P_CardSnap is a custom Nuke tool designed to speed up placing 2D elements into 3D scenes with accurate depth placement.

By simply selecting a point in the viewer, the tool samples the Position AOV pixel value and automatically snaps a 3D card to the correct XYZ location in the scene. This makes integrating elements like fire, smoke, dust, or explosions fast and precise. without manual guessing or trial-and-error.

Download here: Nukepedia

Key features

• Interactive 3D card placement by directly selecting point in the viewer

• Works with Deep Merge / Holdout setups

• Cards always face the camera (with look-at-camera feature)

• Auto physically correct 2d element scaling based on depth

Installation  

1 - Copy P_CardSnap.gizmo into your .nuke folder.

2 - Open menu.py inside the .nuke folder (create it if it doesn’t exist).

3 - Paste this code into menu.py:

import nuke

nodes = nuke.menu('Nodes')
transform = nodes.findItem('Transform') 
transform.addCommand('P_CardSnap', "nuke.createNode('P_CardSnap.gizmo')", icon='Transform.png')

4 -  Restart Nuke.