Cheetah3D 6.0 gains Bullet physics simulation engine
updated 11:40 am EDT, Fri April 13, 2012
Price drops to $99
MW3D has launched Cheetah3D 6.0, a major upgrade of the company's modeling and animation software. The core update is a new physics engine, Bullet, which handles soft and rigid body dynamics. The technology can potentially save effort in posing and animation tasks, which otherwise require a lot of manual control.
"Simulation baking" can be used for complex scenes, and several new parametric object types are supported, including capsule, line, fractal, and isosurface (metaball). Smooth, shell, and crumple options have joined the list of mesh modifiers, and the software now supports animation of mesh vertices and spline control points. A global scene search field lets users root through all objects and materials.
The software further supports 16-bit textures, OS X Lion's fullscreen mode, and better Collada export compatible with iBooks Author. Miscellaneous changes include improved sweep and bevel tools, more hotkeys and custom colors, and a "greatly extended" JavaScript API that offers access to animation data. The FBX SDK has been updated to the latest version.
For this generation, Cheetah3D has been reduced in price from $149 to $99. Upgrades are free for people who bought v5.x after December 12th 2010, but otherwise cost $69. Users must have an Intel Mac with at least 1GB of RAM and OS X 10.6.
