Open-source video compositing software. Node-graph based. Similar in functionalities to Adobe After Effects and Nuke by The Foundry.
Natron is a free, open-source video compositing software designed for professional-grade visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing tasks. It provides a node-based workflow, enabling users to create complex effects by connecting individual operations in a graph. Natron is similar in functionality to Adobe After Effects and Foundry's Nuke but offers an open-source alternative with cross-platform support for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Key Features:
Node-based compositing environment for intuitive effect creation.
Integration with OpenColorIO for accurate color management.
Support for a wide range of image formats, including EXR, PNG, and video codecs via FFmpeg.
Compatibility with OpenFX plugins, allowing users to extend functionality with third-party tools.
Real-time feedback in the viewer for immediate results during compositing.
Multi-threaded rendering for efficient performance on modern hardware.
Python scripting support for automation and customization.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for visual effects artists, motion graphic designers, and compositors seeking a flexible, cost-effective solution. Natron enables users to create high-quality animations and effects with precise control over every aspect of the workflow, while its open-source nature allows for extensive customization and integration into existing pipelines.
Natron can be installed via winget, making it easy to integrate into your development environment.
README
Natron
Natron is a free open-source (GPLv2 license) video compositing
software, similar in functionality to Adobe After Effects, Nuke by The
Foundry, or Blackmagic Fusion.
It is portable and cross-platform (GNU/Linux, OS X, Microsoft Windows).
And many more. Please tell us if you successfully tested other commercial plugins.
OpenFX: Currently almost all features of OpenFX v1.4 are supported
Intuitive user interface: Natron aims not to break habits by providing an intuitive and familiar user
interface. It is possible to customize and separate the graphical user interface on any number of screens.
You can re-use your layouts and share your layout files (.nl).
Performance: Never wait for anything to be rendered. In Natron, anything you do produces
real-time feedback thanks to its optimised multi-threaded rendering pipeline and its support for proxy rendering (i.e the render pipeline can be computed at lower res to speed-up rendering).
Multi-task: Natron can render multiple graphs at the same time. It can also be used
as a background process in command-line mode without any display support (e.g. for render farm purpose).
Recover easily from bugs: Natron sometimes crashes. Fear not, an auto-save system
detects inactivity and saves your work for yourself. Also Natron provides the option to render
a graph in a separate process, meaning that any crash in the main application
would not crash the ongoing render (and the other way around).
Project format written in XML and easily editable by humans.
Fast & interactive Viewer - Smooth & accurate zooming/panning even for very large image sizes
(tested on 27k x 30k images).
Real-time playback: Natron offers a real-time playback with best performances thanks to its
RAM/Disk cache technology. Once a frame is rendered, it can be reproduced instantly afterwards, even
for large image sizes.
Low hardware requirements: All you need is an x86 64 bits or 32 bits processor, at least
3 GB of RAM and a graphic card that supports OpenGL 2.0 or OpenGL 1.5 with some extensions.
Animate your visual effects: Natron offers a simple and efficient way to deal with keyframes
with a very accurate and intuitive Curve Editor as well as a Dope Sheet to quickly edit your motion graphics.
Command line tool for execution of project files. The command line version is executable
on a computer without any display. Hence it is possible to use a render farm
to render Natron's projects.
Rotoscoping, rotopainting and tracking support
Multi-view workflow: Natron saves time by keeping all the views in the same stream. You can separate
the views at any time with the OneView node.
Python 2 scripting integration:
Parameters expressions
User-defined parameters
Nodes groups as Python scripts
Script editor to control the application overall
User-defined python callbacks to respond to particular checkpoints of the internals of the software (change of a parameter, before rendering a frame, etc…)
Integration of Pyside to the GUI so that the interface is extensible with new menus and windows
Multi-plane: Natron is able to deal with multi-layered EXR files thanks to OpenImageIO. It is deeply integrated into the workflow and the user can choose to work with any layer (or plane) on any node. New custom layers can also be created.
Requirements
A machine running one of the supported operating systems (GNU/Linux, OS X,
Microsoft Windows), and a 32-bits x86 or 64-bits x86-64 processor.
An OpenGL 2.0 compatible graphics card is needed to run Natron (2.1+) with hardware-accelerated rendering. Other graphics cards work with software-only rendering (see below).
The following graphics cards are supported for hardware-accelerated rendering:
Intel GMA 3150 (Linux-only)
Intel GMA X3xxx (Linux-only)
Intel GMA X4xxx (Windows 7 & Linux)
Intel HD (Ironlake) (Windows 7 & Linux)
Intel HD 2000/3000 (Sandy Bridge) (Windows 7/Linux/Mac)
Intel HD 4000 and greater (All platforms)
Nvidia GeForce 6 series and greater
Nvidia Quadro FX and greater
Nvidia Quadro NVS 285 and greater
ATI/AMD Radeon R300 and greater
ATI/AMD FireGL T2-64 and greater (FirePro)
On Windows and Linux you can enable software rendering. On Linux, enable the environment variable LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 before running Natron. On Windows, enable the legacy hardware package in the installer.
Installing
Binary distribution
Standalone binary distributions of Natron are available for GNU/Linux,
Windows and macOS from SourceForge (releases and examples only) or from the Natron web site. These distributions contain Natron and three basic sets of OpenFX plugins:
For each architecture / operating system, you can either download a stable release, a release candidate (if available), or one of the latest snapshots. Note that snapshots contain the latest features and bug fixes, but may be unstable.
Building and installing from source
There are instructions for building Natron and the basic plugins from source is this directory on various architectures / operating systems:
This documentation may be slightly outdated, so do not hesitate to submit updated build instructions, especially for the various GNU/Linux distributions.
You should start contributing to the Natron project by first picking an easy task, and then gradually taking more difficult tasks. Here are a few sample tasks, by order of difficulty (from 0 to 10):
4: write an OpenFX plugin, starting from an example in openfx-misc or from the official OpenFX examples, for example try to make an OpenFX plugin from a widely-used PyPlug. There are a few OFX plugin developers in the community.
5: build Natron locally (on any system)
7: compile a redistributable Natron binary (Linux is easier, since we build and ship most dependencies using the build scripts)
The main development branch is called
"master".
The stable version is on branch "RB-2".
Additionally each stable release supported has a branch on its own.
For example the stable release of the v1.0. and all its bug fixes should go into that
branch.
At some point, version which are no longer supported will get removed from github's branches
and only a release tag will be available to get the source code at that point.
Feel free to report bugs, discuss tasks, or pick up work there. If you want to make
changes, please fork, edit, and send us a pull
request,
preferably on the "RB-2.3"
branch.
There's a .git-hooks directory in the root. This contains a pre-commit
hook that verifies code styling before accepting changes. You can add this to
your local repository's .git/hooks/ directory like:
Pull requests that don't match the project code style are still likely to be
accepted after manually formatting and amending your changeset. The formatting
tool (astyle) is completely automated; please try to use it.
