Filmbox 3.5: Kaydara adds keyframe and nonlinear animation. (reviews).(Evaluation)

KAYDARA has been a leader in the area of real-time motion capture for the past few years. Filmbox, its flagship product, is an essential tool for anyone creating motion capture or other types of real-time content. Version 3.0 built on a strong foundation with the addition of keyframe animation and nonlinear animation. Subsequent versions, including the just-released 3.5, have added several more features in the areas of workflow and character animation.

The software runs on Windows NT/ 2000, SGI Irix, and Linux operating systems. It is also available for Mac OS X. I tested the Windows version. Users will notice a few interface changes. The righthand toolbar has been significantly reorganized. Many commands, such as skin and actor, have been moved to the top level, making workflow a lot quicker. The program also sports new manipulators for 3D translation, rotation, and scale. Another nice interface tweak is the ability to create selection sets for the fast pick of objects within a scene.

Filmbox is primarily a system for creating motion, so tasks such as modeling need to be accomplished in other packages. To facilitate this, Filmbox can import/export scene files from most of the major 3D packages, including, Alias|Wavefront's Maya, Discreet's 3ds max, and Newtek's LightWave.

I did a quick test by importing a LightWave scene file containing a character deformed by a skeleton. In addition to the models, lights, and cameras, the character's skeletal deformations, animation, and textures came through without a hitch. This high level of compatibility makes it easy to model and set up characters in your favorite 3D package, run them through Filmbox for the motion capture session, then render them in real time in Filmbox or bring them back to the original package.

Setting up a character is easy. You can import pre-existing scene files, or just models, which can be rigged within Filmbox. The software offers a full featured skeletal and skinning system to define your characters. Expressions are available for customizing your rigs. Characters can be textured and lit using a number of lights and shaders. With a beefy OpenGL card, Filmbox can create such visual effects as textures, shadows, reflections, and even particle effects in real time.

Filmbox's big strength is as a motion capture system, and it can interface with both optical and magnetic varieties. The biggest challenge of motion capture is accurately mapping the motion of the ...