GSOPs puts Gaussian splat editing inside Houdini's node graph

Splat editing happens as Houdini operators, not a separate viewer

Gaussian splatting is described as a radiance field technology that turns photos and videos into 3D content with view-dependent effects and fast rendering. GSOPs is a plug-in for SideFX Houdini, and the important word there is plug-in. There is no standalone application to learn and no separate scene format. Operators drop into the node graph of a tool the artist already uses, so the same VEX, the same render pipeline and the same review process apply to a splat capture as to any other asset. The stated capability list covers isolating objects, eliminating noise and floaters, deforming and animating splat models, composing scenes, meshing and relighting, performing feature analysis, and generating synthetic training data. The project also ships example files under a hip/ directory, a real-time viewport renderer, and a suite of digital assets for import, editing and export of 2D and 3D splat content. It is developed by David Rhodes and Ruben Diaz and hosted under CG Nomads, with the site at www.cgnomads.com.

Version 3.0 is a compatibility release as much as a feature release

The 3.0 release notes are the most useful document in the repository for judging currency, and they lead with platform support rather than new geometry tools.

- Support for Houdini 22!
- Mip-splatting: Support for models trained with [mip-splatting](https://github.com/autonomousvision/mip-splatting) (antialiasing). Thanks to [Forian Hahlbohm](https://www.linkedin.com/in/florian-hahlbohm-a36b2b24a/) for his assistance!
- ML-Sharp: Import splats and generate cameras from Apple's [Sharp Monocular View Synthesis in Less Than a Second](https://github.com/apple/ml-sharp).
- `Gaussian Splats Bake`: Bake Gaussian splats to points, mesh, and density volumes. Great for voxelizing splats, converting to colored meshes, and simulating volumes.

Houdini 22 support is the item that matters most for a working pipeline, because an artist cannot run a plug-in on a different major version of the host. The mip-splatting support is a quality feature with a narrow scope: it handles models trained with the mip-splatting method, which is about antialiasing, so captures made with a standard training setup are unaffected by it. ML-Sharp is a different kind of addition, importing splats and generating cameras from Apple's monocular view synthesis work, which points at a workflow where a single image rather than a video capture is the starting point. The release tag v3.0.0 is dated 2026-08-14, preceded by v2.9.0 in January 2026 and v2.8 in September 2025.

Baking and decimation are the operators that leave the splat world

Two operators in the set are structurally different from the rest, because they convert rather than edit. Gaussian Splats Bake takes splats to points, meshes and density volumes, which is what makes voxelisation, coloured mesh conversion and volume simulation possible inside Houdini. Once a splat is a mesh, it inherits everything the rest of the pipeline already knows how to do, which is the practical argument for baking rather than treating splats as a terminal format. Gaussian Splats Reduce does the opposite kind of work: it intelligently decimates Gaussian splat models, inspired by the NanoGS project and developed with Bailey Tsang and Eyeline. Decimation addresses the real cost of radiance field captures, where large models become the bottleneck. Both of these contrast with the newer relighting operators. Gaussian Splats Relight IBL outputs irradiance and environment splats so that Gaussian Splats Relight can consume them, and the relight and light emitter operators are marked as early access.

The viewport renderer and the promoted operators define the free tier

The project originally shipped as free and open source, and the current licensing page describes a move away from that. What is free now is defined by what was promoted out of Early Access in the 3.0 notes. The promoted set is Gaussian Splats Mirror, which mirrors splats while preserving the view-dependent spherical harmonics effects, Gaussian Splats Histogram, which plots and edits splats in histogram space based on any floating point attribute for targeted cleanup, Gaussian Splats Sharpen, which sharpens any splat attribute masked by another attribute, and the viewport renderer's depth and world position render modes. The histogram operator is the one to understand first if you are evaluating the tool on cleanup work, because editing in histogram space is a different way of thinking from painting on a value slider. Beyond the free tier there is Early Access, which adds new features and a Supporter role on Discord, and then paid studio licences that include support, source code, commercial usage and Linux builds. Free access is also offered to schools, with Stuttgart Media University, USC Ganek Immersive Studio and UTS Animal Logic Academy named as inaugural partners.

Where it sits in a studio pipeline, based on credited usage

The project lists a third place finish in the H20 SIDEFX LABS Tech Art Challenge and then names productions that used it, which is the most concrete evidence available about how the tool fits a real deadline. The credits are Superman at Framestore in 2025, Dune: Prophecy at Rodeo FX in 2025, A$AP Rocky's HELICOPTER at Grin Machine in 2026, XA XÔI - MCK ft. OBITO at Antiantiart in 2026, and Death by Romy's XR Concert at Prism AI in 2026. Two patterns are worth pulling out of that list. First, the studios involved are mixed in size, from large facilities like Framestore to smaller names, which suggests the tool is not restricted to heavyweight pipelines. Second, the credits span features, music video work and an XR concert, which fits a set of operators built around capture cleanup and relighting rather than a single delivery format. The repository layout backs this up. Alongside the plugin/ and otls/ directories there are python3.11libs/ and python3.13libs/ directories, two separate Python runtime bundles, plus packages/, scripts/, toolbar/, extra/, data/ and a .gsops/ configuration directory, which is the shape of a plug-in that has to support more than one Houdini generation.

Reading the plugin source, not the marketing

The repository is readable, and for anyone evaluating GSOPs that is the most valuable thing in it. The source sits under plugin/ and the Houdini digital assets under otls/, with the Python runtime bundles beside them. The AGPL-3.0 licence is recorded in LICENSE.md, and a THIRD_PARTY_COMPONENTS.md file sits alongside it, which matters because a plug-in that links third party components inherits their terms and you are entitled to know which ones. The default branch is develop rather than main, so what you clone is the integration branch for the next release, and the tagged releases are the stable reference points. The last push to that branch was on 2026-10-11, so the project is being worked on rather than abandoned. Practically, the repository is a way to confirm what a licence tier actually ships. If you are a studio considering commercial usage, you can read the operators in plugin/ and the assets in otls/ before signing anything, and check that the features your pipeline needs are present in the version you would buy rather than in the version the marketing page describes.

Editorial conclusion

GSOPs fits Houdini artists who already own a Houdini licence and need to bring radiance field captures into a node based pipeline, whether for cleanup, baking or relighting. It does not fit studios that need the source under an open licence, since the repository carries AGPL-3.0 while the project now sells site licences with commercial usage and Linux builds, and it does not fit anyone outside Houdini. Before adopting it, confirm which operators sit in the free tier versus Early Access, read the licensing page at cgnomads.com/licensing, and check whether your capture pipeline produces mip-splatting models, since only those get antialiasing.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. cgnomads/GSOPs on GitHub
2. Issues
3. License: AGPL-3.0
4. README
5. Releases