Install The Compositing Software ‘Natron’ in Ubuntu 14.04/12.04

Last updated: June 28, 2014

Compositing Software Natron in Ubuntu

Natron is a free and open source video compositing software, similar in functionality to Adobe After Effects or Nuke by The Foundry.

It features:

  • 32 bits floating point linear colour processing pipeline.
  • Colorspace management handled by the famous open-source OpenColorIO library.
  • Dozens of file formats supported: EXR, DPX,TIFF, JPG, PNG…thanks to OpenImageIO.
  • Support for many free and open-source OpenFX plugins: TuttleOFX, OpenFX-IO, OpenFX-Misc, OpenFX-Yadif deinterlacer, OpenFX-Vegas SDK samples, OpenFX samples
  • Support for commercial OpenFX plugins: Furnace by The Foundry, KeyLight by The Foundry, GenArts Sapphire, Other GenArts products
  • Currently almost all features of OpenFX v1.3 are supported
  • Intuitive user interface
  • real-time feedback
  • Multi-task: Natron can render multiple graphs at the same time
  • Recover easily from bugs: Natron sometimes crashes.
  • Project format written in XML and easily editable by human.
  • Fast & interactive Viewer
  • Real-time playback: Natron offers a real-time playback with best performances
  • Low hardware requirements: All you need is an x86 64 bits or 32 bits processor, at least 3 GB of RAM and a graphic card that supports OpenGL 2.0 or OpenGL 1.5 with some extensions.
  • Animate your visual effects
  • Command line tool for execution of project files.
  • Rotoscoping support
  • Multi-view workflow: Natron saves time by keeping all the views in the same stream.

Video Compositing Natron in Ubuntu

Install Natron on Ubuntu 14.04 / 12.04:

So far, the Linux binaries are only available for 64-bit OS.

1. Download the package “Natron_Linux_x86_64bits_x.x.tar.gz” from the link below:

Download Natron binaries

2. Extract the downloaded package in your file browser.

3. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, install required package and run the installer script from the result folder:

sudo apt-get install libegl1-mesa

cd ~/Downloads/Natron-* && sudo ./Install.sh

The Install.sh script will automatically install Natron into /opt/, create a launcher icon and symbolic link to the executable. So that you can launch the software from Unity Dash or by running Natron in terminal.

install-natron-ubuntu

4. (Optional) To remove the software, run the Uninstall script from that folder:

cd ~/Downloads/Natron-* && sudo ./Uninstall.sh

Natron website: natron.inria.fr

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One response to Install The Compositing Software ‘Natron’ in Ubuntu 14.04/12.04

  1. I downloaded the .tar.gz file and extracted it within the file browser, yet checking it in ~/Downloads with ls -l it turned out to be a file and can not be entered like a folder in order to run the install script…