Introduction

The VFX Reference Platform is a set of tool and library versions to be used as a common target platform for building software for the VFX industry. Its purpose is to minimise incompatibilities between different software packages, ease the support burden for Linux-based pipelines and encourage further adoption of Linux by software vendors. The Reference Platform is updated annually by a group of software vendors in collaboration with the Visual Effects Society Technology Committee.

Current Status

The Calendar Year 2020 (CY2020) Reference Platform is the target for all major software releases in 2020.

12th September 2020 - CY2021 is now Final. Further changes are not anticipated unless a major issue is discovered and the community supports a late change.

20th August 2020 - From CY2021 the VFX Reference Platform will support Windows and macOS in addition to Linux. Details added below, and feedback welcome. CY2021 will be finalized within the next 4 weeks.

Reference Platform

Each annual reference platform is designated by the calendar year in which major product releases should be targeting that particular reference.

All versions should be considered exact required versions, except for those components where indicates that:

for systems (or software) providing the library at runtime, versions should be considered minimum version required.

otherwise, for software building software against the library, versions should be considered highest version allowed

Useful Links

Previous Status Updates

17th July 2020 - Added gcc notes to CY2021 Draft with details on Redhat Developer Toolset and clang compatibility.

16th June 2020 - CY2021 Draft published. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss.

7th March 2020 - CY2020 updated - Added required patch for Qt for Python (PySide) and an alternative option of using 5.13.

2nd November 2019 - Late change approved to CY2020 - OpenEXR updated to 2.4.x.

19th October 2019 - Late change to CY2020 under review to accomodate an updated OpenEXR release. Proposed change is limited to OpenEXR moving to 2.4.x. Please send feedback on this change by 31st October.

3rd August 2019 - The CY2020 Platform is now Final with no further changes planned.

1st May 2019 - CY2020 Draft published which includes the long-awaited move to Python 3. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss. Software vendors are encouraged to provide a Python 3 tech preview release this year to help studios with testing during migration efforts.

12th September 2018 - CY2019 Final now published with OpenVDB updated to 6.x and ACES to 1.1 to reflect recent or imminent major releases of these important industry packages.

22nd July 2018 - CY2019 Draft updated - OpenEXR upped to 2.3.x.

22nd July 2018 - CY2019 Draft updated - minimum version of Python is now 2.7.9 to ensure support of PIP via PyPI.

20th May 2018 - CY2019 Draft published. The move to Python 3 has been pushed to CY2020 due to the need to focus on upgrading to the latest Qt Long Term Support release. Software vendors are requested to provide a Python 3 tech preview release in 2019 to help studios with testing during migration efforts. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss.

26th November 2017 - CY2018 has had a late change to the compiler version which is now gcc 6.3.1. This successfully resolves issues that were discovered with gcc 5.3.1.

28th August 2017 - Added a note for gcc 5 and updated the Qt note to include a link to the qtdeclarative modifications.

3rd August 2017 - The CY2018 Platform was ratified as Final at the annual SIGGRAPH VFX Reference Platform Birds of a Feather with no further planned changes.

2nd July 2017 - Minor updates to CY2018 Draft for Qt and ACES.

29th April 2017 - CY2018 Draft published with significant upgrades to gcc and glibc. This also comes with notice of our intention to move to Python 3 for CY2019 in advance of Python 2 support ending in 2020. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss. We expect to publish CY2018 Final around SIGGRAPH in July.

1st August 2016 - CY2017 Final now published with OpenSubdiv and OpenVDB being updated in addition to Boost, Ptex, Alembic and TBB as result of feedback to the Draft.

28th June 2016 - The VFX Reference Platform Qt modifications to the Qt 5.6.1 release are now available from these forks of qtbase and qtx11extras.

20th June 2016 - CY2017 Draft published for comment from the community. The theme for CY2017 is to minmize code changes in the year following the transition to Qt 5.

27th October 2015 - A late change has been proposed to CY2016 to move from Qt 5.5.x to Qt 5.6.x due to that version now being targetted as a Long Term Support release. Please see here for further details.