Z_Rays
Drop it in. The light is already there.
- Nuke
01What it does
- Four shapes in one node — sun, parallel, streak, star
- Lit the moment you drop it on
- Parallel works with the source off frame
- Streak and star angles set in degrees
- Four looks, one click each
- Nothing random — no crawl, no flicker
- Rays only adds onto your plate to the bit
- Depth optional
02A closer look
Four kinds of light, one node.
Light does four different things on its way out of a source, and most shots need more than one of them. Sun radiates from a source you can see — a practical, a doorway, a gap in a canopy. Parallel is what real sunlight does: every shaft the same direction, which is the only thing that behaves when the source is a long way outside the frame. Streak is the long horizontal flare a wide lens lays across a highlight. Star is the spikes an iris makes, from two points to sixteen. One node, one march, four answers. Pick the shape; everything else stays where you put it.
It opens already lit.
Drop it on a plate and there is a picture. No analysis pass to sit through, no group to unfold, no enable to find first. The Look menu moves it to a window, an anamorphic streak or a six-point star in one click. Touch any of the controls underneath and the menu quietly goes back to Custom rather than carrying on claiming a preset the numbers no longer match.
Aim it, or type it.
Drag the light in the viewer instead of typing coordinates. When the source is outside the frame — which is most of the time — Parallel reads only the direction, so how far out you drag stops mattering and the shafts stay parallel the way sunlight is. Streaks and stars take an angle in degrees instead, and hold it. A lens does not turn its streak when the light moves across frame, so neither does this: set 12 degrees and it is still 12 degrees after you have moved everything else.
Nothing in it is random.
The same 512 samples run every frame. A still plate renders identical pixels every time, and a moving one has nothing to crawl, boil or flicker — there is no noise field to stabilise because there is no noise field. Set Output to Rays only and the element adds onto your plate exactly, to the bit. Merge it yourself, keep the grade you already had, and put it wherever it belongs in your script.
Depth is optional.
Wire a depth pass and the lamp two metres from camera stops throwing shafts across the shot. Leave it unwired and brightness is the gate, which is all a sky through a window ever needed. When a gate does throw everything away, the panel says which one and gives you the number to change — instead of a black frame and no explanation.
03Specifications
- Category
- Light
- OFX API
- 1.5
- Contexts
- General
- Bit depths
- 8-bit · 16-bit · 32-bit float
- Channels
- RGB · RGBA
- Processing
- CPU, multi-threaded
- Operating system
- Windows 10 · 11 (64-bit)
- Vendor
- ZHiCK
04The 7-day trial
The trial is the complete plugin — every control, your own footage, no features held back. One trial per machine.
When it ends the plugin keeps loading and keeps rendering the full effect, with a faint ZHiCK STUDIO watermark across the output. It does not vanish from the node list or fail a render: a licensing problem found at 2am should cost an obviously marked frame, never a farm job. Nothing about the paid version differs except the watermark — and anything that would hand you a result the watermark cannot reach.
05Installing it
ZHiCK Hub installs and updates the plugin for you, and is how the trial is issued. If you would rather not run it, the plugin is a folder you copy into the host's plugin path.
06Version history
- 1.0
22 Aug 2026 · 0.1 MB
07Licence
End User Licence Agreementv1.3 · 10 August 2026
ZHiCK products End User Licence Agreement Version 1.3, 10 August 2026 Vendor: Thanadet Sribandit, trading as ZHiCK (sole trader, Thailand) Contact: zhickstudio@gmail.com Governing law: Thailand This agreement covers any ZHiCK product you buy a licence for — a plugin today, and anything else sold under the ZHiCK name later. Tools given away free, including ZHiCK Hub, are not licensed under this agreement; their use is covered by the terms of sale instead. The terms of sale, and the current version of this agreement, are at https://zhickstudio.com/terms Sections 7 and 8 describe how a plugin behaves inside a host application, and apply only to products that are plugins. Everything else applies to every paid product. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Licence, not sale ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The software is licensed to you, not sold. ZHiCK retains all rights, title and interest in it, including all intellectual property rights. Subject to your compliance with this agreement and payment of the applicable fee, ZHiCK grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use the software on the number of machines stated on the licence you bought. That number is shown on the product page, on your receipt, and in your account. A seat may be moved to another machine at any time, from your account. Re-activating a machine you have already activated does not consume a second seat, and reinstalling or losing the licence file costs you nothing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Which licence you need ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Licences come in two kinds. Which one applies depends on who pays for it, not on what you use it for. An Individual licence is bought by one person, with their own money. You may use it on client work, on commercials, on features, on anything at all — there is no restriction whatsoever on the work you produce with it. What an Individual licence does not cover is a company buying it on your behalf, or reimbursing you for it afterwards. A Studio licence is bought by a company or other organisation, and covers up to the number of machines stated on it. If the cost is met from a business account, this is the licence that applies — whether the software ends up running on five machines or on one. Dividing them this way is what keeps the individual price where it is. If your circumstances change after you buy, because you join a studio or a client takes over the cost, write to the address above and the difference will be settled sensibly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. What you may not do ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may not redistribute, resell, rent, lease, sublicense or publish the software; remove or alter any notice in it; or reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble it, except to the extent that applicable law expressly permits this despite the restriction. A licence covers you, or the organisation named on it — see section 2. It may not be shared with another company or bundled into something else without written permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Your output is yours ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZHiCK claims no rights over images, sequences, projects or any other output you produce using the software. You may use that output commercially without restriction or attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Updates and support ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A licence includes updates within the same major version — a 1.x licence receives every 1.x release — at no further cost. Support is by email, at the address above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Trial, and no refunds ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Purchases are final and are not refunded. This is why a free trial of the complete product is offered first: every control, your own footage, nothing held back. Please confirm the product does what you need, in the application and version you actually use, before buying. Where the law of your country gives you a refund right that cannot be waived, that right is unaffected by this clause. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Supported applications (plugins only) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each plugin states which applications it is supported in, on its product page and in ZHiCK Hub. Support means the plugin has been run there and is expected to keep working there. A plugin will not load in an application it does not list — it refuses rather than appearing where it cannot work properly. Applications not listed are not supported, whether or not the plugin happens to run in them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. If a licence cannot be verified (plugins only) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The plugin checks its licence on your machine, offline. It never contacts a server to do so. If no valid licence is found — during a trial, after one expires, or if the licence file is missing — the plugin still loads and still renders the complete effect, with a faint "ZHiCK STUDIO" watermark across the output. It does not disappear from the plugin list and does not fail a render. A licensing problem should cost you an obviously marked frame, never a farm job or a deadline. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. No warranty ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. You are responsible for verifying its output before using it in delivered work. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Limitation of liability ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To the maximum extent permitted by law, ZHiCK's total liability arising out of or relating to this agreement is limited to the amount you paid for the licence. ZHiCK is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or missed deadlines. Nothing in this agreement limits liability that cannot be limited by law. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Termination ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This licence ends automatically if you breach it. On termination you must stop using the software and remove all copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Third-party software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The software includes third-party components licensed under their own terms. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt, distributed with the product.
08Still deciding?
Ask me anything about it — whether it fits your shot, your host version, or your pipeline. I built it for my own work, so the answer is usually specific.
zhickstudio@gmail.com