The Forged Image manual
Reference and guides for Forged Image — every node, every parameter, and how the systems fit together.
Start here
Forged, and how to read this manual
A compositor built around one rendering path, one undo model, and tools that say what they are doing.
What's new
Recent work, newest first. Dates are when the code landed, not when it was planned.
Basics
The workspace, the keys that matter on day one, and a first comp end to end.
Systems
The larger machines inside Forged Image, and how their nodes fit together.
Crucible
How to pull a matte on a shot that never saw a screen.
Camera Tracker (HDCT)
How to get a solved 3D camera out of a plate.
Anvil
How to track a model through a shot, and paint on it.
The Blacksmith family
Tools that do a whole job instead of a whole operation.
Disintegrate
How to take a subject apart on one clock.
Vector Warp
How to paint once and carry it through the shot.
Colour (MasterColor)
How to do a grade as one thought instead of eleven nodes.
The 3D system
How to put geometry, cameras and volumes in the comp — without becoming a 3D application.
Gaussian splats
How to bring a captured location into the comp — and relight it.
Unreal
How to get Unreal's pixels into the comp, live or rendered.
Keying
Pull a key that survives the edge: the keyer family, in the order that works.
The Atelier
Paint over a render per object, bake it to the object, and take the paint back into Unreal or Blender.
Kiln
Smoke, fog and fire simulated on the GPU and rendered in the shot: pick a preset, play it, light it, render it.
Comp networks
Put part of a comp inside one node - a Houdini-style container you can dive into, with its own inputs and output.
Fathom
Depth for any plate, in the tracked scene's metres, and a comp built on it: merge by depth, place elements in depth, match the air.
The families
I/O
Comp
Color
Filter
Keying
Transform
Masks
Atelier
Blacksmith
Anvil
Model tracking — its own shelf tab beside Blacksmith, because a crafted tool has to be findable as one.
Fathom
Generate
3D
Registered by the 3D bridge rather than the 2D shelf. Create them from <kbd>Tab</kbd> search or the 3D workspace.
More
Reference
Every node in Forged Image — all 173 of them, grouped by family. Signatures and defaults come straight from the application, so they match the build you are running.
Documenting version 0.1.13+dev (build 7bf8ad4), generated 2026-09-27. The manual is regenerated from each release, so a version here is the version it describes.