Ganbar R. - NUKE 101. Professional Compositing and Visual Effects - 2011

ToURING THE INTERFACE WITH A BASIC CoMPoSITE 29
saving Nuke scripts
Nuke saves its project files, or scripts, as ASCII files. An ASCII file is a text file that you
can open in a text editor. ASCII files stand in contrast to binary files, which don’t make
any sense when opened in a text editor and are only readable by specific applications.
The ASCII file format of the Nuke script is great, and you explore this feature in
Chapter 12. Nuke scripts have the .nk file extension.
All Nuke script-related functions are accessible through the File menu and respond to
standard hot keys for opening and saving files.
1. Press Ctrl/Cmd-S to save the file, or choose File > Save.
2. In the browser that displays, navigate to the chapter02 directory (that you copied
onto your hard drive from this book’s disc). Name the script. Please use chapter02_v01.
Nuke automatically adds the file extension.
3. Press Enter/Return.
Nuke just saved your script. You can quit Nuke, go have a coffee, come back,
open the script, and continue working.
By default Nuke autosaves your project every 30 seconds, or if you are not moving
your mouse, it will save once after five seconds. But it doesn’t autosave if you haven’t
saved your project yet. You have to save your project the first time. That’s why it is
important to save your project early on.
Note You can change
the amount of time
between autosaves in
the Preferences pane.
Another great feature in Nuke is the Save New Version option in the File menu. You
will save different, updated versions of your script often when compositing, and Nuke
has a smart way of making this easy for you. If you add these characters to your script
name: “_v##”, where the # symbol is a number, using the Save New Version option in
the File menu adds 1 to that number. So if you have a script called nuke_v01.nk and
you click File > Save New Version, your script will be saved as nuke_v02.nk. Very
handy. Let’s practice this with your script, which you named chapter02_v01.nk earlier.
4. With nothing selected, press the Q key. This brings up the Current Info panel
(FigUrE 2.15).
FIGURE 2.15 The
Current info panel is
a quick way to see
which script you are
working on.
tip If you are not sure
what a hot key does or
you don’t remember the
hot key for something,
you can choose Key
Assignment from the
Help menu.