Versions:
What's new in 1.8.1 (November 26th 2009)
• Fixed a bug on the Bezier horizontal ruler view when clicking on the ruler view.
• Fixed a bug on the Bezier ruler view. It displayed the green playback marker even in case of ruler in Ticks.
• Fixed a bug when adding points to a 3D Path on the Left and Right views.
• Fixed a bug on the Script sprites (exit script).
• Fixed a bug on the "Show TV Safe Area" check-box.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie on PPC machines.
What's new in 1.8.0 (November 3rd 2009)
• Saving/Opening animations containing 3DS models is now x10 faster.
• Saving animations containing OBJ models creates a kmc file 3 times smaller.
• Optimization of the RAM memory usage at loading texture images (more memory available).
• Enabled multi-threaded execution of the OpenGL framework (fast rendering).
• Added the anisotropy correction (anti-flickering) when exporting to a QT movie or to a picture.
• When choosing the menu "Stage Window Only", all the detached Inspector windows and the Texture Options window get closed too.
• When working without the grouped windows and the Inspector panel is open, clicking on the Toolbar button "Inspector" closes the Inpector panel.
• Added the "Zoom" feature.
Click on the "Lens" button on the toolbar of the Stage window to select the "Zoom" tool.
Click on the the Stage window to zoom in the view.
Hold down the Option key and click to zoom out the view.
Click and drag the mouse over the Stage window defining the area to zoom.
Hold down the Shift key and click to go back to the previous zoom.
Double click on the "zoom icon" on the tool bar to reset the view to its default values.
Double click on the bottom-left "view icon" (if shown) on the Stage or select the menu item "View:Reset View" to reset the view to its default values.
When the "Arrow" tool is selected (Object selector) you can quickly zoom the view holding down the Control key.
The zoom by area feature doesn't apply on the "Sprites Movable Cameras" view to not to accidentally modify the camera-sprites animation.
You can undo the zoom, the rotation and the pan view.
• Added the "Undo Modify Sprite Camera" when the camera sprite has been modified by dragging the mouse on the Stage (Rotation, Zoom and Translation).
• Added the "Reveal in Finder", "Open with Finder" and "More Options" contextual menu items on the Texture Image Well on the "Inspector:Textures" panel.
Right-click or Control-Left-Click on the Texture Image Well to pop-up the contextual menu.
• Added the "Reveal in Finder" and "Open with Finder" contextual menu items on the Texture Image Well on the "Textures Options" window.
Right-click or Control-Left-Click on the Texture Image Well to pop-up the contextual menu.
• Added the "TV Safe Area" Width and Height fields on the "Inspector:Stage" panel.
• Added the check-box "Animate Media Textures" on the "Inspector:Stage" panel. Usually this option should be "on".
You can set it to "off" to easily work on your animation even if there are many movie textures. Then, when ready to play, set this option “on” and get your movies-textures and QC-textures updated during the playback. This option is ignored (always “on”) when exporting to a QT movie or to a picture file.
• On the "Inspector:Static" Lights panel, even if a light is selected, if you press a key as e.g. "/" to set the 4 views, the Stage window responds to the key down.
• When importing a song, the song sprite will automatically get its duration from the song duration.
• Added the Start and End surfaces to the "3D Path" with a pipe profile.
• The 2D Text and the 2D Counter now can be set with "Show Internal Faces" On and Off (see "Inspector:Parameters" panel).
• The 2D Text and the 2D Counter now can be set with "Depth" On and Off (see "Inspector:Parameters" panel).
• The 2D Text and the 2D Counter now can be edited also by clicking the "Edit Text" button on the "Inspector:Parameters" panel.
• The Quartz Composition Textures now accept the "Start At" values. Use this parameter to offset the start of the QC.
• Added the feature to copy and paste the selected Bezier curves on the Bezier window. You can copy/paste the curves even between different sprites.
• The Bezier window now properly resizes its internal bounds accordingly to the max size of the Bezier curves shown.
• As requested, the left drawer on the Bezier window now lists "only" the parameters containing at least a key frame.
• On the Bezier window, the parameter fields on the left drawer properly display the value of the current selected Bezier's handle.
• Added the "Flip Sprite Parameter" feature to the Sprite menu. You can now flip sprite values/animation individually.
(e.g. all the "Positions X = Positions -X" or all "Rotations Y = Rotations - Y"). Graphically it's like mirroring a bezier curve upon the zero horizontal axis.
• Fixed a bug causing a slow down of the rendering speed when a texture well was selected on the "Inspector:Textures" panel.
