“I’ll remember this when I come back to it later.”

This is one of the easiest lies to tell ourselves when we’re compositing. Here are a few techniques for turning that lie into the truth when you (or whoever touches this shot next, see Rule 4) come back to your script.

The reality is, even if we do continue the work hours, days, or even weeks later, we won’t remember the details of what we were doing. If we haven’t left ourselves any notes, we’ll have to spend time figuring out what all this stuff is and what it’s for all over again. That’s time wasted.

Or maybe we do still remember the details. But holding them in memory was not the best use of our brain power during that period. In Getting Things Done, David Allen describes the mental effort of keeping our to-do list in our head and how carrying that list leaves us less capacity for addressing the problems at hand. That’s brainpower wasted.

Writing things down in a place where we’ll see them again is Allen’s key tool for unlocking productivity. We can’t bring our full attention to bear on our current problem until we get that list off our mind. But we won’t be able to get that list off our mind unless we know it’s in a place where we’ll see it again when we need to. Luckily, Nuke comes with some built-in labeling tools that are perfect for writing down that information in exactly the place we’ll need it later.

Node Name

Node names are editable. There’s even a keyboard shortcut for it. Select the node, hit n,and type. It only takes a few seconds to turn Roto11 into Roto_redDress, making it so much easier to remember the next time we see it.

Nuke will even let us remove the node’s class from the name, but be careful. We get very used to having it there. It’s frustrating to have to open the properties panel to tell whether that orange node is a Blur or a Defocus.

Node Labels

Every Nuke node has a Label knob with a text box where we can type anything we want. This is the perfect place for a quick comment about the purpose this node serves in the comp, about where it came from, or any other piece of data that may be useful later. 

Labeled Dots

Dots stick the label text out the side to increase readability. Labeled Dots are really useful for labeling the output point of a section of our script, such as an assembled AOV build, or the group of nodes that create our background.

We can even make the label text really big, so it’s still readable even while we’re viewing the entire graph. (Extra points for stepping down the label sizes as you move into smaller and smaller subsections of your graph. These will get hidden and revealed automatically, maintaining readability as you zoom the Node Graph in or out.)

Sticky Notes

A big, yellow StickyNote makes an eye-catching reminder of something that’s unfinished or will need refinement before final delivery.

They’re also a great place to hold a to-do list. Place it close to the main Write node and give it three sections: “done,” “to-do,” and “questions.” When notes come up in reviews, make them new entries in “to-do.” As you address each note, move it to “done.” Having that to-do list written down frees us up to focus on one task at a time.

As we work, there will be things that we see that will need to be addressed for final, but will need to wait for later because the shot isn’t yet at that level of scrutiny. Add a to-do item so you don’t lose track of it.

Similarly, issues may pop up that need a lead’s or supervisor’s input. Add them to “questions” so whoever’s reviewing can respond.

All this note-taking seems like a lot of work at first. But the magic of keeping these running lists is that when it’s time to publish and send for review, we can copy this whole thing and paste it into the submission comments. Now anyone who views our work knows exactly what we did since the last version, has a list of the problems that we know need to be solved in later versions, and can clear up any questions we asked. This tells them way more than a cryptic “improved integration” note ever would. Clear and open communication builds trust (Rule 3) and makes your working life easier.

Pro tip: Start the text with <alignl> to get nice, left-justified lists instead of centered ones.

Backdrops

The Backdrop is the least useful node for organizing and labeling, even though it was designed for, and is commonly used for those purposes. 

Why? 

It is harder to select a Backdrop than the nodes it contains, especially as it gets bigger.

Backdrops do not expand automatically as the portion of the node graph that they contain grows. Ever tried to grab the bottom-right corner of a big Backdrop when zoomed out in the Node Graph? Such a pain. So fiddly and slow. And no setup ever got smaller as it got closer to final. Everything grows,all the time.

Finally, the default behavior adds bright, random color to your node graph, making it more difficult to see subtle color differences in your Viewer. 

Okay, so what should we do instead?

Arrange each chunk of nodes so it can be easily selected in a single swipe, without also selecting unwanted nodes. This replicates the organizing feature of the Backdrop while avoiding the selecting and resizing problems.

Then, use a Dot to label the chunk’s output. Make the text size appropriate to the size of the chunk. Large labels will still be visible when viewing the entire Node Graph, and smaller ones will become visible as we zoom into smaller sections of the graph.

Using these two techniques (as in the script in Labeled Dots, above) gives us a script that’s more flexible and easier to refactor as the shot evolves. The easier rearranging our Node Graph is, the more likely we are to do it, giving us easier to read scripts with much less time spent tracing pipe paths and figuring out what feeds where.

Wrapup

Labeling things pays dividends when we come back to our scripts and can get right to work. It pays back double when our script gets handed off to someone else before we get back to it. That person will be able to find their way around just like we did thanks to our handy labels. They’ll think we’re pretty nice to work with.

And what about that day your supe has to hop into one of your scripts? (You know they’re the ones who fix any last-minute issues in our comps once we’ve rotated onto other shows, right?) That day is going to be a stressful one for them. If they find a conveniently-labeled, organized script, they’ll be able to get right to work and fix the issue. Easy-peasy. And they’ll also remember how nice your stuff was to work with the next time they’re requesting people for their crew. Being easy to work with puts you at the top of the list.