Case Study: CD Projekt Red creates Night City with Foundry Nuke

CD Projekt Red builds Night City with Nuke in 30 days

CD Projekt Red, the developer behind the acclaimed open-world game Cyberpunk 2077, faced the immense challenge of creating the visually complex and dynamic Night City. The scale and verticality of the city, combined with a dynamic day/night cycle and weather system, required a fully dynamic lighting solution that could not be pre-baked. To overcome this, the studio utilized Foundry's compositing tool, Nuke, as a central part of their creative and technical pipeline.

Foundry's Nuke was used to build a reference database for the game's proprietary REDengine, enabling the team to develop a fully dynamic global illumination system. The software was also instrumental in creating custom 3D LUTs to achieve a cinematic look and was used extensively as a prototyping tool for UI and visual effects. This use of Foundry's technology allowed CD Projekt Red to efficiently iterate on designs, communicate ideas across disciplines, and ultimately deliver the immersive and visually arresting world of Night City.

CD Projekt Red