FAQ

Can I use Natron for commercial work?

Yes. Anything you create with Natron is yours and you’re free to do anything you want with it.

What operating systems are supported by Natron?

Natron officially supports:

  • Windows 7, 8 and 10 with latest service packs.
  • MacOSX 10.6 or greater
  • Linux 2.6.18 or greater (Glibc 2.12+/libgcc 4.4+)

Why did you make Natron free of charge?

Our original motives were to create a tool for people who needed it and that may felt left-aside by the software editors pricing plans, that is:

  • Students who want to learn compositing at home
  • Schools that may not be able to buy expensive software licenses

Another reason why Natron was developped mainly at INRIA is because a compositing software is a playground that enables scientists in computer vision/graphics to develop, test exchange and publish results easily on such platform.

One great mission of a free open-source software is to aim to create common practises so everyone can benefit of it.

On the other hand, being free of charge, Natron can be installed on large-scale render farms without wondering about licensing issues.

What is OpenFX?

OpenFX is a standard for creating visual effects plug-ins for compositing and editor applications.

As of today several applications are compatible with this plug-in format: (meaning you can use the same plug-ins in all of them)

  • Nuke 5.1+, by The Foundry
  • Vegas 10+, by Sony
  • SCRATCH 6.1+, by Assimilate
  • Fusion 5.1+, by Blackmagic Design (formerly by eyeon)
  • DaVinci Resolve 10+, by Blackmagic Design
  • DustBuster+ 4.5+, by HS-ART
  • Baselight 2.2+ by FilmLight
  • Nucoda Film Master 2011.2.058+
  • SGO Mistika 6.5.35+
  • Autodesk Toxik 2009+
  • Avid DS 10.3+
  • Natron
  • ButtleOFX
  • TuttleOFX

Can I use commercial and proprietary plug-ins within Natron?

Yes. Natron doesn’t limit you to open-source plug-ins.

Is my graphics card supported?

An OpenGL 2.0 compatible graphics card is needed to run Natron (2.1+) with hardware-accelerated rendering. Other graphics cards work with software-only rendering (see below).

The following graphics cards are supported for hardware-accelerated rendering:

  • Intel GMA 3150 (Linux-only)
  • Intel GMA X3xxx (Linux-only)
  • Intel GMA X4xxx (Windows 7 & Linux)
  • Intel HD (Ironlake) (Windows 7 & Linux)
  • Intel HD 2000/3000 (Sandy Bridge) (Windows 7/Linux/Mac)
  • Intel HD 4000 and greater (All platforms)
  • Nvidia GeForce 6 series and greater
  • Nvidia Quadro FX and greater
  • Nvidia Quadro NVS 285 and greater
  • ATI/AMD Radeon R300 and greater
  • ATI/AMD FireGL T2-64 and greater (FirePro)

Cards not listed here will probably not support hardware-accelerated rendering.

On Windows and Linux you can enable software rendering. On Linux, enable the environment variable LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 before running Natron. On Windows, enable the legacy hardware package in the installer.