Awesome CG / VFX Pipeline

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

Any contribution is welcome!

Digital Content Creation Software (DCCs)

2D

The Gimp - Image editor
Krita - Digital Painting
Opentoonz - Animation
Synfig - Animation
Pencil2D - Hand-drawn animation
Storyboarder - Storyboard editor
MyPaint - Painting app for artists
Inkscape - Vector graphics editor

3D

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.
ArmorPaint - Painting
AppleSeed - Physically-based global illumination rendering engine
MeshLab - System for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes

3D realtime engines

Armory - 3D Game Engine For Blender
Babylon.js - WebGL engine
Filament - PBR engine
Fusee - C# based engine
Godot - C++ based 2D/3D realtime engine (PC, console, mobile, HMTL5)
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)

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 - Video broadcast
Natron - Compositing
Shotcut - Video editing
Kdenlive - Video editing
Olive - Video editing
GStreamer - Multimedia framework
ffmpeg - A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video
DJV | Professional review software for VFX, animation, and film production

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

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

Libraries

File path

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

UI

Qt.py - Qt versions abstraction
QtWebengine - Render web content in Qt
NodeGraphQt - Node graph for Qt
Nodz - Node generator for Qt
SceneGraph - Ui for scene graph
Thonside - Python console for Qt apps
Riffle - A filesystem browser for PySide supporting sequences grouping

CG Software API

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

Geometry

Simplex - Blendshape Solver
CvWrap - Fast Maya wrap deformer
Blender Addons - Helpers for Blender
BlenderGIS - Geo data importer
Instant Meshes - Remesher
Rigify - Auto-rigging Addon for Blender
QHull - Convex hull generator
MakeHuman - Parametric human character modeling
Open3D - A Modern Library for 3D Data Processing
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
Dem Bones - A library for skinning decomposition
Quadriflow - Convert a mesh to a quadrangulation
Optimesh - Python library to optimise a triangular mesh, remesh with various algorithms
mmg - mmg is an open source software for bidimensional and tridimensional surface and volume remeshing

Colors

OpenColorIO (repo) - Unified color environment
Colour - An open-source Python package providing a comprehensive number of algorithms and datasets for colour science

Shaders

OSL - Language to manipulate shaders
Ptex - A texture mapping system developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios for production-quality rendering

File formats

Alembic - Animations
ACES - Color management
Cryptomatte - Accurate object ID mattes
MaterialX - Materials and look-dev
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
ImageMagick - Use ImageMagick to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images
OpenCV - An open source computer vision and machine learning software library
texture-synthesis - Example-based texture synthesis written in Rust
pfstools - A set of command line programs for reading, writing and manipulating high-dynamic range (HDR) images and video frames
OpenDCX (repo) - C++ extensions for OpenEXR's "deep" file format
OpenTimelineIO (repo) - Editorial timeline
USD - Scenes
AL_USDMaya - Represent Maya data in Maya, and USD data in USD
USD Manager - Program designed for lightweight browsing, managing, and editing of Universal Scene Description (USD) files
OpenVDB (repo) - Volumetric data
OpenVDB AX - Fast expression language for manipulating OpenVDB files
Field3D - An open source library for storing voxel data
Kiko - DCC-agnostic animation curves storage (works between Maya and Nuke, with more DCCs to come)

Job schedulers

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

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

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

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

Content validation

Pyblish - A Python framework that brings test-driven development to visual effects and triple-A game creation
- Blender Pyblish - Blender Addon to integrate the Pyblish framework

Docker images

Misc

WSL Distribution Switcher - Change the distro behind Windows Subsystem
Jean-Paul Start - Small (with Ansible-like syntax) launcher with GUI

Plugins

AFX - Everyday compositing for Nuke
Cmt - Various Maya tools
FTrack Hooks Set of plugins for FTrack
OnionSkinRenderer - Onion Skin Renderer for Maya
Palladio - CityEngine Plugin for Houdini
Wiretap - Manage Flame Wiretap database

IDE

PyCharm

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

SublimeText

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

vim

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

VSCode

MayaCode (repo) - Maya syntax highlighting support, along with autocomplete commands and send code to maya via command port
MayaPort (repo) - Run Maya code from VSCode
SendtoMaya - Alternative to MayaPort, serving the same purpose
MEL Language Syntax (repo) - for syntax highlighting support
VEX Language Syntax (repo) - for syntax highlighting support
Blink Script (Nuke) Language Syntax (repo) - for syntax highlighting support
Pixar USD ASCII Language Syntax (repo) - for syntax highlighting support, courtesy of the folks at Animal Logic

Databases

Graph

Relational

Document-based

Monitoring Web Services

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} 🖋