Contact Sheet Guide

If you’re comping more than one shot, chances are you’ve made a Contact Sheet manually in Nuke. And yeah—it works. But if you’re doing this regularly, or on sequences with lots of shots? It gets old fast.

That’s where a bit of Python can completely change the game.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through a simple custom tool I built to create contact sheets automatically in Nuke. Whether you want to preview keyframes, compare looks, or just keep your work organized, this is a lightweight way to make your daily workflow smoother.

No fancy UI, just clean, readable code and something you can plug straight into your scripts.

Why Even Bother?

If you've ever:

• Copied and pasted a bunch of FrameHold nodes

• Aligned them manually with dots or ContactSheet

• Forgot to label shots or messed up the order

…you’ll see why a tool like this makes sense.

This script does it all for you:

• Scans selected Read nodes

• Picks the middle frame (or any frame you want)

• Labels each shot with a Text node

• Lays it all out in a ContactSheet

• Auto-calculates rows and columns based on how many inputs

Here's what it looks like in Nuke:

↪ UI View

You get a mini-tool to control things like single frame vs full range.

↪ Output

The resulting contact sheet — clean, labeled, and ready for review.

This tool is deceptively simple — but once it’s part of your pipeline, you’ll wonder how you lived without it. It’s especially helpful when:

• Reviewing dailies

• Building lookdev comparisons

• Organizing slapcomps

• Pitching ideas to a VFX sup

This script is just one example of how a little Python can go a long way in Nuke. It’s not about reinventing the wheel — it’s about making your tools work with you, not against you.

Happy comping! ✌️