Mac users will still be waiting another couple of months for Alias/Wavefront to release its Mac OS X version of Maya, but today marks another important milestone for Mac OS X’s acceptance as a competitive, production-quality 3D content creation platform. Kaydara Inc. announced today the release of FiLMBOX 3.0, the latest major upgrade to its 3D content authoring and delivery tool. For the first time, the Mac is supported — the company has added Mac OS X to its list of supported platforms (FiLMBOX is already available for Windows 2000, Irix and Red Hat Linux platforms).
Major changes to the new version of FiLMBOX include improvements to the Control Sets feature, which enable 3D artists to animate computer-generated characters without having to program complex inverse kinematics rigs and constraints — something usually required by this type of feature, according to Kaydara. Animators can also now work with both inverse and forward kinematics, to generate keyframe animation and to modify existing motion-capture data more easily.
FiLMBOX 3.0 also supports Kaydara’s FBX, an interchange format for 3D data that allows FiLMBOX users to exchange data with other supporting applications — including products from MOTEK, Zygote, Turbo Squid and NewTek, and streaming 3D content from QEDSoft.
FiLMBOX 3.0 carries a base price of US$5,000.