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K-3D is the free-as-in-freedom 3D modeling, animation, and rendering system for Mac OS X operating systems. K-3D features a robust, object-oriented plugin architecture, designed to scale to the needs of professional artists, and is designed from-the-ground-up to generate motion-picture-quality animation using RenderMan-compliant render engines. We strongly recommend the Aqsis render engine for use with K-3D.

K-3D's innovative interactive tutorial system will introduce you to basic use of the program. New tutorials can easily be recorded and shared with the rest of the community.

K-3D allows you to create and edit documents in multiple realtime OpenGL solid, shaded, texture-mapped views. You can even model, animate, and interact with animations while they play back for maximum productivity!

Features:

Workflow
· Procedual modeling and animation.
· Interactive tutorials.
· Unlimited hierarchical undo/redo.

Viewing
· Camera: pan/tilt, zoom, dolly, modeling and tripod modes.
· Viewing Modes: Detailed selection of visible features.
· Hide / unhide geometry.

Modeling
· Powerful scene graph procedual modeling with complete modeling history.
· Selection: Objects, meshes, faces, edges, patched, curves, point groups, point.
· Geometry types: Polygon, NURBS, subdivision, blobby.
· 3D Primitives: Cone, circle, cushion, cylinder, disk, grid, paraboloid, polyhedon, sphere, torus.
· Boolean modeling operations.
· Text: FreeType? support.
· Instantiation: Create duplicates without adding gemometry to the scene.

Animation
· Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) allows arbitrary dataflow - any object property can be connected to any other compatible property.
· Animate any value.
· Unlimited number of animation channels.
· Bezier curve channels.
· Animate modeling operations.

Materials and Textures
· Textures with 16-bit float bitdepth.
· Procedual RenderMan shaders.
Rendering
· Full RenderMan Support: Aqsis, Pixie, BMRT, PRman, 3Delight, Render Dot C.
· Extensible support for alternate render engines and models: YafRay.
· Render OpenGL previews to disk.

Scripting
· Python engine (preferred for new script development).
· K3DScript engine (minimal scripting engine for tutorials / macros).
· JavaScript engine (legacy script engine).
· Support for alternate script engine plugins and environments.

Compositing
· Basic 2D compositing.
· Bitdepth 16-bit float per channel.

Supported Formats
· Geometry Formats: AC3D, ASCII Scene Export, Apple QuickDraw?3D, AutoCad, Ayam, DirectX?, GNU Triangulated Surfaces, Quake II, PDB, RenderMan Interface Bytestream, VRML, Wavefront ... (some of them depend on PLIB installation)
Image Formats:
JPEG (all platforms).
PNG (all platforms).
TIFF (all platforms).
OpenEXR (requires optional OpenEXR plugin).
BMP (requires optional ImageMagick? plugin).
SUN (requires optional ImageMagick? plugin).