[HN Gopher] Open Source Compositing Software for VFX and Motion ...
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       Open Source Compositing Software for VFX and Motion Graphics
        
       Author : marcodiego
       Score  : 90 points
       Date   : 2022-03-14 12:57 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (natrongithub.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (natrongithub.github.io)
        
       | skratlo wrote:
       | I recently tried Natron. I work on Linux/wayland. It was
       | constantly crashing on me, I rebooted to Windows and tried the
       | Windows version, it was crashing, and it was getting stuck a lot.
       | 
       | IMO Blender can do the same job and do it better.
        
       | themerone wrote:
       | Unfortionately, in a failed attempt to commercialize Natron, the
       | original developers relicensed from Apache to GPL.
       | 
       | I think this killed the chances of any big studios or companies
       | getting involved with development.
       | 
       | Blender relicened it's renderer Cycles to Apache to encourage
       | commercial adoption. I think Natron should have stuck to this
       | approach.
        
         | riotnrrd wrote:
         | You're probably correct. GPL is (unreasonably) radioactive to
         | many companies.
        
         | blihp wrote:
         | IIRC, it was the lead developer who implemented the original
         | prototype in his own time who decided the license, not the
         | Blender project. I don't think Cycles was ever GPL as it was
         | developed as a standalone project that could be integrated into
         | Blender rather than an integrated renderer that was split out.
        
       | FrostKiwi wrote:
       | First time hearing about this, though the similarity to Nuke is
       | uncanny. I'm happy to see OpenFX getting treated as a first class
       | citizen and not be relegated to be the unwanted child of a bigger
       | compositor.
       | 
       | Definetly gonna try it out.
        
         | pzone wrote:
         | It's a free Nuke clone. The similarity is intentional!
        
       | royjacobs wrote:
       | This has been posted a few times now, and while it definitely
       | looks very cool I've not yet heard of people actually doing
       | significant work with it (compared to other open source
       | alternatives such as, say, Blender). Curious to hear about
       | people's experiences with it.
        
         | ReleaseCandidat wrote:
         | Still planar tracking only (no motion tracking/solving), so no
         | alternative to Blender (and every other 'real' 3D Compositor).
        
         | CyberDildonics wrote:
         | The last time I tried it, it was so unstable that it was beyond
         | unusable.
         | 
         | It wouldn't stay open for more than half a minute even if you
         | did nothing.
         | 
         | If you did anything it was an instant crash. I'm not sure how
         | anyone calls something like that a 'release' version. I'm not
         | sure I've ever even left software in that state, let alone
         | committed it and let alone actually letting other people run
         | it.
        
       | Joeboy wrote:
       | It's frustrating that AFAIK the FLOSS choices are Blender
       | (compositor is robust but has severe limitations and is really,
       | really slow) and Natron (more featureful and faster but crashes
       | if you look at it wrong).
       | 
       | Davinci Resolve has Fusion built in, which is good and runs on
       | Linux but it isn't FLOSS and I think has some limitations in the
       | free version.
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | AFAIK the only limitation on Fusion in Resolve is that
         | resolution is limited to Ultra HD (no DCI 4K), just like in the
         | rest of the free Resolve version.
        
           | e_y_ wrote:
           | There's also some nodes that only work on the paid version
           | (or add a watermark if you try to use them) and there might
           | be restrictions on using OpenFX plugins.
           | 
           | IMO, Resolve Studio is pretty reasonably priced considering
           | that version upgrades have been free for many years (unlike
           | Adobe and others which cost hundreds annually), but it's not
           | FOSS and there's still people for which a $300 one-time
           | purchase might be too much.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-14 23:01 UTC)