u/copticopay

I'm trying to set up a relighting pipeline entirely inside Nuke on Mac for live-action footage — no 3D passes, just regular filmed material.

The main thing I'm trying to figure out is how to generate a usable normal map from footage so I can do proper relighting without any 3D render data. I've been looking into ML-based solutions (like DSINE) but I'm curious what people are actually using in production.

A few specific questions:

1. What do you use to generate normal maps from live footage in Nuke? (ML nodes, gizmos, external tools that pipe back in?)
2. What's your actual relighting setup inside Nuke? Spherical harmonics? Light direction Grade nodes? Something more sophisticated?
3. Is there a solid Cattery plugin or gizmo that handles this well on Mac (no CUDA GPU)?
4. Do people bother doing this fully inside Nuke or do you always export to another app? I want to stay in Nuke if possible and avoid After Effects or Resolve for this step.
5. Any tips on deflickering the normal map output when working on moving footage?

For context: working on a Mac (Apple Silicon), NukeX 16.0v4, footage is standard live-action with no depth or normal passes from a 3D package.

Would love to hear real-world workflows, not just the theory. Thanks!

I'm trying to set up a relighting pipeline entirely inside Nuke on Mac for live-action footage — no 3D passes, just regular filmed material.

The main thing I'm trying to figure out is how to generate a usable normal map from footage so I can do proper relighting without any 3D render data. I've been looking into ML-based solutions (like DSINE) but I'm curious what people are actually using in production.

A few specific questions:

1. What do you use to generate normal maps from live footage in Nuke? (ML nodes, gizmos, external tools that pipe back in?)
2. What's your actual relighting setup inside Nuke? Spherical harmonics? Light direction Grade nodes? Something more sophisticated?
3. Is there a solid Cattery plugin or gizmo that handles this well on Mac (no CUDA GPU)?
4. Do people bother doing this fully inside Nuke or do you always export to another app? I want to stay in Nuke if possible and avoid After Effects or Resolve for this step.
5. Any tips on deflickering the normal map output when working on moving footage?

For context: working on a Mac (Apple Silicon), NukeX 16.0v4, footage is standard live-action with no depth or normal passes from a 3D package.

Would love to hear real-world workflows, not just the theory. Thanks!