<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>The OpenFX Project</title>
</head>
<body>
<br style="font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" border="0"
style="text-align: left; width: 100%; font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td
style="vertical-align: top; width: 10%; background-color: rgb(180, 180, 180);">
<div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" border="0"
style="text-align: left; width: 100%;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td
style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%; text-align: center;"><img
src="OFXLogo.gif" width="143" height="150" border="0" alt="OpenFX Logo">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%;"> <a href="http://openeffects.org">OFX Association Website</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%;"> <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/openfx">Sourceforge Main Page</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%;"><a href="Documentation/index.html">API Documentation</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%;">
<div style="text-align: center;"><a
href="http://sourceforge.net"><img
src="http://sourceforge.net/sflogo.php?group_id=108010&type=2"
width="125" height="37" border="0" alt="SourceForge.net Logo"></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top;">
<h1 style="text-align: center;">OpenFX : An Open Plug-in API for 2D Visual Effects</h1>
<h3>OpenFX What Is It</h3>
OpenFX is an open standard for visual effects plug-ins. It allows
plug-ins written to the standard to work on any application that
supports the standard. This avoids the current per application
fragmentation of plug-in development and support, which causes much
heartache to everyone, plug-in developers, application developers and
end users alike<br>
<h3>OpenFX Aims</h3>
The core aims of OpenFX were established early on, these are...<br>
<ul>
<li>to develop
a standard for writing visual effects
plug-ins,</li>
<li>to develop
that standard with a broad consensus
within the industry,</li>
<li>have that
standard be vendor and operating system
neutral,</li>
<li>have that
standard be sufficiently flexible that
it supports a wide range of visual effects systems, from editors to
compositors.</li>
</ul>
Subsidiary aims
are,<br>
<ul>
<li>have the standard be expandable to other areas in the
future, for
example sound plug-ins or image i/o plug-ins,</li>
<li>have any expansion of the standard be done in such a manner
so
that
hosts can easily support plug-ins using differerent versions of the API,</li>
<li>have plug-ins written to the standard be tunable to the
host
system
they are running on,</li>
<li>allow hosts to provide extra custom functionality to
plugins that
wish to use it.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-decoration: underline;">Ownership</h3>
Initially owned by <a href="http://www.thefoundry.co.uk">The Foundry</a> and released under a BSD style license, the API
was transfered to <a href="http://www.openeffects.org">The Open Effects Association</a> in 2009.
<br>
The Association is a not for profit UK Limited Company controlled by various organisation active in developing software
for visual effects.
<br>
Many companies have developed or are now developing plugins and hosts using the API
and real work is being done with them. OFX is a reality in the visual effects industry.
<h3 style="text-decoration: underline;">OpenFX Licensing</h3>
The OpenFX standard is owned by <a href="http://www.openeffects.org">The Open Effects Association</a>, and it is
released under a 'BSD' open source license. This allows anyone to
use it for any purpose without charge. For more details, see the
license at the top of any of the header files. <br>
<h3 style="text-decoration: underline;">Mailing Lists</h3>
There are several mailing lists for the API and the OFX Association, these are currently being managed by The Foundry and are...
<ul>
<li><a href="http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ofxa_announcements">OFX Announcements</a> used for be posting concerning API revisions and changes, this is a moderated list, not everyone can post,</li>
<li><a href="http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ofxa_discussion">OFX Discussion</a> for general OFX discussion, anyone can post,</li>
<li><a href="http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ofxa_2.0_committee">OFX 2.0 Committee</a> used by members of the OFX review committee to discuss API extensions and changes, only committee members can post.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br style="font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">
</body>
</html>
