NLE Bridge

Tab: NLE Bridge — Editorial hand-off · Plugin: Cinematic Lab

Getting the cut, and the decisions around it, out of Unreal and into the tools the rest of post actually uses.

The NLE Bridge tab: output directory, the three editorial exports, Nuke skeleton, LUT watcher and ACES.

Output directory

Overrides the Recording tab’s output directory for editorial exports. Leave it blank to use the Recording panel’s setting — the field says so, so a blank box is a choice rather than an error.

Editorial export

Three formats, written into the output directory and named after the sequence:

Button	Writes	Who reads it
🎞 Export OTIO	<seqname>.otio	Resolve 18+ and Blender import this directly
📜 Export EDL	<seqname>.edl (CMX 3600)	Universal — Resolve, Premiere, Avid, FCP
📋 Export FCP XML	<seqname>.xml (FCP7 xmeml)	More expressive than EDL. Resolve, Premiere, FCP and Blender all import it

The status line reads Last export: <path>, or “No export yet.”

Exporting the sequence as timeline interchange files from the NLE Bridge tab.

Two things the exporter gets right

It reads both track types. Shots are walked through the same dual-track scanner the Shot Manager uses — the Cinematic Shot track and the Camera Cut track — so sequences authored either way export identically. Exporters that only read one are the usual reason a cut arrives half-empty.

Circled takes become native markers. Every take you circled in the Shot Manager is written into the OTIO timeline as an OTIO Marker.2 on the clip’s marked range, named "<take> (<rating>/5)" and coloured green. The director’s on-set judgement arrives in the NLE as markers an editor can see and jump between, instead of as a separate document nobody opens.

Time survives the trip. Times are converted from the movie scene’s tick resolution to RationalTime at the sequence’s own display rate, so frame boundaries hold rather than being re-derived from seconds.

Editorial exports written to the output directory.

Nuke project skeleton

✏️ Write Nuke Skeleton (.nk) generates a Nuke script wired to your rendered EXR sequence.

Field	Notes
EXR pattern	e.g. C:/Out/frame.%04d.exr
First frame / Last frame	Frame range
Lens distortion	If non-zero, the skeleton adds a LensDistortion node with this k1 coefficient

The generator consumes the same PredictLayerNames() source of truth the Render tab’s manifest uses, so the Read node’s layer names match what the engine actually wrote — including the 5.4-versus-5.5+ naming difference you would otherwise have to know about.

Resolve LUT round-trip

🎨 Import .cube LUT… imports a single LUT.

The watcher is the useful part: subscribe to a folder, and whenever DaVinci Resolve — or anyone — writes a .cube file there, it is auto-imported into Content/CinematicLab/LUTs/. So a grade made in Resolve lands back in Unreal without a manual round trip.

• Pick… chooses the folder; the label reads “(no folder picked yet)” until you do.
• ● Start Watcher / ■ Stop Watcher control it.
• Status: ● Watching · <n> imports, or idle.

Honest limit, stated on the control: the subscription “survives restart in prefs but doesn’t auto-resume on startup.” The folder is remembered; the watching is not. Start it again when you come back.

ACES working space

Use ACES working space (r.OCIO.Enabled) switches the project into an ACES working space. Pair it with the Render tab’s OCIO settings and its Check OCIO Parity measurement so the viewport and the render agree.

Notes

• OTIO carries the most. EDL is the safest interchange but the least expressive; FCP XML sits in between; OTIO is what carries the circled-take markers.
• The output directory is shared with Recording unless you override it here.
• The watcher does not auto-resume. That is a stated design limit, not a bug — restart it when you reopen the project.