/awesome-cg-vfx-pipeline

List of open-source technologies that help in the process of building a pipeline for CG and VFX productions

OtherNOASSERTION

Awesome CG / VFX Pipeline

All Contributors

List of open-source technologies that will help in the process of building a pipeline for CG or VFX productions.

Any contribution is welcome!

Summary

Digital Content Creation Software (DCCs)

2D

  • Cascade Image Editor - A node-based image editor with GPU-acceleration
  • Pencil2D - An easy, intuitive tool to make 2D hand-drawn animations, the best way to visualize your story
  • Inkscape - Professional quality vector graphics softwar
  • Imogen - GPU Texture generator using dear imgui for UI
  • Krita - A professional painting program
  • MyPaint - Graphics editor for digital painters with a focus on painting rather than image manipulation or post processing
  • Opentoonz - Animation production software
  • Storyboarder - Storyboard editor
  • Synfig - 2D animation software
  • TexGraph - A procedural texture creation tool that let you create textures by connecting nodes in a graph
  • The Gimp - A cross-platform image editor
  • Allusion - Allusion is a tool to help you organize your Visual Library. I'ts a complementary tool to PureRef or another Board tool, like PureRef or Kuadro - no open source software - or BeeRef.
  • BeeRef - A simple Reference Image Viewer.

3D

  • ArmorPaint - A stand-alone software designed for physically-based texture painting
  • Animation Nodes - A node based visual scripting system designed for motion graphics in Blender
  • Blender - Modeling and animation
  • Dust3D - Dust3D is brand new 3D modeling software. It lets you create watertight 3D models in seconds. Use it to speed up character modeling for games, 3D printing, and so on. Source are available on Github.
  • FragM - Mikael Hvidtfeldt Christensen's Fragmentarium fork representing a compilation of features and fixes
  • glChAoS.P - RealTime 3D Strange Attractors scout on GPU
  • Mandelbulber v2 - Mandelbulber creatively generates three-dimensional fractals
  • Mandelbulb3D - A program designed for the Windows platform, for generating 3D views of different fractals
  • MeshLab - System for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes
  • Möbius Modeller - End-user visual programming in the browser for automating complex tasks
  • Possumwood - A graph-based procedural sandbox, implementing concepts of graph-based visual programming in a simple interface
  • Sorcar - A procedural modeling node-based system which utilises Blender and its Python API to create a visual programming environment for artists and developers
  • Tissue - Blender's add-on for computational design
  • VFX Fractal Toolkit - Set of tools for generating fractal and generative art
  • Wings 3D - An advanced subdivision modeler that is both powerful and easy to use
  • Gaffer - Gaffer is a great toolbox, it's a VFX application that enables look developers, lighters, and compositors to easily build, tweak, iterate, and render scenes.
  • Nodi - Nodi is an online node-based geometry design tool, it's a web tool

3D realtime engines

  • Armory - 3D engine with Blender integration focused on portability, minimal footprint and performance
  • Babylon.js - WebGL engine
  • Bevy - A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust
  • Godot - C++ based 2D/3D realtime engine (PC, console, mobile, HMTL5)
  • Filament - PBR engine
  • Fusee - A multiplatform 3D C# realtime engine with a strong emphasis on content transformation and manipulation
  • Material Maker - A procedural materials authoring tool, based on the Godot Engine
  • Neo Axis Engine - NeoAxis Engine is an integrated development environment with built-in 3D and 2D game engine.
  • Ogre - Open source graphical rendering engine
  • Panda3d - Python based 3d Engine (PC)
  • Three.js - WebGL engine
    • Procedural GL JS - Based on Three.js, this framework is dedicated to generate a 3D Map experience on a web service.
  • Unreal Engine - C++ based 2D/3D realtime engine (PC, console, mobile, HMTL5)
  • Vengi - A C++ voxel game engine
  • Stride - Game engine dedicated tor realistic rendering and VR, develop with a C# techno.

Rendering Engines

  • AppleSeed - Physically-based global illumination rendering engine
  • Cycle - Physically based production renderer developed by the Blender project.
  • LuxCoreRender - Physically-based and unbiased rendering engine
  • Radeon ProRender Physically-based engine, product by AMD.

