Foundry ships Cara VR 2.0
Foundry has released Cara VR 2.0, the latest version of its Nuke plugin toolset for streamlining common tasks in virtual reality compositing, adding new stereoscopic tools based on the firm’s Ocula plugins.
The release also updates Cara VR’s stitching and tracking toolsets, adding support for 3D match-moving.
Use Nuke’s standard compositing toolsets on 360-degree VR projects
First released last year, Cara VR provides a suite of tools for Nuke artists working on virtual reality projects.
As well as solving and stitching footage from multiple-camera rigs, the software enables artists to use Nuke’s roto, paint, tracking and compositing toolsets on the resulting 360-degree footage.
Projects can be previewed on Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headsets and played from Nuke Studio’s timeline.
New in Cara VR 2.0: new tools for stereoscopic projects based on Ocula
To that, Cara VR 2.0 adds new functionality based on Ocula, Foundry’s set of stereoscopic workflow plugins.
Cara VR’s disparity generator has been rewritten to “utilise the quality of Ocula’s disparity vectors”, and there is a new gizmo tool designed to covert disparity to a depth map.
The disparity vectors are also used by two new nodes: one for matching colour grades between the left and right eye views, and one for rebuilding one view from another after compositing changes have been made.
Improved stitching tools, plus automatic tracking and camera stabilisation
The software’s Tracker node has also been “completely rewritten”, now automatically identifying tracking features during a 360-degree stitch and solving the resulting camera track.
As well as automatically stabilising stitched footage to remove parallax, the update makes it possible to perform 3D match-moving operations in Cara VR.
The stitching tools also get new controls for lining up key features in overlapping areas and for adding constraints to reduce warping on known straight lines, even for objects overlapping multiple camera views.
Pricing and availability
Cara VR 2.0 is available for Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio 10.5 and above, running on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. You can see the exact versions of the operating systems it supports in the release notes.
The software has an MSRP of $4,295 for either a node-locked or floating licence. At the time of posting, it’s available at a launch discount. An upgrade from Cara VR 1.0 costs $999.
Read a full list of new features in Cara VR 2.0 on Foundry’s website