The story of Paris-8 University going for Krita, Blender, Natron - Open Source CG software

In the last years Blender and now Krita had evolved on a steady pace which proved to be an attractor for newcomers in CG industry.

Alexandre Prokoudine has posted an interesting article about the switch to open source software at Paris 8 University:
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/the-complete-story-of-paris-8-university-going-for-krita-blender-natron

Let's hope it will be a serious push in development and will enhance the communication between coders and artists.
It's important to have an efficient workflow and the right tools with fast results.

An experimental short film named "The Desert of Sonora" ("Le Désert Du Sonora"). 

Natron 1.0.0 stable released - free open source compositing software

The open source (node-based) compositor Natron has just seen it's official 1.0.0 stable release, and it contains a long list of improvements.
OpenFX-focused processing in a 32bit float linear color pipeline, OpenColorIO-based color management, OpenImageIO-based support for DPX, EXR, TIFF, PNG etc.
Natron has received many improvements since the last published release candidate. You can see the change-log right here or in the About window within Natron.
This is the first stable release planned to be maintained.
The quick list of new features is:

• much lower RAM footprint thanks to improved caching strategy;
• new HSVTool node for color grading in HSV or color replacement, new HSVToRGB and RGBToHSV nodes;
• new Saturation node to adjust just the color saturation;
• new DiskCache node for caching a branch of a compositing tree to disk;
• tracking is threaded now to deliver better performance.

The following features are included in the plans for Natron v1.1 and already almost implemented:

• Python 3 scripting: parameter expressions, user parameters, callbacks, groups, custom graphical user interface thanks to Pyside and overall control over the application.
• Optical flow: This will be integrated with a set of different plug-ins handling motion vectors. The motion vectors will be generated with a VectorGenerator node and used within several effects such as Motion blur or Retiming.
• ’G’mic integration: G’mic is a full featured image processing framework containing literally hundreds of effects. It will be proposed as a separate OpenFX plug-in not distributed with Natron due to license issues.

In the meantime, you can get more informations about the project and Natron more specifically in FAQ section.

Finally some videos:
Natron nodal compositing software on Ubuntu 15.04 linux


Space Moba making with Blender and Natron


Natron - Point Tracker Node

Blackmagic Design releases Fusion 7 for free

Blackmagic Design has released Fusion 7 limited edition for free.
It lacks some of advanced features like optical flow and the stereoscopic 3D toolset, along with support for OpenFX plugins, but you do get all of the keying, retiming and colour-management tools.
Network rendering is disabled, and output is limited to Ultra HD resolution, but it’s still a powerful piece of kit.
Price of the commercial edition slashed
Like DaVinci Resolve, the full version of the software – now renamed Fusion Studio – has itself been repriced at $995: a significant drop from its original $2,495, and a fraction of the cost of Nuke, its principal competitor.
In the past couple of years, Resolve has played a disruptive role in the grading market, with many smaller studios electing to build pipelines around the software instead of more expensive turnkey systems.
The parallels aren’t exact: although price is a common complaint for freelancers, Nuke is a fraction of the cost of a Quantel or SGO system, and The Foundry is taking steps to make it more accessible to students.
But still, making a powerful, movie-capable 3D compositing package available for under $1,000 is bound to shake up the market – as is making a version of that package available for free to students and freelancers.
It will be fascinating to see where Blackmagic takes Fusion next – and how The Foundry responds.
See a comparison chart for the free and $995 editions of Fusion 7
Download the free edition of Fusion 7 (Windows only)

Download HitFilm 2 Express for free - video editing, compositing and effects package

FXhome is making HitFilm 2 Express (Windows and Mac), its powerful editing, compositing and effects package, available for free. You need to sign up for its newsletters and spread word of the offer on social media.
The software, which usually costs $149, includes features more commonly found in more expensive tools, including 3D compositing, 2D tracking, image stabilisation and basic particle effects.

HitFilm 2 Ultimate (upgrade for $201.75) offers support for: 4K footage, 3D tracking, 3D particle simulation, and more advanced colour correction tools.

Download link available until 4 February 2014: https://hitfilm.com/express/free



Video editing in HitFilm:


How do the HitFilm products compare?

	HitFilm Standard	HitFilm 2 Express	HitFilm 2 Ultimate
Full price	-	-	$299
Upgrade price	-	-	from $126.75
Editing tools	Basic	Advanced	Advanced
Keying & extraction	Basic	Basic	Advanced
True 3D compositing
2D track & stabilize
Work with real 3D objects
Advanced 3D particle simulation
3D camera tracking with mocha HitFilm
Lights, shadows, motion blur and depth of field
Grunge effects	Flicker, Grain, Jitter, Noise, Stutter	Flicker, Grain, Jitter, Noise, Shake, Stutter	Film damage, Flicker, Grain, Half tone, Half tone color, Jitter, Lens dirt, Noise, Scan lines, Shake, Stutter, TV damage
Particle & simulation effects	Gunfire	Blood spray, Gunfire, Lightning & Electricty	Atomic particles, Blood spray, Fire, Gunfire, Lightning & Electricity, Particle simulator, Shatter
Number of effects	91	103	158
Temporal effects and optical flow motion blur
Color correction	Basic	Basic	Advanced
No plug-ins required
Integrated YouTube export
GPU accelerated
Resolution support	HD 1080p	HD 1080p	HD 1080p & 4K
Number of concurrent installations	1	1	3
Helpful support & free training videos
1 year of support from purchase