Tools, Pipeline & Utilities

• Miscellaneous 3D Tools & Utilities

  • Mandelbulb3D (thargor6 fork) - also">See also: <a href="#3d-software-free">Software Reference → 3D Software: Free</a></small> | | Open Source | Fractals · Windows | |
  • Massive Software - also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Paid | Crowds · Pro | Crowd simulation |
  • MeshLab - source mesh processing, essential for photogrammetry cleanup.<br><small class="see-also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Open Source | Mesh Processing · Photogrammetry | Mesh processing |
  • OBS Studio - also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Open Source | Recording · Streaming | Screen recording, streaming |
  • Photopea - based Photoshop alternative with full PSD support.<br><small class="see-also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Free | PSD · Browser | Quick PSD editing |
  • Pixie - like interface.<br><small class="see-also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Open Source | RenderMan-like · Renderer | |
  • Plasticity (site) - style modeling with artist-friendly UX.<br><small class="see-also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Paid | CAD-style · Artist UX | CAD-style modeling for artists |
  • PureRef - standard reference board tool.<br><small class="see-also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | Pay what you want | Freemium | Industry Standard · PWYW | Reference board |
  • ShareX - also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Open Source | Screen Capture · Windows | Screen capture, annotation |
  • Storm HydroFX - also">See also: <a href="#misc-3d-utilities-software">Software Reference → Misc 3D Utilities Software</a></small> | | Paid | Fluids · FX | Fluid simulation |
  • City Roads
  • DEM Net Elevation API C#
  • emojillate
  • Graphtoy
  • HDRI To Cube Map
  • Jsplacement
  • Math for Motion
  • Penzil
  • Sorcar - based system which uses Blender and its Python API to create a visual programming environment for artists and developers
  • Sprite Stacker - 3D sprite stacks from pixel art with integrated voxel editor (Godot-based, pre-1.0).
  • SunCalc
  • Tangram Heightmapper
  • Texture Extractor - based, pre-1.0).
  • VFX Camera Database
  • WebGL Texture Tester
  • RedKetchup Twitter Downloader
  • Wumbo Math Glossary