• Fixed a bug causing a slow down of the rendering speed when a texture well was selected on the "Texture Options" window.
• Fixed a bug causing a slow down of the rendering speed when the "Inspector:Browse" panel was visible.
• Fixed a bug which prevented to drag a movie file onto the Stage window and automatically create a Rectangle with that movie.
• Fixed a bug occuring when loading several animations containing a 3DPath object with strip or pipe profile.
• Fixed a bug occuring when undoing "Delete path point" on the 3DPath object.
• Fixed a bug when dragging the light source icon on the Top view (it didn't move along z).
• Fixed a bug when aligning objects as "Distribuited" (x, y, z) on the "Inspector:Alignment" panel.
• Fixed a bug occuring when "Saving as" while the animation folder contains only the kmc file ad no other files (e.g. image files).
• Fixed a bug when changing the sprite ruler measurement from Ticks to Seconds in the Kinemac Preferences panel. The sprite ruler didn't get updated.
• Fixed a bug when setting a sprite folder linked a 3D path to the Link Mode "Skip". In this case, if the sprite folder has a longer duration than the sprite path and the play head falls out of the sprite path and within the sprite folder, all of the children of the sprite folder will be properly turned off.
• Fixed a bug which caused a Camera-Sprite (placed below a Folder-Sprite or any other Sprite than the 2DText) to not to show its "positive" borders.
• Fixed a bug which didn't let to use the Audio-Volume on 3DPaths.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.
What's new in 1.6.6 version (June 23rd 2008):
• Fixed a bug when resizing a sprite-path with strip or pipe profile.
What's new in 1.6.5 version (June 16th 2008):
• Fixed a bug at refreshing the Insert Frame ToolTip on the Sprites window.
• Fixed a bug at the path-strip with straigh and perpendicular consecutive lines.
What's new in 1.6.3 version (April 2nd 2008):
• Fixed a minor bug at displaying a Quartz Composition preview on the Inspector:Browser panel
• Fixed a minor bug at the 3D path's normals when running on PPC machines.
What's new in 1.6.2 version (March 17th 2008):
• Fixed a bug at launching Kinemac on Tiger.
• Fixed a bug at displaying a Quartz Composition preview on the Inspector:Browser panel.
• Fixed a bug when Importing a file into an animation placed on a non-writable disk.
• Fixed a bug when "Saving As" from an animation placed on a non-writable disk.
What's new in 1.6.1 version (March 12th 2008):
• Added the command "Sprite:Invert Animation". Applying this command to a sprite means inverting its movement (translations, rotations...) between the first and the last keyframe.
• Added the command "Sprite:Invert KeyFrames". Applying this command to a sprite means inverting its movement (translations, rotations...) along its whole duration.
• Fixed a bug on exporting (to a QT movie or to an Image, with FPS different than 60) when a sprite containing a movie with a "Start At" value was different than zero.
• Fixed a bug about the Texture "Movie Loop" option.
• Fixed a bug on the Preferences file when upgrading from versions prior than 1.6.0.
• Fixed a bug on the Browser panel.
What's new in 1.6.0 version (February 4th 2008):
• This is a free upgrade. Click here to get an illustrated version of this "What's New" paragraph.
• New interface.
• Added the Browser tab to the Inspector panel. You don't longer need to pick and drag your images, movies, sounds and text files from the Finder. You can now inspect images, movies, sounds... from the Inspector:Browser panel then drag them onto the Stage on onto a surface of the selected object. The Browser panel grants a thumbnail list showing images and movies contained within the selected folder. Also it grants a preview area where you can get a sample of the selected file (image, movie or song). The Browser lists all the file kinds Kinemac can import, therefore, images, movies, songs, text, svg, 3ds and obj files. Double click on a folder icon in the list to go within that folder. Use the popup menu to go out from the selected folder. The Browser panel grants a Forward and a Back button to navigate through the latest folders selected.
• Now Kinemac supports the SpaceNavigator input peripherical by 3DConnection.com (a Logitech company) . With SpaceNavigator you can easily move the camera without using the mouse. You can quickly translate, rotate and zoom the camera. Push, pull, tilt and twist the controller cap to fly through three dimensional scenes with a freedom many call "addictive". To know more about the SpaceNavigator please go to http://www.3dconnexion.com
• Kinemac now lets you import your Quartz Compositions in your animation. Drag a QC file onto the Stage window to automatically create a Rectangle with that QC as texture. Or, select any object on the Stage then drag a QC file from the Finder (or from the Kinemac Browser (see here above) onto a surface of the selected object to apply that QC texture onto that surface. Then open the Texture Options Window (Command-5) to set up additional option to your qc texture (e.g. mirrored tiling, repetitions, offset, scale...). Press the space-bar key to start the animation and see your QC playing.
