Gaffer – node-based VFX look development and production application

Gaffer is a node-based VFX application for building, modifying, lighting and rendering complex scenes.

It addresses look development and production automation rather than conventional hand-painted texture creation: artists and technical directors construct graphs that describe scene assembly, shaders, lights, render settings and image processing. A multithreaded deferred-evaluation engine calculates only the data needed for the current view or output, which helps the same graph scale from interactive work to final delivery. Gaffer also serves as an application framework, allowing studios to create custom nodes, interfaces and pipeline tools with C++ and Python.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

• Builds non-destructive workflows from scene, image, shader, render and task nodes.
• Inspects scene hierarchies and attributes through a dedicated Scene Graph and interactive Viewer.
• Reads production scene data and assembles assets, cameras, lights and sets into larger scenes.
• Creates look-development networks with shader assignments, attributes, light linking and render options.
• Supports Open Shading Language for designing and evaluating portable shader networks.
• Ships with Cycles integration and can be built with Arnold or 3Delight support.
• Processes and composites images with colour-management, filtering, grading and channel tools.
• Uses contexts, variables and spreadsheets to create controlled variations without duplicating graphs.
• Packages reusable graph sections as boxes and references for sharing between shots and artists.
• Provides Python expressions, application scripting and APIs for pipeline automation.
• Dispatches task graphs locally and can be integrated with studio render-farm systems.
• Evaluates graphs lazily and across multiple threads to avoid unnecessary recalculation.

Website: github.com/GafferHQ/gaffer
Support:
Developer: Gaffer developers
License: BSD 3-Clause “New” or “Revised” License

Gaffer is written in C++ and Python. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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