• Photogrammetry & 3D Scanning

  • Artec Studio
  • Autodesk ReCap Pro
  • Depthkit - sensor volumetric capture toolkit. | | Paid | Depth Sensor · Volumetric | Depth-sensor volumetric capture |
  • FARO SCENE
  • Geomagic Wrap
  • HDR Light Studio
  • Hugin
  • Leica Cyclone
  • Luminance HDR - platform OSS HDR merge and tonemap. | | Open Source | Open Source · Tonemap | Open-source HDR merge/tonemap |
  • OpenDroneMap / WebODM
  • Picturenaut
  • Pix4D
  • PTGui Pro - standard panorama stitcher. Full HDR/bracketed support, mask painting, viewpoint correction. | ~€169 PTGui, ~€339 Pro | Paid | Industry Standard · HDR Stitcher | Pro panorama stitching for HDRI |
  • Trimble RealWorks - grade point cloud registration and modeling. | | Paid | Trimble · Survey | Survey-grade scan processing |
  • 360 Gaussian Splatting
  • 3D Gaussian Splatting (joeyan reimpl)
  • 3D Gaussian Splatting (WangFeng18 reimpl)
  • 3D in Geospatial: NeRFs, Gaussian Splatting, and Spatial Computing
  • 3D Neural Scene Representations for Visuomotor Control - dy.txt)
  • 4DViews - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Volumetric capture stages and HOLOSYS rigs.
  • A Higher-Dimensional Representation for Topologically Varying Neural Radiance Fields
  • AligNeRF: High-Fidelity Neural Radiance Fields via Alignment-Aware Training
  • Animatable Neural Radiance Fields for Modeling Dynamic Human Bodies - --Peng21arxiv_animatable_nerf-->
  • AutoInt: Automatic Integration for Fast Neural Volume Rendering - imaging/automatic-integration) | [bibtex](./NeRF-and-Beyond.bib#L127-L133) <!---Lindell20arxiv_AutoInt-->
  • Awesome-3DGS Paper List
  • Block-NeRF: Scalable Large Scene Neural View Synthesis - NeRF.txt)
  • Book: High Dynamic Range Imaging (Reinhard et al.) - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Reinhard, Heidrich, Debevec, Pattanaik, Ward, Myszkowski. The reference text on HDR imaging.
  • Book: The HDRI Handbook 2.0 - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Christian Bloch. Practical HDRI for VFX/photo, paired with sIBL.
  • CLIP-NeRF: Text-and-Image Driven Manipulation of Neural Radiance Fields
  • CodeNeRF: Disentangled Neural Radiance Fields for Object Categories
  • Color-NeRF - hidden="true">🌐</span> Project Page](https://liquidammonia.github.io/color-nerf/)
  • Compressing Gaussian Splats
  • CyArk
  • D-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Dynamic Scenes - NeRF) | [bibtex](./NeRF-and-Beyond.bib#L214-L220) <!---Pumarola20arxiv_D_NeRF-->
  • Deformable Neural Radiance Fields - and-Beyond.bib#L206-L212) <!---Park20arxiv_nerfies-->
  • DFNet: Enhance Absolute Pose Regression with Direct Feature Matching - NeRF/blob/main/citations/dfnet.txt)
  • Direct Gaussian Style Optimization (DGSO): Stylizing 3D Gaussian Splats
  • DONeRF: Towards Real-Time Rendering of Compact Neural Radiance Fields using Depth Oracle Networks - --neff2021donerf-->
  • Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstruction - Facial-Avatars) | [bibtex](./NeRF-and-Beyond.bib#L87-L93) <!---Gafni20arxiv_DNRF-->
  • Editable Free-viewpoint Video Using a Layered Neural Representation - nerf) | [bibtex](./citations/st-nerf.txt)
  • Editing Conditional Radiance Fields
  • Eisko - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Digital human scanning and asset service.
  • ENeRF: Efficient Neural Radiance Fields for Interactive Free-viewpoint Video
  • FiG-NeRF: Figure Ground Neural Radiance Fields for 3D Object Category Modelling - nerf.txt)
  • Gaussian Splats Town Hall - Part 2 - Part 2.
  • Gaussian Splatting 3D
  • Gaussian Splatting is pretty cool
  • Gaussian Splatting Lightning
  • Greg Zaal: Shoot Your Own HDRI - to-end DSLR HDRI capture tutorial for Blender (Blender Guru).
  • Ha-NeRF: Hallucinated Neural Radiance Fields in the Wild - xingyu/Ha-NeRF) | [bibtex](./citations/Ha-NeRF.txt) <!---chen2021hallucinated-->
  • HDR Labs / sIBL
  • HumanNeRF: Free-viewpoint Rendering of Moving People from Monocular Video
  • In-Place Scene Labelling and Understanding with Implicit Scene Representation - nerf.txt)
  • Infinite-Realities (Triple-I) - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Photogrammetry and light-stage rentals for film and games.
  • InfNeRF: Towards Infinite Scale NeRF Rendering with O(log n) Space Complexity - sg/InfNeRF) | [bibtex](./citations/InfNeRF.txt)