• The 3DPath object can now be used to create strips and pipes. Firstly draw your own path (better if on a 2D view) or import a curve from an SVG file. Then choose the profile (None, Strip, or Pipe) from the "Profile" popup menu and set the width of the object. You can animate the surface of the object just adding keyframes to the object parameters. For example, you can animate the length of the stripe (growing film), the starting point of the stripe (decreasing film), the width of the stripe on any given point, the texture offset X and Y (to create a kind of film scrolling along the stripe) and the link point position. Key framing the link point means that any object linked to that path (e.g. a camera following the 3D bezier path) can accelerate, decelerate, go back and forth, and stop at any given point.
• The Rectangle object can be set to show rounded corners. Select the rectangle object on the Stage then, on the Inspector:Parameters panel, set the radius of the rounded corner.
• The Cube object can be set to show rounded corners. Select the cube object on the Stage then, in the Inspector:Parameters panel, set the radius of the rounded corner. In the Inspector:Surfaces panel you can apply a texture to the rounded (bevel) surface.
• On the 2D Text Editor window, you can now select a text and set the stroke width and the stroke color. When the Stroke Color Well is active (grayed-out), the color panel will let you set the stroke color. When the Stroke Color Well is not active, the color panel will let you set the normal text fill color.
• As requested you can now set the 2D Text Editor window as transparent and opaque.
• The Static Lights table on the Inspetor panel has been enlarged and shows the icon of the light kind (bulb, spot or sun).
• Added the "Save Current Static Light List as default" button to the footer of the Static Light tab.
• On the Static Light tab, you can now load the factory Static Lights settings clicking on the "Restore Default" button holding down the Option key. If you don't hold down the Option key, the last saved settings will be restored.
• Added the Movie Volume control to the Background Texture Options panel.
• Added the "Go Full Screen" button to the ToolBar of the Stage Window. If you can't see it, please delete the Preference file "(Home)/Library/Preferences/com.kinemac.kinemac.plist" then launch Kinemac. Then open the Toolbar clicking on the white button at the top-right corner of the Stage Window.
• Added the "Arrow" and "Pen" buttons to the ToolBar of the Stage Window. If you can't see it, please delete the Preference file "(Home)/Library/Preferences/com.kinemac.kinemac.plist" then launch Kinemac. Then open the Toolbar clicking on the white button at the top-right corner of the Stage Window.
• The "Inspector:Parameters" panel shows now automatically the proper control-subview when the user selects an object (e.g. 3DPath, Chart, Sphere, Pie, Cone, Cube, Rectangle...). Therefore the "3DPath" and "Chart" fixed tabs have been removed from the Inspector panel. When a 3DPath is selected on the Stage, or a Chart sprite is selected on the Sprite window..., go to the Inspector:Parameters tab view to get the controls over that object.
• Detach windows from the Inspector. Click on the buttons of the Inspector holding down the Command key to detach that Tab into a brand new window. Don't drag the mouse when clicking. Working with several windows open makes your work easier and faster.
• Now Kinemac supports QuickLook. Activate the QuickLook option on the Kinemac Preferences:Export panel, and save your animation. Kinemac will embed a thumbnail and a preview within your kmc animation file. Kinemac takes the thumbnail and the preview from the current frame at the moment you save the file. Later on you will be able to browse your animation files in the Finder activating the Cover Flow view mode and see the preview.
• On the Bezier Window you can now select end edit multiple points simultaneously. Click and drag the mouse over an area to select the points or click on a point holding down the Shift key to extend the current selection. Then drag all the points (white, orange and green) to change their positions, or hold down the Control key and click onto the end point to toggle between line and curve, or press the delete key to delete all the selected points.
• Added the "Group Sprites" menu item in the Sprites menu. Select various sprites then call this menu item to move all the selected sprites within a brand new sprite folder. Easy and quick.
• Added the "Texture Mirrored Tile" option to the "Texture Options" window (Command-5 to open it) and to the "Background Texture Options" window (double click on the Background Image well in the "Inspector:Stage" panel to open it).
• Added the item menu "Show/Hide Grid" to the "Views" menu.
• Hold down the Command key and click on the menu "Views" to get the menu item "Edit Grid..." instead of the menu item "Show/Hide Grid".
• The grid shows darker lines (your step) and brighter lines (your step * 5).
