Ocula 3.0 is a significant upgrade to The Foundry’s stereo plug-in toolset for its Nuke compositing system, which it claims further reinforces its position “as industry leader in stereo 3D post production,” writes David Fox. In the three years since launching Ocula, The Foundry has released a new version annually as well as several point releases, which have been refined in production on such live action stereo projects as: Avatar; Tron: Legacy (pictured below); Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Ocula provides artists with a set of Nuke tools that assist with the integration of elements and help correct common stereo 3D defects, and version 3.0 considerably improves its efficiency and workflow, with new tools to help fix mis-focused camera pairs and re-time in stereo as well as a range of workflow tweaks and improvements to speed up day-to-day use dramatically. It should also be “cleaner and more accurate giving better results from all Ocula operations”.
“Right off the bat the results we’re getting from Ocula 3.0 are truly amazing. This is a major step up from Ocula 2.2,” said Jose Fernandez de Castro Heller, Senior Compositor, MPC Vancouver.
“I love the new disparity map algorithm in Ocula 3.0,” added Mark Van Den Bergen, Senior Compositor – Stereo, Dr D Studios. “We did tests using the depth map generated by Ocula to create digi-doubles of real live action in a CG snow storm to allow the FX team to blow snow particles around the people to get the correct holdout mattes in z-depth. We created geo from footage without building animated digital doubles.”
“Ocula was developed in conjunction with customers facing the reality of delivering ambitious live action stereo projects,” said Bill Collis, The Foundry’s CEO. “There is no other tool like it on the market. It also reinforces Nuke, with its native stereo workflow, as the only real choice when compositing stereo 3D.”
