Kaydara Inc. announced the release of MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional, the latest version of the company's popular realtime 3D character animation software. With added support for Python scripting and CgFX shaders, MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional allows 3D animators to create complex character set-ups and animation sequences in minutes instead of the days and weeks required by other systems.
"MOTIONBUILDER is indispensable for motion editing and blending and game cinematics," said Emmanuel Valdez, vp and creative director of Sammy Studios Inc. "Adding support for live scripting and CgFX shaders will save us a tremendous amount of time and technical headaches when we are working on our animation sequences. MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional is fast, intuitive and far outshines the competition when it comes to a powerful 3D character animation package for game developers."
New in MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional is support for Python Scripting, a powerful, interactive, object-oriented programming language. MOTIONBUILDER's support for live scripting enables better integration with game studios' production pipelines, provides fast and intuitive commands for running live scripts, and allows users to automate repetitive processes and extend features without leaving the MOTIONBUILDER environment.
MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional also adds support for CgFX shaders and Cg, a higher level shading language from NVIDIA. CgFX allows artists to author content, visualize using advanced hardware rendering and gives them the ability to tweak shaders creating unlimited effects.
MOTIONBUILDER 5.5's CgFX shader support allows animators to import and use CgFX shaders in all game scenes. Users can also create customized versions of the original imported shaders directly inside of MOTIONBUILDER and have greater control of the CgFX shaders' realtime parameters, such as bump depth, color and specularity. Adding customization gives users more control and the ability to view their animation effects in realtime, as they will appear in the game, without having to wait for the final, rendered version.
"3D game production is incredibly complex and competitive," said Michel Besner, president of Kaydara. "With MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional, we continue to build on Kaydara's commitment to provide efficient, intuitive and precise animation tools that allow today's 3D artists to compete in an industry that is constantly challenging them to produce highly realistic and artistic character animation."
A new breed of animation software designed for artists, MOTIONBUILDER is a powerful character animation solution for feature film, series broadcast, television commercial, vfx, game and interactive 3D artists. MOTIONBUILDER's innovative story timeline is a cutting edge technology asset, which allows animation to be created almost instantaneously. With support for OpenGL and the latest technologies provided by companies such as NVIDIA, MOTIONBUILDER also offers unprecedented speed and real-time functionality for photorealistic rendering.
"With NVIDIA professional graphics solutions, digital artists using MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional with CgFX shader support can create spectacular visual effects in realtime," said Jeff Brown, general manager of workstation graphics at NVIDIA. "Hardware acceleration throughout the production pipeline via programmable NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics and Cg allows animators to spend time improving their work interactively, sharing and modifying shaders freely."
MOTIONBUILDER natively supports Kaydara's FBX file interchange format, a powerful format for 3D data that allows MOTIONBUILDER users to quickly and easily acquire and exchange 3D assets and media from a wide variety of sources. FBX is widely supported by 3D content and streaming media vendors such as 2D3, Alias, Autodesk/Discreet, Softimage, NewTek, DI-O-Matic, Digimask, ElectricImage, InSpeck, Maxon, Motek, QEDsoft, Virtools, Midway, NaturalMotion, Noitanimation, noDNA, e-frontier, Reflex3D, Turbosquid, Vicon, Wings3D and Zygote.
MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Professional is priced at $4,195 and includes 12 months of support. MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 Standard is priced at $995. Kaydara MOTIONBUILDER 5.5 is a free version update for existing MOTIONBUILDER 5.0 Professional and Standard customers (not applicable to Personal Edition) and is available on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.2 and higher. Prices outside of North America may vary. For more information on MOTIONBUILDER 5.5, visit Kaydara's Website at www.kaydara.com.
Over the course of the past decade, Kaydara has become a leader in the development of realtime 3D animation software solutions for the entertainment industry. Kaydara's product portfolio serves a vast and varied range of clients in the TV, film, game development and Web content industries. Kaydara is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
