VideosConnect nodes. Make pictures.
Gaffer is a general purpose node-based application designed for use in the visual effects industry. It provides basic tools for procedural scene generation, shader authoring, rendering, and image compositing.
Powerful
Based on a multithreaded deferred scene evaluation engine, Gaffer allows you to handle large scenes and develop flexible procedural work-flows.
Renderer Agnostic
Gaffer utilises a renderer abstraction layer allowing it to export to your favourite renderer (assuming for now that your favourite renderer is either Arnold or 3Delight).
Customisable
Gaffer is built to be customisable throughout. Be it a simple scripted configuration tweak, complex expression, custom node or user interface, even a full blown application, Gaffer's open APIs enable you to do what you need.
Extensible
Feel free to add new renderers, new nodes, or integrate with your renderfarm. With Gaffer derived apps you could have new types of data flowing through the node graph, such as asset dependencies or simulation operations.
Open Source
Distributed under the BSD license, Gaffer builds upon a wealth of open-source VFX libraries including OpenEXR, OpenImageIO, OpenColorIO, Cortex and of course the Gaffer frameworks themselves.
Unfinished
Although Gaffer is becoming more capable by the day, it still lacks in features and useability. Itching to fix a bug or contribute a cool new enhancement? Want to add support for OpenVDB, Bullet or another renderer backend?
http://imageengine.github.io/gaffer/demos.html