Hi,
As great as Natron currently is, I think it lacks the most important function, which are projections. Projections can be used not only for creating cool 2.5D animations, but also set extensions, paint and cleanup, stabilization, speeding up roto workflow, etc. Countless possibilities.
Would it be possible to implement a basic 3D environment, with cameras (importing alembic) and basic card geometry, and a projection tool, as a starter? I’m willing to sponsor such development.
Lukas
Hey,
Since I’ve already explained the development situation in my reply to your other post, I won’t do that here again. But I recommend using Blender for this if you need this feature urgently.
A 3D workspace is no small task to develop and requires a lot of planning in advance and a lot of full time programming work (think months of planning and more months of actual development) to successfully achieve. We have been considering this for quite some time and there have been many discussions about it before and the conclusion is always: in the current state of development, it is a lost cause to even think about it. Unless new developers join and actually commit to the project, it’s not going anywhere near that goal.
But blender is already there and has the tools required to do all that you mentioned. So if you have an urgent requirement, then use blender. If there’s no requirement and you’re simply being generous, thank you but financing isn’t the first step to solving Natron’s development problem.
Thanks again for a reply and explaining the situation 
I’m aware that this would not be a small task. But to be considered for professional use Natron just needs this functionality.
It’s not a matter of urgency and using Blender for this is not a solution. First of all compositing artists don’t know Blender. Secondly, projections in Blender are not even close to the functionality offered by Nuke. Also jumping back and forth from Natron to Blender to fix something would be counterproductive.
I’m running a VFX studio and I’m simply getting tired with Foundry’s abusive licensing and pricing of Nuke. They have no competition so they do what they want. My motivation here would be to support a long term development of an alternative software, which we could eventually use to replace Nuke. And Natron definitely has a good starting position.
I’ve been through the same things when I was running a studio back in 2019 (long story short, covid f’ed us). We got tired of Nuke and switched to Natron and Fusion. We used Natron for tasks that needed only 2D stuff and Fusion when we needed 3D/projection tools. We used Natron because compers who were used to Nuke didn’t need to go through a big transition. I was going to hire developers for Natron and a Blender fork as soon as got the financial capability but with Covid happening I had to choose between that and other things to keep the studio alive (remote workflow and shit)… We went out of business regardless, three months into Covid.
I understand that going back and forth between Blender and Natron is counterproductive, and Blender is very ass backwards with regards to the workflow and UX. I was under the assumption that you needed this toolset urgently; since that’s not the case, we can put this to rest.
Also agreed that Natron needs this festureset. But as things stand currently there is very less that we can do. Development is still happening at a very slow pace. Small changes, bug fixes, backend compatibility, security fixes and stuff are being done now and then, and for now that’s enough… Until we get real developers working full time, no big features are going to happen…
Natron is in maintenance mode, has been for years. Don’t expect any new features.
You are better of using Fusion.
But the development will continue?
i am new here and i was wondering if natron development is still alive?
See above:
thank you