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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

#41

Post by Joeboy »

tjl wrote: post #35
Joeboy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I tried maybe a dozen FOSS NLEs before finding Blender. Many, many years ago I used Premier.

The other big node-based thing is audio synthesis / effects, for example Pure Data. As far as I know these are the only areas where dataflow programming has really taken off.

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

#42

Post by taspeotis »

LinuxFreedom wrote: post #12
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/…

The non-commercial version is a crippled trialware. Also you will get bitten very aggressively if you built your project in the first phase in a non-commercial version and some time later manage to get funding and want to import your work into a commercially licensed version - import will not work. Especially this looks like a proactive attempt to harm people - potential customers! - very stupid idea. It is the same…

> Also you will get bitten very aggressively if you built your project in the first phase in a non-commercial version and some time later manage to get funding and want to import your work into a commercially licensed version - import will not work.

Qt has a somewhat similar provision in their licenses [1]. Personally I think it's acceptable, but walking a fine line. It's an attempt to make sure users can't skirt paying for a commercial license if they are, indeed, commercial.

I would hope that if you contacted their customer support and politely explain how your project was using the free license in the spirit it was intended to be used, they would allow imports from the free version, say as a once-off when you purchase the licenses.

[1] http://www.qt.io/faq/#_Toc453700698

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

#43

Post by johnsea »

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.

I used kdenlive 2 months ago. Worked very nice and was very useable (for someone without much video knowhow). There were some occasional crashes but thanks to autosaving this was not a big issue - but of course crashes should be fixed)

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

#44

Post by quadrangle »

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.

Yeah, well, I'm not going to feed the cynicism by claiming that the FLO editors are on par with proprietary ones. I will say that Kdenlive is orders of magnitude more powerful and usable than whatever there was several years ago, and Openshot 2 looks to be a massive improvement (complete rewrite) over Openshot 1

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

#45

Post by tjl »

Joeboy wrote: post #41
tjl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I tried maybe a dozen FOSS NLEs before finding Blender. Many, many years ago I used Premier. The other big node-based thing is audio synthesis / effects, for example Pure Data. As far as I know these are the only areas where dataflow programming has really taken off.

LabView is node-based. It's extremely popular (and quite old).

http://www.ni.com/labview/

Matlab's Simulink is also node-based (probably because of LabView). It's also widely used.

http://www.mathworks.com/products/simulink/

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

#46

Post by dr_zoidberg »

Joeboy wrote: post #16
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?

> they require you to register to download any version The source is on Github and is GPL. If they didn't provide the additional option of registering to download a binary, you probably wouldn't complain.

I complain because they used to offer unencumbered binaries, and now they don't. I complaing about the change of policy, not just the new policy.

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

#47

Post by bsenftner »

lcrs wrote: post #27
jscheel wrote: post #6

Huh, guess I can stop keeping my really old copy of Shake around. Was so bummed when Apple canceled that.

Shake is more complete than Natron still - and some parts of Shake are still world class, the spline-based warping for example is still on par with Nuke and Flame, and the included versions of Keylight and Primatte haven't been hugely improved on since. And Smoothcam is super handy. I have had to take increasingly drastic measures to keep it running on modern Linuxes though, and on OS X it sadly now seems impossible…

I never understood why Apple ruined Shake. I'm friends with Shake's developer too, but he never discusses it. He got paid, is what I figure.

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

#48

Post by [deleted] »

lcrs wrote: post #27
jscheel wrote: post #6

Huh, guess I can stop keeping my really old copy of Shake around. Was so bummed when Apple canceled that.

Shake is more complete than Natron still - and some parts of Shake are still world class, the spline-based warping for example is still on par with Nuke and Flame, and the included versions of Keylight and Primatte haven't been hugely improved on since. And Smoothcam is super handy. I have had to take increasingly drastic measures to keep it running on modern Linuxes though, and on OS X it sadly now seems impossible…

[deleted]

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

#49

Post by erichocean »

It's worth noting that Natron uses a number of very high-quality open source projects under the hood, including OpenImageIO[0] and OpenColorIO[1]. Many of them (unlike Natron) have a commercial-friendly BSD-like open source license.

[0] https://sites.google.com/site/openimageio/home

[1] http://opencolorio.org/

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

#50

Post by erichocean »

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…

> So it's strange that these vfx studios haven't embraced open source software to cut costs.

Open source is pervasive at visual effects studios. I'm not sure where you're getting your information.

Also, studios don't pay anywhere close to list price for Nuke licenses. That's for the little guys.

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