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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

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 is $1,000. I've always been surprised that open source software like Blender and Natron has not really caught on at studios. Nuke licenses cost between $4,000 and $8,000 per seat, plus a maintenance cost of over $1,000 per year per seat. These cost add up very quickly and vfx jobs even at big studios generally end up having a razor thin profit margin of 3-5% [1][2] So it's strange that these vfx studios haven't embraced open source software to cut costs. [0] https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion [1] https://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/about/ https://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/about/ [2] http://www.ew.com/article/2013/04/05/peter-jackson-hollywood-fx-crisis http://www.ew.com/article/2013/04/05/peter-jackson-hollywood...

FatalBaboon 10y ago
I think it is the accumulation of people not wanting to learn something new (fear of the unknown), managers not knowing about it (misaligned agendas) and executives wanting the peace of mind of knowing the job will be done (because it has been done the same way many times over). Same reasons many things in technology remain prevalent when they're the worst possible tools (allow me to only name PHP to avoid a useless war).
- touchofevil 10y ago
  Yeah, a lot of it comes down to network effects. Studios have to ramp up staff quickly, so they need to be able to find freelancers that already know the software they are using. So the studios have to use the "industry standard" software, unless they want to train artists, which wouldn't make sense since they are constantly ramping up and down their freelancer workforce. The Foundry (makers of Nuke) are surely making a tidy sum off of this situation.
berkut 10y ago
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/alembic/alembic https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenSubdiv https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenSubdiv https://github.com/imageworks/OpenShadingLanguage https://github.com/imageworks/OpenShadingLanguage https://github.com/ImageEngine/gaffer https://github.com/ImageEngine/gaffer https://github.com/dreamworksanimation/openvdb https://github.com/dreamworksanimation/openvdb https://github.com/openexr/openexr 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.
- touchofevil 10y ago
  I guess I've just always been a little surprised that studios didn't open source more of their internal software. For example, Nuke was originally internal software at Digital Domain before they sold it to The Foundry, I believe. Rhythm & Hues also has a lot of its own internal compositing and 3D applications. And Pixar's Renderman software is also not open source (I know some aspects of Renderman are open source, but the actual Pixar Renderman software is not open source). It just surprises me that more of these internal applications didn't get open sourced. Blender is a good example of one that did. While I'm sure these studios were getting an edge by having their own software in the early days of cg, now I would think the studios would actually benefit more by open sourcing their apps so that other developers can contribute to the project. And the studios that make this software might be able to cut back on their dev teams. Just something I've always wondered about.
Joeboy 10y ago
> 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.
erichocean 10y ago
> 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.
- touchofevil 10y ago
  Linux is definitely used often at studios. But I don't know of any studios in Los Angeles using Blender as their primary 3D animation application. Alembic gets used, but that's basically "glue" as another poster pointed out. Do you mean Linux when you say that OSS is pervasive at studios?

FatalBaboon 10y ago

I think it is the accumulation of people not wanting to learn something new (fear of the unknown), managers not knowing about it (misaligned agendas) and executives wanting the peace of mind of knowing the job will be done (because it has been done the same way many times over). Same reasons many things in technology remain prevalent when they're the worst possible tools (allow me to only name PHP to avoid a useless war).

touchofevil 10y ago
Yeah, a lot of it comes down to network effects. Studios have to ramp up staff quickly, so they need to be able to find freelancers that already know the software they are using. So the studios have to use the "industry standard" software, unless they want to train artists, which wouldn't make sense since they are constantly ramping up and down their freelancer workforce. The Foundry (makers of Nuke) are surely making a tidy sum off of this situation.

berkut 10y ago

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

touchofevil 10y ago
I guess I've just always been a little surprised that studios didn't open source more of their internal software. For example, Nuke was originally internal software at Digital Domain before they sold it to The Foundry, I believe. Rhythm & Hues also has a lot of its own internal compositing and 3D applications. And Pixar's Renderman software is also not open source (I know some aspects of Renderman are open source, but the actual Pixar Renderman software is not open source). It just surprises me that more of these internal applications didn't get open sourced. Blender is a good example of one that did. While I'm sure these studios were getting an edge by having their own software in the early days of cg, now I would think the studios would actually benefit more by open sourcing their apps so that other developers can contribute to the project. And the studios that make this software might be able to cut back on their dev teams. Just something I've always wondered about.

Joeboy 10y ago

> 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.

erichocean 10y ago

> 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.

touchofevil 10y ago
Linux is definitely used often at studios. But I don't know of any studios in Los Angeles using Blender as their primary 3D animation application. Alembic gets used, but that's basically "glue" as another poster pointed out. Do you mean Linux when you say that OSS is pervasive at studios?