The Artixels team have posted an update to Escher for Nuke, a unique suite of 2.5D tools that live between the 2D and 3D realm. The latest release extends that premise with 4 new Deep Nodes.

Escher 1.2 for Nuke introduces Deep Relighing tools and extends the 2.5D toolset to deep compositing workflow.

Escher 1.2’s new deep nodes extend Escher’s image based re-lighting tools to the deep compositing workflow in Nuke. Escher 1.2 takes advantage of deep data AOV’s (deep normal vector) rendered from 3D applications such as Arnold or RenderMan. Escher can handle multiple data samples per deep pixel and will allow you to easily re-light images with rendered depth of field or motion blur.

The Escher Suite is comprised of a series of image generators for Nuke. These include Spherical Harmonics lighting tools, Depth-based Ambient Occlusion, Advanced glossy shader and powerful 2.5D data processing nodes. Escher’s powerful real-time image generator nodes SkyWalker and Caustix are perfect light sources for image based lighting workflow.

Escher relies on 2.5D images input but both depth images (or gray-scale images) and 3D normal map images are regarded as 2.5D images. Depth image values are interpreted by Escher as the distance of each pixel from the camera. It essentially contains more information than a simple 2D image. Normal map images provide the normal vector direction of each pixel which is great for shading.

Be sure to drop by Articles to learn more about the Escher 1.2 release.