###Hey you!
Yes, you :)
This is the Git repository for Gaffer, where you can always find the latest version available for download.
And yes, that means you may download it completely free of charge :) It's licensed as GPL, meaning it's free and you can modify and redistribute it to your hearts content (as long as you keep the original license)
###But!
$17.95 isn't much, every single sale motivates me to keep developing it. Seriously, whenever I get a "New Sale!" email, it instantly puts a smile on my face and makes my day.
So if you'd like to support me, just head on over to the Blender Market and buy it there :)
As a professional lighting artist and hobbyist coder, I created this add-on to help me with my every day work. Not only did it speed up my lighting workflow, but it meant I had more time to create better lighting.
Gaffer is a Blender add-on that helps you light your scenes by presenting you with all the lamp settings you need to tweak in one simple panel.
“Lighting in Blender has never been this intuitive. The (Gaffer) addon is your digital assistant when it comes to giving life to your scenes. A hassle-free tool and a must-have!“ - Reynante Martinez, of Blender Guru
###Simple Interface
The UI has been designed to be easy to use at a glance, while still allowing you full control of the most common lamp settings. It’ll only show you settings relevant to each individual light, and adjust what is displayed as you turn things on and off. This means that instead of just a color, you can control the black-body temperature, wavelength or even an image right from the Gaffer panel.
You can view only the very basic controls such as strength, color and visibility (which is linked to render-visibility as well), or you can expand each light to show more controls like size, diffuse/specular influence, Multiple Importance Sampling and more.
But Gaffer isn’t just a little collection of things you can already do, it includes tools that will speed up your workflow and help you focus on the task at hand. Like the Solo button next to each light: you can temporarily hide all other lights except that one to see exactly what it’s doing, and when you’re done, Gaffer will remember your previous arrangement of light visibility and restore it.
“Gaffer is a must-have tool for anyone serious about lighting in Blender. It’s comprehensive, automatic, and intelligent in it’s functionality. With the time saved by not having to hunt around in the Outliner and Properties panels, it easily pays for itself in one lighting session.“ - Matthew Heimlich, Freelance 3D Artist
###Dynamic Node Adjustments
Gaffer includes controls for things you could usually only do in the node editor, such as changing the lamp falloff. A drop-down menu is provided for each light that allows you to switch between Quadratic, Linear and Constant falloff, which will create or adjust the appropriate nodes for you automatically.
In the common case that your light has a more complicated node setup, you can simply tell Gaffer which node value you want to display in the panel for the Strength adjustment.
###For Cycles and Blender Render
Cycles is great, but there’s little substitute for the good old-fashioned control we get from Blender’s internal renderer. Many productions still use the old renderer because of the speed and infinite control of non-GI lighting, so it’s only fitting that Gaffer can be used there as well.
###Free Updates, Forever
I’m a lighting artist myself, which means that I’m constantly adding new features and improving this add-on for myself as well as for you. So once you purchase Gaffer, you’ll be able to download every consecutive update without ever taking your wallet out again.
Plans for the near future include new light types, such as portal and IES lights, light rigs, conversion between Mesh lights and Area lights, more Image-based lighting controls and shared light settings.
For a detailed list of features, see the Documentation.