vfx-agent-toolkit

Claude Code plugins and MCP connectors for VFX production. One clone gets you skills, agents, and app bridges for Nuke, Houdini, Unreal Engine, Blender, ComfyUI, Maya, Magnific, and Seedance.

Skills teach the agent the craft; connectors give it hands in the running applications. That split is the whole design.

Built by Rob Williams, a lead VFX artist working in production - every skill in here has shipped real work. Open-sourced so you can use it, fork it, and improve it. MIT licensed.

What is this?

Two things in one repo:

• Plugins (plugins\) teach Claude Code how to do VFX work. Each plugin is a bundle of skills (production-tested knowledge loaded on demand) and agents (specialized handlers for delegated tasks).
• Connectors (connectors\) wire Claude Code to your running applications via MCP (Model Context Protocol), so Claude can create nodes in Nuke, drive Houdini, control Unreal, and so on.

What it looks like in use

You say, in Claude Code with Nuke running:

"Set up comps for the 12 shots in this CSV - plates connected, our standard grade/denoise front end, and give me a contact sheet of first frames."

The agent parses the CSV, scans the plates on disk, builds a v001 comp per shot over the Nuke MCP (Read nodes, Stamp/Anchor wiring, the front-end template), renders first-frame thumbnails, and writes a tracker CSV back to disk. That workflow is nuke-shot-setup, one of 70+ skills in the toolkit - the same pattern (knowledge in the skill, hands via the connector) drives Houdini scatter setups, UE PCG graphs, ComfyUI generation batches, and Blender ControlNet pass renders.

Quickstart

1. Add the marketplace inside Claude Code:

   /plugin marketplace add sideshowroberto/vfx-agent-toolkit
   

2. Install the foundation plugin first, then the app plugins you need:

   /plugin install vfx-core@vfx-agent-toolkit
   /plugin install nuke-vfx@vfx-agent-toolkit
   

3. Run the core setup script once to register the shared MCP servers (brave-search, context7, desktop-commander) and optionally copy workspace templates:

   plugins\vfx-core\install.ps1

   brave-search needs a free API key from https://brave.com/search/api. context7 and desktop-commander need nothing.

4. For plugins that talk to a running application (Nuke, Houdini, Unreal, Blender, Maya, ComfyUI), clone this repo and run the matching connector installer:

   git clone https://github.com/sideshowroberto/vfx-agent-toolkit.git
   cd vfx-agent-toolkit
   connectors\nuke\install.ps1

5. Restart Claude Code. MCP servers load at startup, so any config change needs a restart.

The installers are PowerShell, so setup is Windows-first. The skills and agents themselves are plain markdown and work anywhere Claude Code runs.

Full walkthrough with expected output: docs/GETTING-STARTED.md

Plugins

Install vfx-core first. Everything else is per-project, install what you use.

Plugin	What it covers
vfx-core	Foundation package - install first. Cross-application skills and agents: search, documentation, testing, Python, planning, skill/agent creation, git safety guardrails, and session wrap-up. Registers core MCP servers (brave-search, context7, desktop-commander).
nuke-vfx	Nuke compositing pipeline: node graphs, BlinkScript, Cattery AI inference, Python scripting, tiling tool, batch shot setup, and Magnific-in-Nuke.
houdini-vfx	Houdini VFX pipeline: procedural generation, USD/Solaris, VEX, Python automation, HDA creation.
unreal-vfx	Unreal Engine 5.8 VFX pipeline via the native UE MCP (ModelContextProtocol plugin + VibeUE toolsets): Blueprint automation, PCG, actor operations, Sequencer, Python scripting.
blender-vfx	Blender VFX pipeline via the official Blender MCP (blender.org): modeling, animation, materials, geometry nodes, physics, rendering, sculpting, grease pencil, and ControlNet pass rendering for AI generation.
comfyui-vfx	ComfyUI pipeline via the ComfyUI MCP and Comfy CLI: workflow analysis, node/model requirements mapping, and headless generation guidance.
comfyui-node-dev	ComfyUI custom node development: V3 API node structure, schemas, datatypes, inputs/outputs, execution lifecycle, frontend extensions, V1-to-V3 migration, and packaging/publishing.
maya-vfx	Maya pipeline via MCP: scene control, geometry creation, materials (Arnold/USD), transforms, and FBX import/export.
magnific-vfx	Magnific AI generation via MCP: image generation with model selection and references, local file upload/download pipelines, and video generation.
seedance-vfx	Seedance 2.0 video generation direction: prompt writing, camera, lighting, motion, characters, style, VFX, troubleshooting, and production recipes.

