SLATE PRO
A clapperboard-style VFX slate and burn-in gizmo for Nuke, built to be read in dailies on a laptop or a small review screen. Works with a plain linear setup and with full OCIO / ACES pipelines.
One slate. Every delivery.
Put your plate in, pick a quick setup, fill in show, vendor, client and a note. Slate Pro builds the slate on frame 1000 and burns the key info into every other frame. Most fields fill themselves in from your script and your plate.
Readable in dailies
Big, heavy type on a clapperboard layout, so show, version and status can be read in a few seconds on a small screen.
Fills itself in
Name your script like SHOW_101_020_0040_comp_VND_v003.nk and show, shot, task and version are done. Frames, cut, fps, timecode and camera data come from the plate.
Five quick setups
From a minimal slate for internal versions to a film and TV series setup with handles, bars and full metadata. One click, and your text and logos are kept.
Any resolution, any ratio
HD to 6K+, 1.85, 2.39, anamorphic, 9:16, 4:5 and 1:1. The layout and the text scale with the picture area.
Colour-safe
Slate colours are converted for your Write, so they look right in a JPEG, an sRGB MOV or an ACEScg EXR. Plain Nuke linear, OCIO and ACES 1.x / 2.0 are covered.
Safe on the farm
Slate text is stored in the script, so a farm render matches what you saw in the Viewer. Headless renders tested. User text is never run as code.
Dark, white, vertical, wide
Choose a look, a picture area and a ratio. Everything is laid out as a percentage of the picture, so it stays clean from HD to 5.6K.
Film ratios
Pick Full Frame, 1.78, 1.85, 1.90, 2.00, 2.39 or 1.33 and the slate sits inside the picture area. Anamorphic plates are laid out for the unsqueezed picture.
Social and screens
9:16, 4:5 and 1:1 switch to a stacked layout. Handy for Gen AI renders, social cuts and interactive screens.
Your logo, their logo
Add a vendor and a client logo, with captions. Logo paths can use environment variables, ~, paths relative to the script and Nuke's path substitutions.
Burn-ins
Vendor, show, date, version and frame count on every frame, with an optional backing box, brightness control and a watermark. Switch the output to Clean / Final and the slate and burn-ins are gone.
Pick your job, press Apply
A quick setup only switches parts of the slate on or off. Your text, logos and colours are kept. The slate goes on frame 1000 for the TV commercial and film setups, and on frame 0 for the simpler ones.
| Setup | For | What it turns on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Minimal | Quick checks and internal versions | The slate, nothing else |
| 2 · Gen AI / Social / Screens | ComfyUI and Gen AI renders, social, vertical and interactive screens | Slate and burn-ins, no handles, no camera metadata |
| 3 · Small commercial / Packshot | Client review of small spots and packshots | Adds bars, a confidential line and a CONFIDENTIAL watermark |
| 4 · TV commercial (2K / 4K) | TVC deliveries | Adds camera metadata and the vendor in the burn-ins |
| 5 · Film & TV series (4K / ACES) | Features and episodic dailies | 8-frame handles, bars, confidential line, full metadata, no watermark |
Home or studio, it just matches
Slate colours are designed as display values and converted into your working space. On Auto, Slate Pro reads the Write below it:
- Display files (JPEG, PNG, sRGB / Rec.709 MOV, or a display / view Write): the file gets the exact slate colours.
- Scene-linear files (EXR in ACEScg, linear…): the slate goes through the inverse display / view, so it looks right through your show's viewer.
- Plain Nuke colour management: inverse sRGB, or Rec.709 for Rec.709 Writes.
Checked with the Nuke default config, ACES 1.2, ACES 1.3 and ACES 2.0, and with real ACEScg and ACES2065-1 EXR plates. You can also pick the conversion by hand.
Two minutes. One line in init.py
- Download Slate Pro from this page and unzip it.
- Copy the SlatePro folder into your
.nukefolder (WindowsC:\Users\you\.nuke, macOS / Linux~/.nuke). - Add one line to
.nuke/init.py:nuke.pluginAddPath('./SlatePro') - Restart Nuke. Find it under Nodes > Slate Pro, or press Tab and type
SlatePro.
Studio blocks gizmos? Paste SlatePro_group.nk instead. It is the same tool as a Group. Press Refresh before rendering.
First use: connect your plate (a Read starting at 1001), pick a quick setup, press Apply, fill in show, vendor, client and note, and render from frame 1000.
Good to know
Which Nuke versions?
Tested on Nuke 15.1, 15.2, 16.0 and 17.1 on Windows. It should work on Nuke 13 and 14. Nuke 12 and older are not supported because they use Python 2. macOS and Linux have not been tested yet; reports are very welcome.
Does it work in Nuke Indie or Non-commercial?
Not tested. Those editions limit Python, and Slate Pro uses a little Python to refresh its text, so it may not work fully there.
Where does the slate go?
On frame 1000, one frame before a plate that starts at 1001. If your project range starts at 1001, the slate would be skipped on render, so Slate Pro warns you and gives you an "Include slate in project range" button.
Will it leak AOVs or break timecode on the slate frame?
No. The slate frame keeps all the EXR layers but sets them to zero, and gets the plate's timecode minus one frame (drop-frame aware).
Which fonts does it use?
Arial by default, with an extra bold weight. If a font is missing, Slate Pro falls back to Helvetica, Liberation Sans, DejaVu Sans or the font that ships with Nuke. Arial has no CJK or emoji glyphs, so pick another font in Advanced for those.
Can I use it on client work?
Yes. It is free under the MIT licence for personal and commercial work. It is provided as is, so test it before a delivery.
Slate it. Ship it.
Using it on a job? Tag @gsmotion. I'd love to see it.