Monday, October 21st, 2024 Posted by Jim Thacker

Free Nuke plugin Flow Warp bends images round custom paths


Compositing training provider Compositing Academy has released Flow Warp, a neat free Nuke plugin for flowing images or videos along spline paths.

Potential use cases include creating custom energy and magic effects for VFX and motion graphics work, and making stock FX elements flow along user-directable paths.

A simpler alternative to Nuke’s native GridWarp and SplineWarp nodes
Although Nuke has native tools for warping images, including GridWarp and SplineWarp, they’re a cumbersome way to flow images along paths, particularly complex paths.

One alternative is to create dedicated geometry within a scene along which the images can flow, but this means leaving Nuke and launching a separate 3D application.

Flow Warp is intended to achieve a similar effect directly inside Nuke.

Draw a freehand spline in Nuke and flow images along it
The add-on takes an ingenious approach, with the user drawing a freehand spline, and Flow Warp generating a 3D ‘tunnel’ around it, which provides UV coordinates along which images can flow.

Built-in controls make it possible to adjust the width of the tunnel or taper its ends, and to apply blur to the images flowing down it.

Create custom visual effects or art direct stock FX elements
Potential use cases include creating custom VFX, particularly flows of light or energy.

However, Flow Warp could also be used to customize stock FX elements from online libraries: the video above shows a stock particle effect being flowed round a custom path.

Licensing and system requirements
Flow Warp is compatible with Nuke 15.0v2+, although at the time of writing, some users are reporting issues with Nuke 15.1. It’s free, including for commercial use.

Download Flow Warp for Nuke from Gumroad
(Enter a figure of $0 to download them for free, or make a voluntary donation)

Visit Compositing Academy’s website


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