• You can now customize the background color of the Bezier window. Just drag a color from the Color palette onto the Bezier window to set its background color.
• The 6 views Front, Back, Top, Bottom, Left and Right are now always hortogonal. Dragging an object on one of these views, properly moves the object under the mouse pointer all the time.
• The command "Sprite:Duplicate" now works on the selection of multiple sprites too.
• The command "Sprite:Duplicate Multiple" now works on the selection of multiple sprites too.
• Hold down the right mouse button to rotate the current camera. Very easy and fast. You don't lose the selected object.
• Hit the ' key (apostrophe) to show the "view icons" (Work, Front, Top...) on the Stage views. Then clik on the "view icon" and drag to rotate the 3D view. Drag holding down the Option key to zoom the view. If the view is hortogonal (Front, Top,...) click on the view icon and drag to pan the view. Double click on the "view icon" to reset the view. If 4 views are visible on the Stage, hold down the Option key and double click on the view icon to reset all the 4 views.
• If 4 views are visible on the Stage, hold down the Shift key and choose the menu item "Views:Reset 4 views" to reset all the 4 views.
• Rotate the mouse wheel to increase/decrease the zoom level even when running in Full Screen mode.
• Clik on the "Display Frame Counter" in the Sprite Window holding down the Option key to set the "home frame" to the current frame.
• Double click on the "Display Frame Counter" in the Sprite Window to go back to the "home frame".
• Double click on the "Display Frame Counter" in the Sprite Window holding down the Option key to go to the beginning of the animation (frame zero).
• Click on the "Display Frame Counter" in the Sprite Window and drag the mouse to the right or to the left to Forward or Rewind the animation. More you move the mouse to the right/left and more you increase the forward/rewind speed. Kinemac will automatically set the "home frame" to the current frame before the drag started. So, as stated above, double clik on the "Display Frame Counter" in the Sprite Window to go back to the "home frame".
• When several sprites are selected, click on a selected sprite holding down the Shift key to deselect that sprite.
• The button "Surfaces to Sprite" on the Inspector:Surfaces panel has been removed. You can perform the same command choosing the menu item "Surfaces to New Sprite" in the menu "Sprite". Also you can now drag one or more surface-rows from the list to the Stage to move that surface to a new sprite. To select a surface directly on the Stage, hold down the "q" key and click on the surface of the object. Hold down the Shift key to extend the selection.
• Added the "Look Ahead" pop-up menu in the Inspector:Geometry panel. Set the face of the selected sprite you would like to look ahead on a linked sprite. For example, if you link a path to a sprite, so that sprites moves along the path, if you select the face "right", the right face of the sprite will look ahead along the path. If the selected face is None, the sprite will follow the path (xyz translations) but will only rotate accordingly to its own xyz rotations.
• Added the "If out" pop-up menu in the Inspector:Geometry panel. When a selected sprite A is linked to another sprite B you can use this pop-up menu to define the way to take the values from the linked sprite B in case the duration of the 2 sprites on the stage is not coincident, e.g. the sprite A starts at 0 and ends at 800, while the linked sprite B starts at 200 and ends at 600. If you choose "Skip", the sprite A will disappear from the scene from the 0th the 200th frame. It will take the sprite B values from the 200th to the 600th frame and it will disappear from the 600th to the 800th frame. IN case you choose "Loop" the sprite A will not disappear but it will take the values from the sprite B as if it had an infinite duration. In case you choose "Clamp" the sprite A will not disappear but it will take the first or the last value from the sprite B.
• When importing a 2D SVG file to revolve you can now set the offset between the profile and the rotation axis. You can always modify this value in the Inspector:Parameters panel (see radius).
• Sprite Alignment with Snap. YOu can now drag horizontally a sprite in the sprite window holding down the Command key and rollover another sprite in to aline the start or the end of the dragged sprite with the start or end of the rollovered sprite. The snap occurs in case the user drags the whole sprite and in case he extends the duration of the sprite dragging the left (snap to the start sprite) or the right border of the sprite (snap to the end of the rollovered sprite). If no sprite is rollovered during the drag when holding down the Command key, the dragged sprite will snap to each 10 ticks of the sprite line and to the start or end of all the sprites.
• The sprite name of the new 3DText and 2DText doesn't longer contains returns.
• When saving the animation file, Kinemac now deletes all the media files imported by the user and not longer used in the animation.
• When closing an animation and discarding the changes, Kinemac now deletes all the media files imported by the user since the most recent saving.
