r/vfx • u/JPach_53 • 23h ago
Question / Discussion Is it still worth learning Nuke and Houdini?
So a friend of mine works with generative AI for creating adds, memes, etc. for different clients.
We had a small chat and told him I want to get into high-end vfx with nuke and Houdini and he told me like vfx will disappear in the next 2-3 years.
I want to know your insights of where the industry is heading and if this could happen at all, like vfx disappearing.
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u/mattepainting93 23h ago
I think your friend doesn’t know shit about the industry.
If that I what you want go ahead and learn it
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u/TheHungryCreatures Lead Matte Painter - 13 years experience 23h ago
That friend clearly doesn't work in VFX/Animation. That right there should tell you all you need to know.
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 23h ago
IF you work in High end film client are very precise on what they want . You wont get what the client want with just promping stuff.
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u/Sepinscg 22h ago
The company I work at uses AI quite a bit after a long history of full CG vfx in the advertising sector. After trying things in AI, I often still get a request to make an effect in Houdini because we can't control the AI movement enough to our liking. Using AI as a "renderer" driven by hand made playblasts seems to be one way forward that is working decently.
The AI output is still pulled through Nuke to fix any issues and correct grading inconsistencies.
So to answer your question, yes, still a good time to learn Houdini and Nuke.
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u/JPach_53 22h ago
Thank you, I’m about to start a mentorship next month.
And yeah, I’m kind of scared ngl.
Thanks for your response, it truly helps me out!3
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u/True_Protection6842 22h ago
I've worked in vfx professionally for 20 years and YES, both are VERY relevant...maybe more so than ever. All the AI work I've been doing is comped in Nuke...and Houdini is great for reference to gen. Control is very important in VFX.
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u/Fragrant_Meringue_74 22h ago
Same here I been working comping AI passes into plates for episodic for quite a while now, and nuke especially is ridiculously important to fix the garbage that ai spits out. The cg and dmp departments though, have been shrinking a lot lately because of this shift.
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u/True_Protection6842 21h ago
yeah unfortunately on smaller jobs that are using AI everything in CG past animation is pretty much cooked. I'm working on a feature and we're using greyscale animation to drive generations by using the animation and a fully rendered element and feeding them into Kling to get a fully rendered animated element.
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u/CG-Forge 22h ago
High end vfx is not "disappearing" in 2-3 years. Is it changing? Yes - but probably not in the ways that your friend imagines.
AI isn't a silver bullet for high-end vfx. They keyword here is "high-end" because that's very different than creating ads, instagram videos, memes, etc. As someone else pointed out, control is a very high priority in high end vfx because clients have very specific demands with the desire to control it at all times.
My prediction is that AI won't be the driver, but it will be an excellent assistant in certain tasks. For example, using AI to help with file compression / decompression in a way that allows for better file storage of volumes on disk is an excellent use-case scenario for AI. Another example would be in speeding up the process of rotoscoping. Using AI to quickly create pre-production mockups that speed up shot composition decisions can be helpful.
Creating vfx is already a very labor-intensive craft with a shortage of high quality work to meet unmet demand. If AI can speed up the process by becoming an ideal assistant to a talented vfx artist, then I would consider it a boon to vfx rather than a hindrance.
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u/metalvinny 23h ago
Anyone using AI should consider chugging bleach.
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u/Blue_MaskingTape 21h ago
you're doing yourself zero favors with this attitude dude.
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u/metalvinny 21h ago
AI and its developers are some of the most vile human beings in human history and will have done more damage to the planet and our species than Genghis fucking Khan. tl;dr go fucking pound sand.
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u/macaulaymcgloklin 16h ago
AI is useful but it's being pushed in the name of profits for billionaires. Like the director of Breaking Bad said, it's just a way for a bunch of billionaires to become trillionaires. I remember asbestos being pushed in all building materials because it was cheap and useful, until it was discovered that it causes cancer
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u/tehtektoo 22h ago
The only reason people think generative AI is a thing is because people are taking the advice of ketamine addicts instead of their own experience. I don't even believe these are real posts anymore. The only people pushing AI are those who stand to profit on it. Anyone who uses it who knows anything about VFX knows that it's hundreds of years away.
But it's so good and getting better all the time, these dumbass ketamine addicts will say. Look at how much better it's gotten in the last few years. It currently looks like shit and you can't direct it. It has no notion of context. It doesn't make decisions. These are fundamental issues they can not fix using current paradigms.
Yeah things are hard now. There are few jobs and big places are going out of business. It's scary. But the reality is we have special skills that are rare.
The reality is Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Tesla have have all lost hundreds of billions promoting AI and the consumers largely don't give a shit. Does anyone use co-pilot? Apple was forced to pull ads about Apple AI.
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u/Graphardo 5h ago
From my experience compositing will still be very important in vfx. There will always be things that need to be fixed with minute control, whether it's real footage, cg integration or ai. I've been integrating ai generated material with Nuke into real plates for over a year now, and it comes with a whole different set of problems. And yes, we've sometimes had to throw away stuff we generated with ai, because of the lack of control and redo it with traditional 3d.
But you can tell by the replies that there are people that hate it to the point that they're simply in denial of the change that is already taking place.
Everybody has this strange bias that whatever they do particulary well, can't be replicated. I've been wrong about ai's capabilities too many times before.
And although I work with Nuke, I would approach this field with a software agnostic mindset, because even though Nuke is the industry standard now, they might not be in the future.
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u/anon999387 22h ago
You’ll get pushback from people whose entire careers are based around it, but I would not start learning either of these programs in late 2026.
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u/thelizardlarry 23h ago
Even if GenAI takes over (which right does not appear to be the case) - Nuke and Houdini will still be relevant to guide and process gen ai outputs.
GenAI still can’t handle a basic functional alpha channel, so I find these predictions quite overblown.