# What is vork? The headless 3D and VFX engine for agents, and its limits vork is a source-available, headless 3D and VFX engine from Voyager, written in Rust and Slang. What it does, what it costs, what it needs, how fast it is, and what does not work yet. Author: Ravi Parikh Canonical: https://voyager.so/blog/what-is-vork Published: 2026-11-06T14:26:33-08:00 Updated: 2026-11-06 vork is a headless 3D and VFX engine for AI agents, made by Voyager. It is written in Rust and Slang and renders on the GPU through Vulkan and Metal. An agent writes a scene as code, runs a render command, looks at the image and revises the code. There is no editor, no timeline and no window. Version 0.1.0 is a research preview, released on 6 November 2026. The short version: vork is worth trying if an agent writes your shots, your hardware is a recent NVIDIA GPU or Apple Silicon, and your shot needs custom programs or a tight render loop. Blender remains the better choice for most 3D work today, including anything with fog, volumes, mature simulation or heavy transparency. If you need motion graphics rather than 3D, Remotion and HyperFrames are closer to the job. Everything here comes from [vork's README](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork), its [benchmark results](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork/blob/main/benchmarks/RESULTS.md) and its [licence](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork/blob/main/LICENSE), all read on 6 November 2026, plus our own install of 0.1.0 on a Mac the same day. We are the team that builds it, so treat the numbers as ours to prove. We will update this page as vork changes; the API is moving quickly. ![A moving camera passes a carrot cake on a carved plate, with a kettle out of focus behind it.](https://cdn.moda.app/voyager/blog/vork/cake-poster-2dcd4ddc4d0f3ad6.webp) [Video: A moving camera passes a carrot cake on a carved plate, with a kettle out of focus behind it.](https://cdn.moda.app/voyager/blog/vork/cake-720-c02ceb877b0f9f52.mp4) Rendered 3D in vork using Poly Haven assets, not a photographed take. Poly Haven CC0 assets; carrot cake photography by Greg Zaal, processing by James Ray Cock; scene and render in vork. ## What vork is, in concrete terms A vork scene is a JSON document of meshes, lights, cameras, materials and animation tracks. Python and TypeScript SDKs can write that JSON for you. Rendering is one command: ```json {"version":2,"nodes":[ {"type":"mesh","geometry":{"std":"sphere","radius":1}, "materials":[{"inputs":{"base_color":[0.12,0.35,0.65],"specular_roughness":0.3}}]}, {"type":"mesh","translation":[0,-1,0],"geometry":{"std":"grid","size":[10,10]}, "materials":[{"inputs":{"base_color":[0.35,0.35,0.35]}}]}, {"type":"light","shape":"rectangle","translation":[-3,5,4],"target":[0,0,0], "energy":700,"size":4,"color":[1,0.92,0.8]}, {"type":"camera","translation":[3,2,5],"target":[0,0,0]} ],"render":{"resolution":[640,480]}} ``` ```sh # vork 0.1.0. Check `vork help` for your version. vork render shot.json --profile std/previs --out preview.png vork render shot.json --profile std/final --out final.png ``` We ran exactly that on a fresh install on our M5 Max: 86 seconds of shader setup during the install, 5 to 6 seconds for the first render in each profile, and about 0.43 seconds for each `std/final` render after that. `std/previs` is for iterating, `std/draft` is four samples with denoising, `std/final` is eight samples with denoising, and `std/path` is the path tracer. What sets it apart is that the scene can carry programs. Slang programs can define materials, cameras, light propagation, film response, simulation and compositing, through public hooks, without editing the renderer. The black hole example supplies a Schwarzschild light-propagation program in the scene itself. The README calls that a numerical approximation, not an exact relativistic solver, and we would say the same. ![A camera skims through a flock of a million starlings over a lagoon at low sun.](https://cdn.moda.app/voyager/blog/vork/birds-poster-2e2df6295b12d51d.webp) [Video: A camera skims through a flock of a million starlings over a lagoon at low sun.](https://cdn.moda.app/voyager/blog/vork/birds-720-46113fa32ed97d86.mp4) A million simulated birds steered by Slang compute programs, rendered in vork. The camera and nine foreground birds are authored; the simulated million do not flap. Credit: based on ["Crow"](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/crow-d5a9b0df4da3493688b63ce42c8a83e2) by Alexei Ostapenko, [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Changes: sampled flight pose, reduced distant mesh, rescaled, articulated flight wings, extracted wings for the starling body, resized textures. For agents, the getting-started help is about 2,500 tokens and includes a complete first scene; full help is about 19,400 tokens. `vork help limits` lists what does not work, so an agent can read it before committing to a shot. Unknown fields are errors, and the errors name the nearest valid fields. ## What it does not do yet These come from the project's own [limits](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork#research-preview-limits). They matter more than any feature list. * **No fog or volumes.** Fog and participating volumes are ignored in this release, with a warning. * **Large scenes and dense transparency can fail,** including on Mac. Lowering the resolution does not necessarily fix it. In the project's frozen sweep on Linux and NVIDIA, 583 of 585 images were delivered, and the million-stars stress scene ran out of GPU memory in both profiles. Mac reliability was not revalidated in that run. * **The path tracer is slower than Cycles.** In the two named comparisons, 1.99 and 5.81 times slower. * **New programs compile slowly the first time.** The first render of a scene with new programs can take minutes and prints nothing while it does. The README reports about three to four minutes with custom programs on NVIDIA and under 20 seconds on a Mac. Later renders take seconds. * **Low sample counts lose detail.** At four and eight samples, fine facades and hair can lose detail, defocus can show stepped or grainy edges, and sparse sparks or spectral highlights can change brightness and colour. `--set samples=32` helps at more cost. * **Simulation is limited.