Kaydara to release FiLMBOX for OS X in July

Kaydara has been working on a Mac OS X version of its real-time 3D content authoring and delivery tool, FiLMBOX, for some time now — it announced plans to support the Mac back at Macworld Expo in San Francisco this past January, and showed off its efforts at the Game Developers Conference last month. Today at the NAB 2001 trade show, the company revealed that it’ll begin shipping FiLMBOX 3.0 this July.

Kaydara said that the new version of FiLMBOX sports enhancements to the character engine, animation tools and user interface. This results in a reduced setup time to produce animated content, according to the company.

New features in FiLMBOX 3.0 include:

HumanIK — Enhancements to FiLMBOX’s character engine enable reproduction of more complex ranges of movements, resulting in more lifelike animation.

New Control Curves Tool — Allows users to edit additive layers of animation without modifying the original data.

New Menu Bar — Exposes second-level navigation commands.

New Transformation Handles — Accelerates object manipulation and provides interactive visual cues directly from the 3D views

The software also supports FBX, Kaydara’s own interchange format for 3D data. The format is supported by companies including MOTEK, Zygote, Turbo Squid, QEDSoft and NewTek.

Available this July, FiLMBOX 3.0 will carry a base price of US$5,000. The software supports OS X, Windows NT/2000, SGI IRIX, and Red Hat Linux.

Look for Kaydara at this week’s NAB 2001 trade show in booth S3263.