Alessandro Dalla Fontana put Natron’s tools through the paces, specifically with a demonstration showing off the RotoShapes Node and its capabilities.
[pullquote]the software has some more issue to resolve in some parts but the core is stable and the RotoShapes node is well constructed[/pullquote]Natron saw a 1.0 release recently, being an open source, cross platform, node based compositing tool which looks and operates a lot like Nuke and other industry standard systems. Natron is free to download and use, but the question may still remain, “is it a viable solution for visual effects work?”. Alessandro took a look at the question and messed around with Natron a bit to find an answer for his own edification.
Here, Alessandro shows some work done with the Natron RotoShapes Node, noting that it is a well constructed tool within the Natron framework.
Natron offers a full feature set for visual effect compositing with supporting both free and commercial OpenFX plugins, a command line tool, rotoscoping features, and an integrated tracker node.
Python scripting is next on the list for later releases as well as a dope sheet, and deep data support. To learn more or download Natron Open Source Node based Compositor, check out the project page. There is also a writeup and developer interview over at libre graphics world where there is a good discussion on Natron.
