a natural part of the workflow instead of a massive pain in the ass.
It's much simpler that after effects - fusion is, at least. nuke is the 'power user' alternative and is a little more cluttered. conceptually you'll grab it in no time and wonder how you could ever go back.

[cheerioboy]

Nuke has a freelancer deal where you can pay monthly installments to pay off the license within a year. It's still a bit steep at around 350-500/month depending on which version you get.

I mostly work with still images and I use a combination of Photoshop and Nuke. What I love about Nuke is being able to create write nodes with scripting to spit out files with dates on them, so on the daily I can render out 20+ stills for review without going through multiple photoshop files and all that headache of saving and naming them.

My only wish would be for more cross collab between PS and Nuke. So I can write out an image and do a bit more post work on it in PS - and then patch it back into Nuke.

I'll use AE if I need to put an edit together of multiple animations or video clips.

[kagemaru]

I'll give my two cents about ae and nuke, i've used fusion last time in 2006.
Rendering-wise, after effects is faster, at least on mac, speaking of course when set as 32bit linearing worflow. I benchmarked them i think last year on a maxed out new mac pro (the bin one), with standard tools as well as using sapphire plugins. Ae CC vs Nuke 8 (don't remember exact versions). At least that was my experience, it wasn't a huge difference but it caught me off guard as i though nuke would be much much faster considered its cost.
Workflow really depends on what you do. If you do shot based stuff, to me there's no comparison, nuke is way way more satisfying, it's smarter and avoid you the pre-pre-pre-precomp workflow that i personally hate. Opposite thing if you do more timeline based things, motion graphics, etc. We do commercial and end up editing with it, but i've to say nuke got much better recently with dope sheet.
3d space in nuke is very good, you can easily export stuff from your dcc app (obj, fbx, etc), create the camera from vray exr, and everything just works. Exporting to ae can be an hassle and its pseudo 2.5 space is horrifying to me. I've to say scanline render in nuke is quite slow though against 3d planes in ae.
Masking in ae is much smoother and a better experience overall for quick stuff. I feel i can be more efficient. In nuke they made roto better in recent years, feathering is better compared to ae as well as vertex/planar tracking (ae got it last year, just saying...). There are other things like 3d tracker, etc of course.
Last aspect but quite important, money.
Nuke is absurdly priced imho. If it was to me it would be just crazy to pay €5,813 (eu). It's out of this world. Houdini (that i guess 10 years ago used to cost like a bmw) costs now €4000.
All CC is €730/year.
I'm glad i don't have to make these decisions right now because i love being able to use Nuke whenever i want but as a freelance i think i would't even consider to buy it.
With all this said i'd have a look at fusion that can be a good middle option.