  • Intro to gaussian splatting (and Unity plugin)
  • Jax Ne RF - NeRF/blob/main/NeRF-and-Beyond.bib#L55-L60)
  • L2G-NeRF: Local-to-Global Registration for Bundle-Adjusting Neural Radiance Fields - xingyu/L2G-NeRF) | [bibtex](./citations/L2G-NeRF.txt)
  • Learning Compositional Radiance Fields of Dynamic Human Heads - nerf.txt) <!---Wang20arxiv_hybrid_NeRF-->
  • Light Probe Image Gallery - ball HDR probes (Grace Cathedral, Uffizi, etc.). Still used in IBL teaching.
  • Making Gaussian Splats more smaller
  • Making Gaussian Splats smaller
  • Meshroom
  • Metastage - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. LA volumetric capture studio using Microsoft tech.
  • MINE: Towards Continuous Depth MPI with NeRF for Novel View Synthesis
  • Mip Ne RF
  • Mip-NeRF 360: Unbounded Anti-Aliased Neural Radiance Fields - nerf-360.txt)
  • Mip-NeRF: A Multiscale Representation for Anti-Aliasing Neural Radiance Fields
  • Mr Ne RF
  • MVSNeRF: Fast Generalizable Radiance Field Reconstruction from Multi-View Stereo
  • Ne RF Py Torch - Chen Lin, 2020 | [bibtex](./citations/pytorch-nerf.txt)
  • Ne RF Py Torch Lighting
  • Ne RF W
  • NeRF - and-Beyond.bib#L168-L173)
  • NeRF (paper site) - and-Beyond.bib#L168-L173) <!---Mildenhall20eccv_nerf-->
  • NeRF in the Dark: High Dynamic Range View Synthesis from Noisy Raw Images
  • NeRF in the Wild: Neural Radiance Fields for Unconstrained Photo Collections - Brualla et al., CVPR 2021 | [bibtex](./NeRF-and-Beyond.bib#L152-L158) <!---MartinBrualla20arxiv_nerfw-->
  • NeRF-In: Free-Form NeRF Inpainting with RGB-D Priors - in.txt)
  • NeRF-SOS: Any-view Self-supervised Object Segmentation on Complex Real-world Scenes - SOS.txt)
  • NerfingMVS: Guided Optimization of Neural Radiance Fields for Indoor Multi-view Stereo
  • Nerfstudio gsplat - 2.0 | Integration with Nerfstudio |
  • Nerfstudio Unofficial
  • Neural Radiance Flow for 4D View Synthesis and Video Processing - and-Beyond.bib#L79-L85) <!---Du20arxiv_nerflow-->
  • Neural Refinement for Absolute Pose Regression with Feature Synthesis - NeRF/blob/main/citations/nefes.txt)
  • Neural Rendering (YouTube)
  • Neural Scene Flow Fields for Space-Time View Synthesis of Dynamic Scenes - Scene-Flow-Fields) | [bibtex](./NeRF-and-Beyond.bib#L119-L125) <!---Li20arxiv_nsff-->
  • Neural Sparse Voxel Fields - and-Beyond.bib#L135-L141) <!---Liu20neurips_sparse_nerf-->
  • NoPe-NeRF: Optimising Neural Radiance Field with No Pose Prior - nerf) | [bibtex](https://github.com/yenchenlin/awesome-NeRF/blob/main/citations/nope-nerf.txt)
  • Open Heritage 3D
  • openMVG - vision scientists targeted for the Multiple View Geometry community.
  • Paul Debevec - from-bracketed papers, Light Probe Image Gallery, Light Stage research history.
  • Photogrammetry Guide
  • Photogrammetry Importer
  • pi-GAN: Periodic Implicit Generative Adversarial Networks for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis - and-Beyond.bib#L24-L30) <!---Chan20arxiv_piGAN-->
  • Point-NeRF: Point-based Neural Radiance Fields - NeRF.txt)
  • Polyscope
  • PoRF: Pose Residual Field for Accurate Neural Surface Reconstruction - NeRF/blob/main/citations/porf.txt)
  • Portrait Neural Radiance Fields from a Single Image - and-Beyond.bib#L95-L101) <!---Gao20arxiv_pNeRF-->
  • Putting NeRF on a Diet: Semantically Consistent Few-Shot View Synthesis
  • Recovering HDR Radiance Maps (Debevec & Malik, 1997) - from-bracketed-exposures recovery method.
  • Rendering Synthetic Objects into Real Scenes (Debevec, 1998) - based lighting.
  • Self-Calibrating Neural Radiance Fields - CVLab/SCNeRF) | [bibtex](https://github.com/yenchenlin/awesome-NeRF/blob/main/citations/SCNeRF.txt)
  • SinNeRF: Training Neural Radiance Fields on Complex Scenes from a Single Image - Group/SinNeRF) | [bibtex](./citations/SinNeRF.txt)
  • Space-time Neural Irradiance Fields for Free-Viewpoint Video - and-Beyond.bib#L299-L305) <!---Xian20arxiv_stnif-->
  • Stanford Digital Michelangelo - statue laser scanning project (Marc Levoy).
  • SuperSplat - based tool for inspecting, editing, optimizing and publishing 3D Gaussian Splats.
  • Ten24 - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Full-body photogrammetry rig services for games and film.
  • USC ICT Graphics Lab - human capture papers.
  • Volucap - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Babelsberg volumetric video studio.
  • HDR Shop