Connectors

Connectors register MCP servers that bridge Claude Code to your applications. Details and per-app notes: connectors/README.md

Connector	What it does	Notes
connectors\nuke	Installs bundled bridge files into ~\.nuke and registers the Nuke MCP	Bridge code included in this repo
connectors\houdini	Installs the Houdini bridge and registers the Houdini MCP	Bridge code included in this repo
connectors\unreal	Registers the UE 5.8 NATIVE MCP (ModelContextProtocol plugin, HTTP port 8000)	UE 5.8 with the plugin enabled; VibeUE from Fab recommended
connectors\maya	Installs the Maya bridge and registers the Maya MCP	Bridge code included in this repo
connectors\blender	Registers the official Blender MCP from blender.org	Add-on ships with Blender 4.5+; register.ps1 only
connectors\comfyui	Registers the ComfyUI MCP (npx comfyui-mcp)	Comfy CLI (pip install comfy-cli) recommended for headless generation
connectors\magnific	Registers the hosted Magnific MCP at https://mcp.magnific.com	Needs a Magnific account; OAuth in browser on first use

Requirements

Requirement	Needed for
Claude Code	Everything
Node.js 18+	Nuke MCP server, npx-based connectors
Python 3.12+	Bridge scripts, ComfyUI tooling
uv	Python-based MCP servers (Houdini, Blender)
Windows + PowerShell	The installers (skills/agents work on any OS)

Per-application: Nuke 14+, Houdini 20+, Unreal Engine 5.8, Blender 4.5+ (for the bundled MCP add-on), Maya 2024+, a local ComfyUI install, and a Magnific account for the Magnific connector.

Repo layout

vfx-agent-toolkit\
+-- .claude-plugin\
|   +-- marketplace.json      Marketplace manifest (what /plugin reads)
+-- plugins\
|   +-- vfx-core\             Foundation: skills, agents, install.ps1, templates
|   +-- nuke-vfx\             Per-app plugins: skills\ + agents\ + plugin.json
|   +-- houdini-vfx\
|   +-- unreal-vfx\
|   +-- blender-vfx\
|   +-- comfyui-vfx\
|   +-- comfyui-node-dev\
|   +-- maya-vfx\
|   +-- magnific-vfx\
|   +-- seedance-vfx\
+-- connectors\
|   +-- nuke\                 install.ps1 + register.ps1 + bridge\
|   +-- houdini\
|   +-- unreal\
|   +-- maya\
|   +-- blender\              register.ps1 only (official Blender MCP)
|   +-- comfyui\
|   +-- magnific\
+-- docs\
|   +-- GETTING-STARTED.md
|   +-- ARCHITECTURE.md
+-- LICENSE

Attribution and provenance

This toolkit is a working collection: the majority of the skills, agents, and scripts are original creations, built and battle-tested in production. A handful are adapted from open source tools, community resources, and prompts we found useful along the way - some used as-is, some heavily modified. This collection grew organically inside a working pipeline, so the exact origin of every piece was not always tracked.

No claim of original authorship is made over anything that came from someone else. If you recognize your work in here and want credit added, a license noted, or the content removed, please open an issue - it will be handled promptly and gladly.

The MCP servers that the connectors register are separate projects by their own authors, not part of this toolkit:

Server	Author / Source
Blender MCP	Official Blender MCP (blender.org, ships with Blender 4.5+)
UE 5.8 ModelContextProtocol	Epic Games (built into Unreal Engine 5.8)
VibeUE	VibeUE (Fab marketplace)
comfyui-mcp	npm package by its author
ComfyUI_FL-MCP	filliptm (github.com/filliptm/ComfyUI_FL-MCP)
Comfy CLI	Comfy Org
Magnific MCP	Hosted by Magnific (mcp.magnific.com)

Third-party tools keep their own licenses; the MIT license in this repo covers the original content of the toolkit itself.

Contributing

PRs welcome. Skills follow the standard Claude Code SKILL.md format: a skills\<skill-name>\SKILL.md file with name and description YAML frontmatter. Keep everything that ships ASCII-only and free of personal or studio-specific paths. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the plugin format and a PR checklist.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.