Original subtitles

In this module, we'll be taking a look at the Properties panel.

The first thing I'd like to show you is the two workflow

methods present in the Properties panel.

The first is a list view, and this is NUKE's default view.

As you double-click on nodes, they will appear in the Properties panel.

This list populates in order of the last node you double-clicked on.

So if I double-click on a node like this,

it'll appear at the top of the list,

and as I go down these nodes and double-click on them,

the last node that I've double-clicked on appears at the top of the list,

and they kind of go in order of the last nodes that you were using.

So if I continue to go down this list and double-click on these,

I'm populating the Properties panel over here on the right with

all of the properties for all of the nodes,

and I'm getting them in a nice clean list for me to use.

The second method for using the Properties window is what I like to

unofficially call the sprawling windows method.

All of these property panels can be pulled out into

their own individual windows.

So if we take a look at the top of the Properties panel,

we see a couple of icons, and there's this little lock icon.

If we turn that on,

what it's going to do for us is it's going to open all

new properties in their own windows.

So, if we double-click on one of these nodes now,

it's going to open up the properties for that node in its own window,

and you might want to do this if you have two very specific

properties that you need to see side by side,

that happens a couple of times,

or if you just want to work on a separate monitor with

all of these windows open and see all of your attributes

set up the way that you want.

You can resize these windows, you can do whatever you want with them,

and when you're done with them, you can just X them out to close them,

and if you want to go back to list view,

you just uncheck that lock box at the top of the Properties panel.

Now let's take a look at this little number box that we

see at the top of the Properties panel.

This number denotes how many properties we should have available in our list.

So right now we are limiting the list to five different

nodes worth of properties information.

If we go ahead and change this number over to 10,

it changes the maximum number of panels in our Properties

panel to be able to handle 10 nodes, and if we change this to 1,

it will limit the Properties panel to 1 node.

So this is helpful for just being able to parse down the

amount of information that you want to see at any given

time in your Properties panel.

Now let's change that back to five,

and let's load up a couple of Properties panels,

and if we want to get rid of all of them at once,

we can close them down individually, one by one with these little X boxes,

or if we open up a couple more here,

you can just clear out your entire list by clicking this box here at the top.

Now let's add a couple back,

and let's take a look at these little icons that we see

at the top of each set of properties.

Each property has a little triangle that you can click on that will

just collapse all of your properties down into a list,

so if you only need to go into this ColorCorrect,

for example,

you can just open up these attributes and not get confused with any of

the other attributes for any of the other nodes.

If we want to see the Read node, likewise,

we just turn the twisty, and it will open up the attributes for the Read node.

There's also a really helpful button here that looks like a little tiny target,

and what this button does is it brings you right to the node

that those properties are assigned to.

So if I click on this guy,

it's going to take me over here in the Node Graph right to the node that I want.

So let's say I had a comp of 100 different nodes,

and this was way, way off screen somewhere,

and I wanted to go right to this Desaturate.

I know that these are the attributes that I'm working with,

and I want to see which node these attributes are associated with,

I just click on this button,

NUKE's going to center that right up in the center of your Node Graph for you.

Another cool little operation that NUKE gives us is this button right here.

This is the Input button.

So if we're working in the Desaturate node's properties right here,

and we want to see what node is feeding into this Desaturate node,

or we want to jump to it really quickly over here in the Node Graph,

we just click on this button, and it'll list all of the inputs into that node.

And if we select it,

it'll highlight the node that is feeding into the node that we're dealing

with in the Properties panel over here in the Node Graph.

Now the last thing I'd like to show you in this clip is how to make

presets out of the properties that we have selected here.

So let's say in this node, in this Desaturate node,

we're going to bump the gamma up, so I'm going to move the slider way up,

and you see the gamma get really blown out,

and let's say I want that to be a preset,

to be used across all ColorCorrect nodes.

I'm going to go up here to this little wrench icon and click on it,

and say Save As Preset.

A little box will pop up, and we'll just give it a name: BoostGamma,

click Create, and inside this menu when we click on it in the future,

it's going to have a BoostGamma preset in there.

And so if we go to the second ColorCorrect down here,

and double-click on it, we'll see that BoostGamma pop up again,

and if we click on it, it's going to boost the gamma in that node.

I'm going to just Ctrl+Z to get rid of that.

If we want to get rid of that preset in the future,

there's an option here for deleting the preset.

If you hover over that it will give you a list of

all of the presets you've created,

and you can just select the one you want to get rid of or delete.

This option box pops up to make sure you want to delete the preset,

and just say yes, and it'll disappear from the menu in the future.

Now it is important to note and remember that if you're making a preset,

it's going to wipe out all of the data that you had in there before.

So if I have this ColorCorrect node, and I've got a gain,

and I've got an offset,

and I've got a contrast that I've got all keyed in that I like,

and I go to this Desaturate node, and I've got a boosted gamma value,

and I make a preset from it, like we just did,

and I go back to this ColorCorrect node and I apply that preset,

it's going to wipe out those contrast, gain,

and offset details that I had in this node.

So just be aware that when you're making a preset,

you're presetting all of the attributes,

not just the specific attribute that you've changed.

In the next clip,

we'll go into some of the specific attributes inside

the Properties menus and their nodes, what these buttons are,

how to use them,

and I'll give you a couple of tips and tricks with some keyboard shortcuts.