Electric Rain Inc. has launched Swift 3D version 3.0 for Mac OS X. Swift 3D is a standalone application for designers to build and export 3D animations to the Macromedia Flash (SWF) file format, as well as other major vector and raster formats.
"Electric Rain is proud to broaden its support for the Mac community by making Swift 3D available for Mac OS X," said Electric Rain president Mike Soucie. "Swift 3D is a powerful 3D authoring tool that becomes even more compelling when paired with Mac OS X and its advanced capabilities."
"Mac OS X, with Quartz Extreme, has the most advanced graphics architecture available," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vp of worldwide developer relations. "We are pleased to see Swift 3D take advantage of Mac OS X's powerful graphics capabilities and give the Mac an impressive 3D package with which to create high-quality vector Flash output."
The Mac OS X version of Swift 3D offers significant advantages over previous versions by utilizing Mac OS X's dynamic memory management and multi-tasking capabilities, providing faster rendering speeds and enhanced workflow.
Swift 3D 3.0 for Mac OS X offers Electric Rain's latest innovations in quick and easy 3D authoring:
RAViX III Rendering Engine: With options including reflections, transparency, specularity and multiple shadows, users can create higher quality output than previously seen in a 3D-to-vector product without creating oversized files.
SmartLayer technology: A patent pending technology that works in conjunction with the Swift 3D Importer plug-in for Macromedia Flash MX enabling users to render scenes to layers, offering new design possibilities, better workflow and smaller files.
EMO Ray Tracer: With full support for bitmap texturing, a second rendering engine exports images and animations with photo-realistic quality to popular raster-based file formats as well as Macromedia Flash (SWF).
The Mac OS X version of Swift 3D 3.0 is available at www.erain.com and is a free upgrade for owners of Swift 3D 3.0 for Macintosh. The SRP for Swift 3D 3.0 is $169 for the download and boxed CD version. Upgrades from previous versions of Swift 3D are $89.
Electric Rains (www.erain.com) product line includes Swift 3D standalone and Swift 3D plug-ins for 3ds max and LightWave 3D. Electric Rain actively licenses its proprietary RAViX vector rendering technology to 3D software companies.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
