Foundry adds 3D Gaussian Splats to the Nuke 17.0 open beta
Originally posted on 18 November 2025, and updated for Beta 4 on 12 December.
Foundry has released Nuke 17.0, the latest update to its family of compositing apps, in beta.
In Nuke itself, a key change is a wide-ranging overhaul of the USD-based 3D compositing system, focused on projection workflows.
As well as streamlining day-to-day tasks, the latest beta build makes it possible to import and render 3D Gaussian Splats inside the 3D system, for use as environments and set extensions.
Users of NukeX, the advanced edition of the software, also get BigCat, an extension of the CopyCat system intended for training custom AI models on very large VFX data sets.
Nuke Studio, which includes editorial capabilities, gets an overhaul of the timeline annotations system, intended to make annotations more graphically sophisticated.
Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio: Import and render 3D Gaussian Splats
[New in Beta 4] Nuke 17.0 makes Nuke the latest DCC application to support 3D Gaussian Splats.
Increasingly being adopted in VFX and virtual production, 3D Gaussian Splatting provides a new way to reconstruct real-world objects from source images or video and render them in 3D.
Nuke users can now import, manipulate and render 3DGS data inside the USD-based 3D compositing system introduced in Nuke 14.0.
It is possible to ingest data in .ply or .splat format, isolate individual elements by using new Fields nodes, then color correct them, or delete unwanted splats non-destructively.
Splats can be displayed in the Hydra viewer, and rendered out using a new SplatRender node, which supports motion blur and depth output.
Foundry describes the functionality as “opening up new … workflows for set extensions”.
Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio: A ‘modernized’, more artist-friendly 3D system
Outside of 3D Gaussian Splats, the 3D system gets its “largest update yet” in Nuke 17.0, with changes intended to support matte painting and projection-based workflows.
There are a lot of changes – both to the import and manipulation of USD data, and to camera, lighting and materials workflows – making it hard to single out individual new features.
However, a few common themes emerge from the release notes.
One is reducing delays before an artist can start work.
A new import dialog makes it possible to select exactly what data to import before having to pay the time cost of interpreting that data in the 3D viewer, with options to load or unload payloads, and activate or deactivate individual prims.
A second is streamlining existing workflows.
Many of the changes are intended to let artists to work with USD data in a way that makes sense for compositing rather than shot layout, particularly for setting up cameras and lighting.
A third is passing through more live data.
Rather than data having to be baked before import, the Axis, Camera and light nodes can all now accept live USD attribute data, expanding the work that can be done in Nuke itself.
Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio: New 3D nodes for importing USD and MaterialX data
In addition, a new GeoEditCamera node makes it possible to load a camera from a USD stage and edit its values directly inside Nuke, rather than having to duplicate it in a Camera node.
There are also four new GeoLight nodes for editing imported USD light prims inside Nuke.
The new nodes – GeoDistantLight, GeoDiskLight, GeoDomeLight, and GeoSphereLight – provide equivalents to Nuke’s standard DirectLight, SpotLight, PointLight and EnvironmentLight.
In addition, Nuke 17.0 adds initial support for MaterialX, with the new MtlXStandardSurface node making it possible to assign MaterialX Standard Surface materials to geometry.
The materials can be previewed using the Hydra viewer and rendered using the ScanlineRender2 renderer.
The change is intended to ensure that Standard Surface materials used in lighting and look dev can be represented accurately during compositing, reducing the need to round-trip shots.
NukeX and Nuke Studio: BigCat extends CopyCat AI training workflows to large data sets
[New in Beta 4] NukeX 17.0 also extends the software’s machine learning framework, which enables users to train their own neural networks to automate repetive tasks like roto.
The update supplements the existing CopyCat node, for training AI models for single shots, with BigCat, a new node for training models for use across “hundreds [or] thousands” of images.
BigCat supports “many of the existing CopyCat … workflows” but optimizes them for larger-scale generalization, adding new options for adding variation to data and validating output.
Suggested use cases include training AI models on mattes created for a previous film when working on a sequel, or incorporating synthetic data when training a model.
Nuke Studio: Overhauled ‘artistic annotations’ system
Nuke Studio users also get an overhaul of the Annotations system in the timeline tools.
The changes are intended to let users create more artistically sophisticated annotations, rather than having to rely on quick scribbles and text-based notes.
For drawn annotations, brushes now have size, opacity and hardness controls; and the Paint tool gets an eyedropper for picking colors, and support for blending modes.
There are also dedicated Dodge and Burn brushes, and an Eraser brush.
In addition, a new Annotations panel makes it possible to choose whether annotations apply to specific frames or in/out ranges, or are general comments.
Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio: Other workflow, performance and pipeline improvements
Other changes include workflow and performance improvements to Graph Scope Variables (GSVs), the ‘backbone’ of the multishot compositing workflow introduced in Nuke 16.0.
Deep data now renders to disk “up to 1.88x faster”, and image upscaling with the TVIScale node is “up to 98x faster on the GPU and 26x faster on the CPU”.
The resolution limit on OFX plugins has been removed, with maximum resolution now dictated by the capabilities of the user’s workstation, not the software itself.
Nuke 17.0 also introduces native support for ACES 2.0, with the ACEScg and OCIO Studio configs shipping with the software; and supports the current CY2025 spec for VFX Reference Platform.
In addition, the NotchLC codec is now supported on Windows for ingest and export of MOV files; and the MOV reader and writer now supports YCbCr conversion for working with HDR data.
Price and system requirements
Nuke 17.0 is compatible with Windows 10+, Rocky Linux 9.0 and macOS 14.0+. The software is rental-only.
Annual subscriptions currently cost $3,649/year for Nuke, $4,969/year for NukeX, and $6,069/year for Nuke Studio. Nuke Render licenses cost $440/year.
Subscriptions to Nuke Indie, the feature- and resolution-limited commercial edition for artists earning under $100,000/year, cost $499/year.
Read an overview of the features in Nuke 17.0 on Foundry’s website
Read more about the new features in Nuke 17.0 on the beta release page
(Requires a Foundry account)
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