My experiences with the PLE of NUKE 6.2
Posted on Friday, 31 December 2010
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I am learning NUKE now using the new 6.2 PLE version. From the official website here is what I found what the limitations are and my experiences about the PLE version.
The PLE differs from the licensed version of NUKE in the following ways:
- Watermark: The PLE displays a watermark on any images in the Viewer as well as images rendered out to files. I was wondering if my graphics card or driver was not compatible until I read this. Hmm..
- External data storage : All external data storage is encrypted in the PLE, including NUKE scripts (these are saved with the extension .nkple), gizmos (saved with the extension .gzple), and copying to the clipboard. Among other things, this means the PLE saves files in an encrypted format, unlike the commercial version of NUKE, which saves scripts unencrypted as plain text. The commercial version of NUKE cannot load files created with the PLE. The PLE, however, can load scripts and gizmos created with the commercial version.
- Scripting : In PLE mode, NUKE restricts the amount of nodes that can be retrieved at a time by scripting. Functions such as “nuke.allNodes()” in Python will return only the first 10 nodes available rather than all of them at once, and scripts written to iterate through the Node Graph will not be able to retrieve any more nodes beyond a set point. The commercial version of NUKE can retrieve any and all nodes at any time as the command names would suggest.
- WriteGeo : The WriteGeo node is disabled in the PLE.
- Primatte : The Primatte node is disabled in the PLE.
- FrameCycler : FrameCycler is disabled in the PLE. I did not like this because I was working through the very first tutorial in the user manual, Compositing, page 739, generate Flipbook. It would make sense here to note that for PLE users doing the training they cannot do this. The error message is a little confusing. Runtime Error: FrameCycler not available. I would have expected that the basic tutorials should all be possible to complete in PLE, so I don’t know why FrameCycler with watermarks is not available in PLE?
- Monitor output. : There is no video monitor output support in the PLE.
- Plug-ins : Only plug-ins that are shipped with NUKE, such as OFlow, can be used in the PLE. OFX plug-ins (such as The Foundry’s Furnace and Tinder) and custom plug-ins compiled with the NDK can only be used in the commercial version of NUKE
- Command line rendering : It is not possible to render a PLE script with -x from the command line.
In other respects, the PLE contains all the functionality of the commercial version of NUKE.
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