• Pipeline Overview

  • Architecture Pipeline - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Primary software. 3ds Max, SketchUp, Revit. Key considerations. Accuracy, real-world scale.
  • Motion Graphics Pipeline - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Primary software. Cinema 4D, After Effects. Key considerations. Stylized looks, fast iteration.
  • Product Design Pipeline - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Primary software. Fusion 360, SolidWorks, KeyShot. Key considerations. Manufacturing.
  • Connecter
  • DJV
  • f3d
  • glb.gallery
  • mrViewer
  • OpenEXR Viewer
  • XnView MP
  • 5th Kind CORE - film production mgmt |
  • Anchorpoint - friendly VCS frontend |
  • Autodesk Flow Capture - set dailies platform (formerly Moxion). | | Paid | On-Set Dailies · Was Moxion | On-set dailies |
  • AYON (Ynput) - source VFX/animation pipeline platform; successor to OpenPype (archived). | | Open Source | Open Pipeline · VFX Studio | Open-source studio pipeline |
  • Cerebro - origin production tracker with built-in messenger and review. | | Paid | Tracker + Chat · Studio Tool | Tracker + messenger combo |
  • Cinesync
  • Colorfront - set dailies and transcode platform used on major features. | | Paid | On-Set Dailies · Feature Films | On-set dailies + transcode |
  • Deadline (AWS Thinkbox) - prem render farm management |
  • Diversion
  • Filestage - format creative review |
  • FilmLight Daylight
  • Flow Production Tracking (Autodesk)
  • Frame.io - owned review and collaboration platform for video and motion teams. | Free / from $15/mo | Freemium | Adobe · Cloud Review | Cloud review/approval |
  • Golaem (Autodesk)
  • Hansoft (Perforce)
  • Massive - driven crowd simulation pioneered on Lord of the Rings; Massive Prime + plugins for Maya/Max. | | Paid | Industry Standard · Crowd Sim | Feature-film crowd simulation |
  • Ornatrix (Ephere) - Host | Cross-host grooming |
  • Royal Render - node render farm manager for VFX/animation pipelines. | | Paid | Render Farm · Studio | Studio render farm management |
  • RV (Autodesk/Tweak) - sequence review/playback |
  • Snowtrack - like version control aimed at artists. | | Free | Beta · Artist VCS | Lightweight artist VCS |
  • Sohonet ClearView Flex - latency remote color/review streaming for distributed post. | | Paid | Remote Color · Streaming | Remote color/review streaming |
  • SyncSketch - based review and annotation for animation and VFX. | Free / from $17/mo | Freemium | Autodesk · Browser Review | Browser review/annotate |
  • Tractor (Pixar) - centric farm dispatch |
  • Yeti (Peregrine Labs)
  • VNyan
  • OpenRV - source media review and playback player. Foundation of Autodesk RV, donated to ASWF. | Open Source | Review Player · ASWF | Sequence review, dailies playback |
  • xStudio - source playback and review tool by DNEG. Notes, sessions, and pipeline integration for dailies. | Open Source | Review Player · ASWF | Dailies review, annotation |
  • DoTracking

• Pipeline Standards

  • ACES 2.0
  • Alembic
  • MaterialX (GitHub) - dev.
  • MaterialX (site)
  • MDL
  • Open Image IO - related formats.
  • OpenPBR - shader for PBR (Autodesk + Adobe).
  • OpenTimelineIO (GitHub)
  • VFX Reference Platform - tool compatibility.

