StageTools has released MovingPicture 3.0, the latest major upgrade to its still image animation software. The new version sports new features like Motion-blur, Timeline scrubbing, Multi-image Flash output, improved performance and many productivity enhancements.
StageTools also announced support for Mac OS X. StageTools founder Bill Ferster said that the company would release OS X versions of all their Mac plug-ins as OS X compatible editors are released. The company is starting with Adobe After Effects version 5.5.
MovingPicture has been developed to help documentary and industrial filmmakers to pan and zoom on high-res images. The software uses scanned images and provides the ability to repeat pans and zooms either from a Mac or a PC, either as a standalone application or as a plug-in for most nonlinear video editing software.
Users drag and size a framing box icon on the image, then add key frames into the timeline. Editors can then preview motion in real time without any rendering. The final images are then rendered in high quality, with motion field-rendered at sub-pixel accuracy for smooth motion at 32-bit color, according to StageTools. The software can create Macromedia Flash files, too.
MovingPicture supports Mac digital video editing systems including After Effects, Avid, Final Cut Pro, Media 100 and Premiere. The plug-in costs US$199; registered users can upgrade to 3.0 for free. More details and an eval copy can be downloaded from the StageTools Web site.