Electric Rain Inc. has released a Windows version of Swift 3D Xpress, a new 3D extension accessible directly from within the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 interface, with a Mac OS X version promised soon.
Swift 3D Xpress lets Flash MX 2004 users select any vector object open it into the Xpress editing interface, customize their 3D scene by extruding, rotating, lighting and animating the vector object, then render it out to a self-contained Movie Clip in either vector or raster form.
Swift 3D Xpress offers one-step conversion of 2D artwork to extruded 3D objects and automatic creation of Flash movie clips. Other features include a customizable material gallery; flexible beveling of any extruded object; prebuilt lighting schemes; drag-and-drop animations; the ability to import vector-based AI and EPS files; vector rendering using the RAViX III rendering engine; ray traced raster rendering for photorealistic imagery; and “round tripping ability” for further editing of 3D movie clips.
Macromedia Studio MX began shipping on Wednesday. It’s compatible with Mac OS X (10.2.6 and higher) and Windows.