** The water example is an experiment. It has finite particle budgets, unresolved thin features and no two-way rigid-body coupling, and is not a replacement for a mature simulation package. * **Hardware is narrow.** A recent NVIDIA GPU with hardware ray tracing on Linux or Windows, or Apple Silicon. AMD, Intel, older GPUs and CPU or software rendering are unsupported. * **Results from scratch can look basic.** vork gives an agent a renderer, not taste or assets. The shots in the README use prepared assets and deliberate art direction. When we gave Claude Code a one-line brief for [a first scene](/blog/render-3d-with-claude-code), it produced a clean, simple image, not a film frame. ## How fast it is, with the qualifications The honest headline: vork's default profile is faster than the retained EEVEE baselines in the measured cases, but it uses fewer samples and a denoiser, and the project says plainly that these are not equal-quality speedups. Measurements are from an NVIDIA L4 on one frozen build, with Blender 5.2.1 times retained from earlier runs under different settings. | Test | vork | Baseline | Result | | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------- | -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | 1080p stills, `std/final` vs EEVEE (10 scenes with a baseline) | 1.58 to 2.25 s | 2.41 to 3.27 s | 1.15 to 1.90 times faster, not equal quality | | 240-frame 1080p movies vs EEVEE (7 scenes) | 35 to 92 s | 48 to 213 s | 1.14 to 2.32 times faster, not equal quality | | 1080p stills, `std/path` vs Cycles (2 named scenes, earlier build) | 26.9 and 31.9 s | 4.6 and 16.0 s | 5.81 and 1.99 times **slower** | | 8 s of a million birds at 1080p24, 4 samples | 97 s measured | 13 to 18 min projected for EEVEE | 8 to 11 times, **projected, not measured** | The bird comparison needs its footnotes. EEVEE's time is projected from eight warm frames at the same four samples, across two retained runs. It omits simulation, startup and encoding, and hands Blender the finished flock as geometry. vork's 97 seconds leaves out setup and a one-time warmup. Quality, material translation and motion differ. Two other camera moves have no four-sample EEVEE projection. The [benchmark method](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork/blob/main/benchmarks/README.md) and rerun recipes are public, so you can check all of this on your own GPU. ## Licence and cost vork is **source-available, not open source**. The code is public on GitHub under the [vork Preview License](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork/blob/main/LICENSE), and it is free during the research preview, including for commercial work inside a company of any size. You can modify it for your own use, and share unmodified copies. You may not sell it, distribute a modified version, or offer it as a hosted service where other people submit scenes or jobs without written permission. Rendering for your own organisation and delivering finished media to a client is allowed. Whatever you make is yours. The licence covers this version only; later versions may come under different terms, including paid ones. The optional Blender bridge is a separate component under the GPL. ## How to try it On a Mac or on Linux with a current NVIDIA driver, per the [README](https://github.com/voyager-so/vork#install): ```sh curl -fL https://github.com/voyager-so/vork/releases/latest/download/install.sh -o /tmp/vork-install.sh sh /tmp/vork-install.sh export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" vork help ``` Windows has its own PowerShell installer. The SDKs install from your vork folder, not from npm or PyPI: the npm package named `vork` is unrelated. Then hand it to your agent with something like the README's first instruction: ```text Read `vork help`. Make a small scene, render a preview and inspect the image. Refine the camera and lighting before rendering at final quality. Read the relevant help topic when you need a feature the first page doesn't explain. ``` ## Frequently asked questions ### Is vork open source? No. It is source-available under the vork Preview License. You can read and modify the code for your own use and use it commercially, but you may not redistribute modified versions or run it as a hosted service without permission. ### Is vork free? Yes, during the research preview, including for commercial work. The licence says later versions may have different terms, including paid terms, while your rights to the version you already have remain. ### Who makes vork? Voyager, the company behind the Voyager desktop app for creative work. The copyright line in the licence names Nullframe, Inc. ### What GPU does vork need? A recent NVIDIA GPU with a hardware ray tracing Vulkan driver on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 or newer) or Windows 10/11, or Apple Silicon with Metal. Intel Macs, AMD and Intel GPUs, and software Vulkan are unsupported. ### Is vork a replacement for Blender? Not today. Blender models, sculpts, rigs and simulates, has fog and volumes, was the faster path tracer in the cases measured, and has decades of tooling. vork has no modelling tools or interface. We compare them in detail in [vork vs Blender](/blog/vork-vs-blender). ### Is vork a game engine? No. It renders images and video from scenes, and its documentation describes no input handling or gameplay runtime. For games, look at [Godot](/blog/godot-mcp) or [Unity](/blog/unity-mcp). ### Does vork use generative AI to make its images? No. Frames are rendered from geometry, materials, lights and programs. An agent may write the scene, and some showcase shots use an image-model painting as a backdrop, which their credits state. The renderer does not call a video or image model. ### What is the difference between vork and Remotion or HyperFrames? Those tools turn web technology into video and suit titles, charts and interface motion. vork is a 3D renderer with ray-traced lighting. Remotion can draw 3D through [React Three Fiber](https://www.remotion.dev/docs/three), which is often enough. Our [Remotion and HyperFrames comparison](/blog/hyperframes-vs-remotion) covers that side. ## Voyager is a desktop AI agent for creative work Describe what you want to make; Voyager plans it, uses your apps and tools, and keeps everything editable. [Sign up](/sign-up)