Photogrammetry

  • AliceVision - Photogrammetric Computer Vision Framework
  • COLMAP - A general-purpose Structure-from-Motion (SfM) and Multi-View Stereo (MVS) pipeline with a graphical and command-line interface
  • openMVG - A library for computer-vision scientists and targeted for the Multiple View Geometry community

Photography

  • Darktable - Photography workflow application and raw developer
  • dcraw - A tool that decodes any raw image from any digital camera on any computer running any operating system

Video

  • CasparCG - A Windows and Linux software used to play out professional graphics, audio and video to multiple outputs as a layerbased real-time compositor
  • DJV - Professional review software for VFX, animation, and film production
  • ffmpeg - A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video
  • qctools - A free and open source software tool that helps users analyze and understand their digitized video files through use of audiovisual analytics and filtering
  • GStreamer - Pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows
  • Kdenlive - Video editing software based on the MLT Framework, KDE and Qt
  • Olive - Non-linear video editor aiming to provide a fully-featured alternative to high-end professional video editing software
  • MediaPipe - Cross-platform, customizable ML solutions for live and streaming media
  • Natron - Open Source Compositing Software For VFX and Motion Graphics
  • Shotcut - A free, open source, cross-platform video editor

UV/Unwrap library

  • Thekla atlas | This tool performs mesh segmentation, surface parameterization, and chart packing.
  • xatlas | Fork from theakla atlas, it's a library to generate an UV for -example- lightmap uv.

Tools

A set of small tools, DCC addons, python library... to complete or add feature on DCC softwares.

  • Capsule - Blender addon to export, manage and automate to shared between blender and Unreal/Unity or other realtime engine.
  • Genetic Drawing - Python library to generate a stylised rendering from an image
  • Glsl Texture - Create textures from Glsl fragment shaders on Blender (2.8)
  • OD CopyPasteExternal - Tool to easily copy/paste a geometry across 3D application like Blender <> 3DS Max <> Maya <> ... <> and more.
  • UE4 Env. project - An Environment Simulation project for Unreal Engine 4.

Libraries

File path

  • Clique - Another Python module for file sequence parsing and formatting
  • Fileseq - Frame ranges and file sequences parsing
  • gofileseq - A Golang port of the library above
  • Lucidity - String/filepath templates system inspired by SGTK's template mechanisms
  • pyseq - Another Python module for file sequence parsing and serialization

UI

CG Software API

  • CGCmake - CMake modules for CG apps
  • Cortex - Libraries for VFX software development
  • Cross3D - Scene and node management abstraction
  • ExoCortex for Max 2018 - ExoCortex ported to Max 2018
  • mGui - Portable pure-python GUI library for Maya
  • minq - Maya query language for speeding up common scene operations
  • NXT - A layered code compositing application
  • OpenWalter - USD Plugins Arnold, Houdini, Katana, Maya and USD
  • Photoshop Python API - Python API for Photoshop.
  • Py3dsMax - 3dsMax API in Python
  • Pymiere - Python API for Premiere Pro
  • PyMEL - Python in Maya Done Right

Geometry

  • Blender Addons - Helpers for Blender
  • BlenderGIS - Geo data importer
  • CvWrap - Fast Maya wrap deformer
  • CGAL - A software project that provides easy access to efficient and reliable geometric algorithms in the form of a C++ library
  • Dem Bones - A library for skinning decomposition
  • Eigen - A C++ template library for linear algebra: matrices, vectors, numerical solvers, and related algorithms
  • MakeHuman - Parametric human character modeling
  • Open3D - A Modern Library for 3D Data Processing
  • QHull - Convex hull generator
  • libigl - A simple C++ geometry processing library
  • Instant Meshes - Remesher
  • mmg - mmg is an open source software for bidimensional and tridimensional surface and volume remeshing
  • Rigify - Auto-rigging Addon for Blender
  • PCL - A standalone, large scale, open project for 2D/3D image and point cloud processing
  • Partio - A unified interface that makes it easier to load, save, and manipulate particle files
  • OpenSubdiv - A set of open source libraries that implement high performance subdivision surface evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures
  • Optimesh - Python library to optimise a triangular mesh, remesh with various
  • Quadriflow - Convert a mesh to a quadrangulation algorithms
  • Simplex - Blendshape Solver
  • SOFA - An efficient framework dedicated to research, prototyping and development of physics-based simulations

Colors

  • Colour - An open-source Python package providing a comprehensive number of algorithms and datasets for colour science
  • OpenColorIO (repo) - Unified color environment, a complete color management solution geared towards motion picture production with an emphasis on visual effects and computer animation