• Plugin & Addon Marketplaces

  • aescripts + aeplugins - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Primary After Effects / Premiere plugin marketplace.
  • Archipack - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. [$] : The Archipack addon for Blender contains a collection of parametric primitives for ArchViz. You can manipulate these primitives with a realtime on-screen editing interface.
  • Autodesk App Store - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Official Maya plugins and scripts.
  • BlenderAddons.org
  • Blenderkit - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. In-app asset browser.
  • BY GEN - destructive, generative modeling styles in Blender. <a href="https://github.com/curtisjamesholt/BY-GEN-public" class="repo-pill" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><svg viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="12" height="12" fill="currentColor" aria-hidden="true"><path d="M8 0C3.58 0 0 3.58 0 8c0 3.54 2.29 6.53 5.47 7.59.4.07.55-.17.55-.38 0-.19-.01-.82-.01-1.49-2.01.37-2.53-.49-2.69-.94-.09-.23-.48-.94-.82-1.13-.28-.15-.68-.52-.01-.53.63-.01 1.08.58 1.23.82.72 1.21 1.87.87 2.33.66.07-.52.28-.87.51-1.07-1.78-.2-3.64-.89-3.64-3.95 0-.87.31-1.59.82-2.15-.08-.2-.36-1.02.08-2.12 0 0 .67-.21 2.2.82.64-.18 1.32-.27 2-.27.68 0 1.36.09 2 .27 1.53-1.04 2.2-.82 2.2-.82.44 1.1.16 1.92.08 2.12.51.56.82 1.27.82 2.15 0 3.07-1.87 3.75-3.65 3.95.29.25.54.73.54 1.48 0 1.07-.01 1.93-.01 2.2 0 .21.15.46.55.38A8.012 8.012 0 0016 8c0-4.42-3.58-8-8-8z"/></svg>GitHub</a>
  • City Scatter
  • E Cycles - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. [$] : is a fork of Cycles which renders up to 2.5x faster out of the box when using CUDA GPUs, up to 15x using new options.
  • EasyBPY - readable, memorable and reduces the user's exposure to compl
  • FlippedNormals (site) - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Character, sculpting, and CG marketplace.
  • Flow Map Painter - on provides a brush tool for flow map painting. <a href="https://github.com/ClemensBeute/flow_map_painter" class="repo-pill" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><svg viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="12" height="12" fill="currentColor" aria-hidden="true"><path d="M8 0C3.58 0 0 3.58 0 8c0 3.54 2.29 6.53 5.47 7.59.4.07.55-.17.55-.38 0-.19-.01-.82-.01-1.49-2.01.37-2.53-.49-2.69-.94-.09-.23-.48-.94-.82-1.13-.28-.15-.68-.52-.01-.53.63-.01 1.08.58 1.23.82.72 1.21 1.87.87 2.33.66.07-.52.28-.87.51-1.07-1.78-.2-3.64-.89-3.64-3.95 0-.87.31-1.59.82-2.15-.08-.2-.36-1.02.08-2.12 0 0 .67-.21 2.2.82.64-.18 1.32-.27 2-.27.68 0 1.36.09 2 .27 1.53-1.04 2.2-.82 2.2-.82.44 1.1.16 1.92.08 2.12.51.56.82 1.27.82 2.15 0 3.07-1.87 3.75-3.65 3.95.29.25.54.73.54 1.48 0 1.07-.01 1.93-.01 2.2 0 .21.15.46.55.38A8.012 8.012 0 0016 8c0-4.42-3.58-8-8-8z"/></svg>GitHub</a>
  • Free Sky Environment Shading
  • Free VDB Clouds
  • Greyscalegorilla (site) - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. C4D plugins, materials, HDRIs.
  • Gumroad - pill lic-paid">Paid</span>. Creator-direct marketplace.
  • Higgsas Blender - pill lic-freemium">Freemium</span>. [Mesh Tension Map](https://higgsas.gumroad.com/l/tnqal), [Droplet Generator](https://ibotpl.gumroad.com/l/alvgr), [BackdropGen](https://yamato3d.gumroad.com/l/BackdropGen)