Ben's Comp Newsletter: Special Issue 04
Aug 14, 2023 2:56 pm
Ben's Comp Newsletter
Special Issue 04 -- Using TCL in Production.
Hey ,
This week, we're focusing on examples of how you can use TCL in your day to day work. While the Nuke TCL Scripting Documentation can be useful to reference, it's not the most practical learning resource.
I've compiled a few good resources to help you skill-up with TCL below.
Enjoy!
Best Free Resources.
My YouTube videos.
There aren't many helpful videos out there on how to use TCL in production, which is why I took it upon myself to share a few of the things I commonly do.
In this tutorial, I show how you can use the topnode, basename, lindex and split functions to isolate certain parts of a filepath. I also demonstrate why you might want to do this, giving an example of using a shot number for a random seed value.
Introduction to Nuke Expressions -- Part 2.
You already know how to expression-link knobs, which Conrad Olson covers in the first part of his series.
In the second part, he covers some practical expressions you can use to work with time, create procedural animations, write if/else logic, and work with text.
TCL Functions and Conditional Expressions.
Attila Gasparetz's website is a great resource when searching for how to do something with TCL. I frequently reference it when showing others examples of how to do something!
This tutorial shows a collection of useful TCL functions that you're able to use in Nuke. If you learned something from my tutorial at the top of this newsletter, this resource is great for expanding on that topic.
This tutorial expands on Conrad's lesson, showing a few more examples of conditional TCL statements & Nuke-specific TCL commands.
Both are worth a read!
Using the Expression node to generate and manipulate image data.
All of the above examples focus on using expressions in knobs, or text nodes. This tutorial is still my go-to when I need to reference how to use the expression node.
It covers a few examples of:
- Creating ramps, stripes and radial rings with basic math
- Creating p_mattes from scratch
- Using position AOVs to generate interesting patterns
- How position projection works
That's it for this week! If you know of any other TCL resources that have helped you learn something new, please reply and share them with me!
Happy Comping,
Ben