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Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

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Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#31

Post by zaphar »

Joeboy wrote: post #23
quadrangle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was a few months ago when you tried kdenlive before or after their recent major overhaul? Basically, did you use the older version that was the traditional sequential-numbers versioning or the newer date-based versioning? (note that lots of progress has happened in even just the last few months)

Dunno to be honest. I've become a bit cynical because for the last decade or so people have claimed that there are good FOSS editors, then when you try and use them they fall apart at the first opportunity. Blender's the only NLE I've found that's not comically flaky. It's possible Kdenlive really has improved though.

Same here, for quite a long time there were a number of projects claiming to do video editing. (Anyone remember Jahshaka?) Blender was literally the only thing out there that delivered for years. This is one of the first projects I've seen that looked like it also delivered.

Like I said before it's good to see some actual competition in this space.

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#32

Post by berkut »

touchofevil wrote: post #28

I'm a compositor & motion graphics artist. I've never used Natron, but I've done a lot of compositing in After Effects and a little bit of compositing in Nuke (which is the industry standard for photorealistic vfx compositing). Another free compositing option is BlackMagic Fusion [0]. Fusion is a node based compositor, like Natron and Nuke. Fusion has a free version that has a few restrictions and a paid version that…

As someone who works in the industry developing software, it's because for the high-end VFX studios, software like Blender and Natron just don't cut it in terms of efficiency, power and flexibility.

Artist time costs more money than software licenses do, and as the open source software isn't generally good enough for their needs, using better off-the-shelf software that have fairly decent and flexible plugin APIs is good enough for them.

A lot of the code VFX studios have is proprietary (as in unique to the individual studio who wrote it) plugins for host apps like Maya, Katana and Nuke, and shaders/integrators for renderers like PRMan and Arnold.

There are open source projects that are used for glue in the VFX industry:

https://github.com/alembic/alembic https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenSubdiv https://github.com/imageworks/OpenShadingLanguage https://github.com/ImageEngine/gaffer https://github.com/dreamworksanimation/openvdb https://github.com/openexr/openexr

But these have almost exclusively been internal proprietary projects started within studios that have been open-sourced, to help transfer assets between studios, and are mostly open file formats for images, volumes and geometry, as well as other intermediate tooling.

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#33

Post by tonyedgecombe »

bks wrote: post #4
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #3

I have an older, portable version lying around in my machine and I really liked it (though knowing very little about compositing when I downloaded it). It helped me do some nice animations to explain a few things through video. Now I'm a bit surprised that they require you to register to download any version... I know it's free, but it still feels unnecesary... I just want the file, why do I have to register?

....becuse the entire fabric on the internet is based on the exchange of thing of "value". Your email has value, and they'll exchange their hard work (software) for your information (valuable for marketing, and understanding their users)....

Not sure why your downvoted, this is absolutely right.

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#35

Post by tjl »

Joeboy wrote: post #23
quadrangle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was a few months ago when you tried kdenlive before or after their recent major overhaul? Basically, did you use the older version that was the traditional sequential-numbers versioning or the newer date-based versioning? (note that lots of progress has happened in even just the last few months)

Dunno to be honest. I've become a bit cynical because for the last decade or so people have claimed that there are good FOSS editors, then when you try and use them they fall apart at the first opportunity. Blender's the only NLE I've found that's not comically flaky. It's possible Kdenlive really has improved though.

How many NLE software packages have you used?

I find it interesting that it seems that for a some people, Blender is their first experience with a node-based editor. They've been around for years. While I haven't used Nuke (or Shake), I was very good with Houdini for CG which is all based around nodes. It does include some basic compositing (or at least it did the last time I used it).

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#36

Post by [deleted] »

mpnordland wrote: post #25
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #3

I have an older, portable version lying around in my machine and I really liked it (though knowing very little about compositing when I downloaded it). It helped me do some nice animations to explain a few things through video. Now I'm a bit surprised that they require you to register to download any version... I know it's free, but it still feels unnecesary... I just want the file, why do I have to register?

Here is an unencumbered download link for Linux: http://downloads.natron.fr/Linux/releases/64bit/files/Natron... Replacing Linux with Windows does not work for me, but it may for you if you are using that OS.

[deleted]

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#37

Post by neves »

BTW, I really liked the MOOC Visual Effects for Guerrilla Filmmakers https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/vfx-for-filmmakers

It uses Hit Film Express, a free version of the commercial product. I was able to learn the basic techniques of VFX and started to use Hit Film to edit my family videos. Win-Win.

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#38

Post by mathnode »

a_e_k wrote: post #11

As I understand it, this is basically an open source clone of The Foundry's Nuke software. Nuke is used widely in the VFX industry -- probably the dominant software in its niche. I'm not knocking the effort it takes to clone its GUI, plugin API (OpenFX [0]), or basic plugins. But I'll also point out as an alternative that The Foundry offers a free non-commercial version of Nuke [1]. [0] http://openfx.sourceforge.net/…

Nuke is essentially a successor to Shake, which was basically a cheaper alternative to whatever Sony, Avid, and Qauntel were pushing way back when.

Natron is a node-based compositor, there have been many over the last few decades.

Another open source node-based compositor is Blender which also has an non-linear editor.

Lots of compositor customers just buy Nuke, Fusion, AE, etc to process sequences through different commercial plugins; having an open source wrapper to run and control the plugins is an excellent alternative.

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#39

Post by mathnode »

zaphar wrote: post #8

This looks superficially like Blenders Node based compositing engine. Some of their demo videos used blender as part of the pipeline. I wonder what a comparison with Blender would look like. Does it offer any value if you are already use Blender? Either way more Open Source competition in this space is a good thing. For a long time Blender was the only Video Editing software out there with any quality.

Blender is one of many node-based compositors. They became a thing in the late 90's. Everyone is just copying what nreal, Discreet, and Avid did.

Re: Natron: Open-source compositing software for Mac, Windows and Linux

#40

Post by Joeboy »

touchofevil wrote: post #28

I'm a compositor & motion graphics artist. I've never used Natron, but I've done a lot of compositing in After Effects and a little bit of compositing in Nuke (which is the industry standard for photorealistic vfx compositing). Another free compositing option is BlackMagic Fusion [0]. Fusion is a node based compositor, like Natron and Nuke. Fusion has a free version that has a few restrictions and a paid version that…

> I've always been surprised that open source software like Blender and Natron has not really caught on at studios.

Natron wasn't really even a usable piece of software until maybe a few months ago. It's making great progress, but at this point I think it's still reasonable to be nervous about relying on it for commercial work.

I think Blender is somewhat used in big studios, although mostly for its core strength of 3d modelling. Blender's compositor suffers from a lack of any kind of plug in option, so there are many things you can do in Nuke / Natron that are just impossible in Blender's compositor. It's nice to have it there, but it's not really a competitor for Nuke.

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