In February Cragl released a set of 4 tools that help Nuke/Maya artists communicate and work on projects. Cragl tools are made by Simon Jokuschies.
From the Cragl Website:
Connect with smartMessage
smartMessage gets you connected to your local artists and artists world wide. You can write messages and share node setups, images, files and much more.Connect locally and world wide
You can work with both - local storage of the data and storing everything on our server. The local option is interesting for companies that don't want to out source their communication data to the web. Everything is stored on a place on your server that all artists can access. So the machines don't need to be connected to the internet. The online option stores all data on our server.
One of the main topics that come up over and over is artist communication in the same post house and at a house on the other side of the world. Most places just use whatever the default messaging app is on the given platform. This means Messages on the Mac. Pidgin on Linux and Windows. I know there are others but these are the ones that I have found in most places. This tool can also be installed for Maya artists. If you have ever been waiting for asset from 3d and then 2 hours later you see the artist in the hallway only to find out that the asset has been there for hours. This tool might help. If you have ever run into the file size problem in Messaging apps sending cameras even big Nuke scripts can be problematic. This was a hard one to test. Meaning I didn't, but the idea of having a way to communicate with other artists right in Nuke/Maya would be huge.
From the Cragl Web site:
The project and shot managemet system – you will love it.
smartLib is a project and shot management system for NUKE. Do you find yourself oftten switching between several shots and projects? Then you will love this tool.
Keep track of all your work and collaborate
You can set shot status and write comments for each shot and thus keep track of your work. Everybody using smartLib in your company will also see each shot status and comments which makes collaborating among artists simple and fast.Create shot templates and setup render directories
smartLib lets you create fully customizable shot templates to create new shots with the folder structure you need. Besides you don't need to set up render locations manually anymore.
If you work at a place that still uses a spreadsheet to manage a project because the projects are just not big enough to warrant a license of fTrack or Shotgun, you might want to forward a link to smartLib onto a producer or supervisor. This tool doesn't replace those other tools if you are heavily invested but smartLib can move you from that spreadsheet.
From the Cragl Website:
Manage your node menus in a new way
smartShelves lets you manage you custom shelves including nodes and gizmos in NUKE in a simple fast and intuitive way. You can always add new nodes and gizmos, assign shortcuts to them and edit and delete items whenever you like. You can use smartShelves also for your custom repository. Just link to a custom folder and all gizmos are installed automatically on your machine.No need to script anything anymore
To set up custom shelves you usually need some python scripting. smartShelves does that job for you. You can create custom shelves and add nodes and gizmos and don't need to >script any line of code for that.
Managing tools in Nuke can be hard. SmartShelves solves this and does it in realtime. The stop and restart of Nuke is a killer. Most artist just want to create cool stuff not manage a growing set of gizmos, toolsets and other setups. SmartShelves makes that much easier.
From the Cragl Website:
Efficiently locate your recent scripts
Don't waste any time searching nuke scripts manually in your explorer. All your recent work is immediately accessible. You can also reveal a script directly in your explorer.Keep track of how many scripts you want to see
You can always decide how many scripts you want to see in the smartRecents window. If you need to you can also flush the list.Display on every startup. Or whenever you like
You can choose to automatically show the smartRecents window whenever you start a new NUKE session. Or use the hotkey to display the window whenever you like.
Recent scripts are also a topic. If you can manage them right its easy to move between Nuke scripts but managed wrong and everything goes bad. For a lead of Supervisor that is on the box having this tool is huge.
If you haven't yet had a look at these tools you should. Many tools are built with visual effects in mind but not just Nuke/Maya. The price of the tools seems very good and having a trial makes it a no brainer to at lest see if the Cragl tools are better than your spreadsheet or archaic method of dealing with Nuke if you don't have time or not a coder.
