ZEISS CinCraft LensCore is a new Nuke plugin creating physically based cinematic lens looks for VFX and animation, closing the gap between on-set lens choices and the VFX pipeline.
ZEISS CinCraft LensCore is a new Nuke plugin used to create physically based cinematic lens looks for visual effects and animation. Built on the company’s Virtual Lens Technology introduced in 2025, the software bridges the gap between on-set lens choices and the VFX pipeline, applying ZEISS optical expertise in post-production,
Virtual Lens Technology gives VFX artists the chance to pick a certain lens and to apply its lens look digitally. These physically based digital lenses come with a high-fidelity standard, very precisely capturing the visual essence of real lenses and turning attention from time-consuming lens look replication, to physically correct lens effects
Same Language
In CinCraft LensCore, compositing artists have a set of tools dedicated to achieving cinema-grade lens looks, grounded in the characteristics and physics of real lenses. Essentially a GPU-accelerated, ray-traced rendering engine for Foundry Nuke, it simulates authentic lens behaviour across every pixel of every frame, with capabilities and results exceeding those of available digital lens effects.
“ZEISS CinCraft LensCore brings the effects of real-world optics to a 2D compositing environment,” said Egor Nikitin, Head of Digital Cinematography at ZEISS. “LensCore speaks the same language as the lenses on set, from the way light falls off at the edges of the frame to the nuance of out-of-focus highlights. That fidelity is made possible by ZEISS’ history and understanding of optical science.”
CinCraft LensCore combines accuracy with efficiency. With one click, a complete digital lens look can be applied to a shot, with realistic bokeh, defocus, distortion, vignetting and other optical effects characteristic of a specific physical lens.
From LensCore’s digital lens shelf, artists can load lens profiles of a real cinema lens or a custom preset, and compare their looks in a few seconds. This fluidly replaces time-consuming manual setups, with repeatable, production-ready workflows in order to maintain consistency across sequences and teams.
New Original Lenses
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Beyond replicating existing optics, LensCore can also help generate entirely new, never-before-seen lenses that still behave with the physics of authentic glass. Artists can start from physically accurate ZEISS or custom lens profiles and manually adjust every key lens characteristic, pushing the look as far as the project vision requires, while remaining grounded in believable optical performance.
Rendered with CinCraft
Every feature is driven by real optical parameters such as focus, T-stop, focal length and focus distance, keeping lens behavior physically coherent across the full range of adjustments. A built-in inpaint feature intelligently fills occluded areas behind defocused objects, reducing the need for 3D setups and speeding up compositing workflows.
“As a former VFX supervisor, I know firsthand how much time gets spent trying to match a specific lens look in post, even when it was properly documented during the shoot,” said Joern Grosshans, Product Manager Digital Cinematography at ZEISS. “LensCore addresses that need at the source. This advance gives artists access to a virtual shelf of lenses with accurate, predictable behaviour – accessible the same way a DoP pulls a lens from a rental house – to be implemented with just a click. That kind of workflow clarity makes a huge difference.”
CinCraft LensCore was demonstrated at FMX 2026 in Stuttgart, Germany, by Joern Grosshans, Florian Hofmann and Egor Nikitin from ZEISS. ZEISS CinCraft LensCore will be available worldwide through the CinCraft webshop beginning 1 June 2026, with multiple licenses available. www.zeiss.com
