Platform History

CY2025 Draft updated. OpenEXR release window extended until Oct 1st. Minimum version of Visual Studio bumped to 17.6 (note the limited support window of the “long-term servicing channel”). Python reluctantly reverted to 3.11 due to a compatibility issue with Qt 6.5. Upgrades to Qt 6.8 and a newer Python are planned for CY2026.

CY2024 and CY2025 Draft updated to Windows SDK 10.0.20348 due to compatibility requirements of Qt 6.5 WebEngine.

CY2025 Draft published, with the main change being a move to Intel’s oneAPI for TBB and MKL. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss.

New versions of OpenSubdiv and OpenVDB were released as scheduled and CY2024 has been updated accordingly.

The recording of the 2023 User Group meeting is now available. Please note that the recommendation from the VFX Linux Distribution Recommendation Report published last year is still as valid today as it was a year ago.

CY2024 is now Final. Confirmation of versions for OpenSubdiv and OpenVDB will follow by early November pending the timely release of new versions. As always, if any major issues are discovered with CY2024 then they will be shared with the community to decide whether a late change is required.

The annual VFX Reference Platform User Group will be held on August 1st at 1pm PDT. This is a free online meeting for the whole community, no registration required. See here for details.

CY2024 Draft published, with the main change being a move to Qt 6. Due to ongoing work required to migrate critical dependencies, the planned move to Intel’s oneAPI has been deferred until CY2025. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss.

Late changes to CY2023 have been applied to OpenSubdiv, OpenVDB, and OpenColorIO which all completed major new releases before the extended deadline of October 31st.

Late change to CY2023 due to new OpenSubdiv release, and after community consultation. OpenSubdiv will be updated to 3.5.x if a compatible USD release is published by October 31st.

CY2023 is now Final. Confirmation of versions for OpenEXR, OpenVDB, OpenColorIO, and ACES will follow by early November pending the timely release of new versions. As always, if any major issues are discovered with CY2023 then they will be shared with the community to decide whether a late change is required. Please note the change to glibc may require a major Linux distro upgrade, and the recent recommendation for studios to migrate to RHEL, Rocky Linux, or AlmaLinux.

VFX Linux Distribution Recommendation Report (pdf) published and new Linux page added.

CY2023 Draft updated. Boost bumped to 1.80 and NumPy to 1.23.x

CY2023 Draft published. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss.

Software providers should now use CY2022 as the build target for all new major releases.

OpenVDB 9.x confirmed for CY2022 following the release of 9.0.0 supporting OpenEXR 3.

CY2022 is now Final. The only anticipated change is the pending OpenVDB release which is due by November 1st. If any major issues are discovered then they will be shared with the community to decide whether a late change is required. In addition, a new Support Guidance section has been added towards the bottom of this page.

A recording of the Birds of a Feather event is now available.

Thank you to all those who attended the Birds of a Feather event last week, the slide deck is now available. This is a last call for feedback on CY2022 before it is locked for Final on September 1st.

Everyone is invited to attend the annual VFX Reference Platform Birds of a Feather session at SIGGRAPH on Wednesday August 11th at 12:30pm PT / 3:30pm ET / 8:30pm UK. This is an online session again this year, and Basic Attendee registration for the conference is required at a cost of $50.

Updates to CY2022 Draft for MKL, OpenEXR, and OpenVDB.

Minor updates to CY2022 Draft for Ptex, with additional notes for ACES and macOS.

CY2022 Draft published. We are currently soliciting feedback on this Draft so please either send to feedback@vfxplatform.com or share on vfx-platform-discuss.

CY2021 has been updated to revert OpenEXR from 3.0.x back to 2.4.x due to a late release of OpenEXR 3 meaning that software vendors continued to ship products using 2.4. A change in policy to only allow released versions to be included in each year’s VFX Reference Platform should prevent this from happening again in future. Also, FBX has been reverted to 2020.x due to there being no 2021.x released in time for CY2021.

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

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.

Added gcc notes to CY2021 Draft with details on Redhat Developer Toolset and clang compatibility.

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.

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

Late change approved to CY2020 - OpenEXR updated to 2.4.x.

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

The CY2020 Platform is now Final with no further changes planned.

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.

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.

CY2019 Draft updated - OpenEXR upped to 2.3.x.

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

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.

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.

Added a note for gcc 5 and updated the Qt note to include a link to the qtdeclarative modifications.

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

Minor updates to CY2018 Draft for Qt and ACES.

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.

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.

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

CY2017 Draft published for comment from the community. The theme for CY2017 is to minimize code changes in the year following the transition to Qt 5.

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 targeted as a Long Term Support release. Please see here for further details.