Shaders

  • BRDF Explorer - The Disney BRDF Explorer is an application that allows the development and analysis of bidirectional reflectance distribution functions
  • OSL - Language to manipulate shaders
  • Ptex - A texture mapping system developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios for production-quality rendering
  • SeExpr - An embeddable, arithmetic expression language that enables flexible artistic control and customization in creating computer graphics images

File formats

  • AL_USDMaya - Represent Maya data in Maya, and USD data in USD
  • Alembic - Animations
  • Assimp - A portable Open-Source library to import various well-known 3D model formats in a uniform manner
  • ACES - Color management
  • Cryptomatte - Accurate object ID mattes
  • Field3D - An open source library for storing voxel data
  • luma_usd - Plugins for USD
  • MaterialX - Materials and look-dev
  • Kiko - DCC-agnostic animation curves storage (works between Maya and Nuke, with more DCCs to come)
  • OpenCV - An open source computer vision and machine learning software library
  • OpenDCX (repo) - C++ extensions for OpenEXR's "deep" file format
  • OpenEXR (repo) - exceptional image format for visual effects purposes, pioneered by ILM
  • OpenEXRid - Object isolation
  • OpenImageIO - A library for reading and writing images in many common and VFX related formats
  • OpenTimelineIO (repo) - Editorial timeline
  • OpenVDB (repo) - Volumetric data
  • OpenVDB AX - Fast expression language for manipulating OpenVDB files
  • ImageMagick - Use ImageMagick to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images
  • pfstools - A set of command line programs for reading, writing and manipulating high-dynamic range (HDR) images and video frames
  • texture-synthesis - Example-based texture synthesis written in Rust
  • USD - Scenes
  • usd-arnold - USD Schemas and tools for exchanging Arnold shader information between multiple 3rd party packages
  • USD Manager - Program designed for lightweight browsing, managing, and editing of Universal Scene Description (USD) files
  • usd-noodle - Pretty node graph showing dependencies of a USD file
  • UsdQt - Qt components for building custom USD tools
  • USD-URI-resolver - A generic, URI based resolver for USD, support custom plugins
  • USD Shell Extension for Windows - a full-featured Windows shell extension for giving the File Explorer support for USD thumbnails, side previews and even exposes certain deep metadata to Windows Search

Job schedulers

  • Coalition from Mercenaries Engineering (developers of Guerilla Render)
  • CGRU is a CG tools pack that includes AFANASY, a free opensource render farm manager
  • OpenCue (repo) An open source render management system from Sony Imageworks
  • Flamenco from the Blender Foundation
  • Pandora Open-Source Renderfarm-Manager
  • Plow by Chad Vernon

Package managers

Environment Manager

  • Allzpark Based on Rez manager, Allzpark can manage your software to give an specific software, really usefull with old project.

Asset managers

Production managers

  • Attract - Production tracking for film makers (Blender Foundation)
  • Kitsu - For small to mid-size studios

Content validation

  • Pyblish - A Python framework that brings test-driven development to visual effects and triple-A game creation

Docker images

Misc

Plugins

IDE

PyCharm

  • MayaCharm - Run and edit Maya scripts directly from PyCharm
  • USD - Plug-in for USD

SublimeText

  • MariSublime - Run and edit Mari scripts directly from SublimeText
  • MayaSublime - Run and edit Maya scripts directly from SublimeText
  • VEX - Houdini add-on for Sublime Text

vim

  • nuke.vim - Run and edit Nuke scripts directly from vim

VSCode

Databases

Graph

Relational

Document-based

Monitoring Web Services

Not really efficient, you can find more links on the sys admin awesome list ; on monitoring or metric collection

Communities

Resources / Tutorials

Free music for showreel

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):


Frank Rousseau
🖋
Hal
🖋
Alan Fregtman
🖋
Nikita Musatov
🖋
sreenivas alapati
🖋
Stilobique
🖋
bob-white
🖋

Vincent Lamy
🖋
Steve Theodore
🖋
Cube Creative
🖋
Toke Jepsen
🖋
Santosh Kumar
🖋
Alex Miarsky
🖋
Justin Tennant
🖋

Juraj Tomori
🖋
Kuntal Majumder
🖋
Jean-Francois Panisset
🖋
Jesse Spielman
🖋
Corentin
🖋
Savio Fernandes
🖋
Anvith Shivakumara
🖋

Antoine Boellinger
🖋
Mathieu Bouzard
🖋

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!