• Added the menu item "File:Purge Animation Folder". Choose this command to delete, from the animation folder, all the files not used in the animation. This command deletes even files you copied manually into the animation folder. Due to this reason, Kinemac, before deleting the files, will display a window listing all the files it's going to delete. You can cancel, or mark the files you really want to delete and press ok to delete them. Another dialog will ask you to do the task o cancel.
• Added the "Linear Decay" and "Quadratic Decay" to the "Inspector:Static Lights" panel. Increment these values to make the objects far from the source light darker. The objects closer to the source light will look lighter.
• In the Texture Options window we have removed the limits (-100, 100) from the Texture Area Origin X and Y fields. This means that you can freely assign to the surface any portion of texture. For example you can assign the top-right quarter of the texture to the surface using the following values: Fill = Crop, X = -100, Y = -100, Width = 200, Height = 200.
• In the Texture Options window we have added the projection pop-up menu. YOu can choose "Wrap", "X", "Y" or "Z" projection. Some examples. Choose "Wrap" to wrap a texture map on a sphere and get an effect like the "Planet Earth". Choose "Z" to project a texture onto the Sphere, hortogonally, along the axis Z and get an effect like "Smarties" (reduce the Z dimension of the Sphere to complete the effect).
• Improved the "Link Sprite to Sprite" feature. More than dragging a sprite from the hierarchical sprites list you can now link a sprite choosing the sprite to link from the "Link to Sprite" pop-up menu.
• Many improvement to the interface look and feel.
• Many other improvements.
• Fixed a bug at importing complex SVG files.
• Fixed a bug at lightening an SVG revolved object.
• Fixed a bug occurring when moving a control point (green or orange) of a bezier path.
• Fixed a bug when exporting the soundtrack of the background movie to a QT movies.
• Fixed a bug when calling the "Save as" command. Now the old kmc file gets deleted properly.
• Fixed a minor bug when choosing some menu item from the popup menu "Stage Size" on the Inspector:Stage panel.
• Fixed a minor bug when changing the slices of a cylinder.
• Fixed a minor bug about the texture onto the right and left surfaces of the Cone.
• Fixed a minor bug when resizing the split views (sprites and stage-sprites) in the grouped Stage window.
• Fixed a bug when undoing a multiple sprites hierarchy change.
• Other bug fixes.
What's new in 1.5.1 version (January 15th 2007):
• Fixed some minor bugs coming with the version 1.5.0.
What's new in 1.5.0 version (January 9th 2007):
• Click here to get an illustrated version of this "What's New" paragraph.
• Move objects along a 3D Path. You can link any object to a 3D path or to any other moving object and get your object moving along that path or together with another object. Look at the animation. To link a 3DPath (or any other sprite) to an object, select the object, then, from the hierarchical sprite list, drag a 3DPath (or any other sprite) onto the "Add Positions from Sprite" field on the Inspector/Geometry panel.
• Closed 3DPath. In the Inspector panel, 3DPath subpanel, you will be able to choose whether a 3D path should be closed or not. Just mark the check-box "Close Path" to turn an open path to a closed path.
• Background with gradient and transparency:
- Fill Color. This feature was the only one already present in the previous version. You can set one background fill color choosing the menu item "Fill" from the Background Color pop-up menu. Then click on the color well and choose a color from the Color palette. Alternatively you can open the Color palette with Command+Shift+C then drag a color from the Color palette onto the Stage window.
- Gradient Color. Select the item "Gradient" from the Background Color pop-up menu. Then click on the color wells and choose the 1st and the 2nd color from the Color palette. Last, rotate the direction of the gradient acting on the "Angle" wheel.
- None. Select the item "None" from the Background Color pop-up menu to set a transparent background. To preserve the transparency when exporting to a QT movie (File:Export Movie), choose the Animation Codec with "Millions of Colors +". To preserve the transparency when exporting to a still image (File:Export Frame), choose the "tiff" or the "png" image format.
• Custom Background with Image or Movie. The previous version did let you set an image to the background. This version lets you set a movie too. Just drag a movie file onto the "Image/Movie" well (see here aside) to set it to the background. Alternatively you can drag a movie file onto the Stage window holding down the Option key. In this version we have added the "Custom" menu item to the "Fill Mode" pop-up. Click on the button "Options" to set the texture values as Origins, Repetitions, Scale, Rotation Angle, Gap, Movie Start Offset...
• Master Volume. In the Inspector/Stage panel you can now set the Master Volume of the animation. This value belongs to the application preferences and doesn't affect the animation file nor the volume of the embedded media files. It just affects the master volume of the animation during the playback.
• 4 Multiple Views. In this version you will be able to set up to 4 views on the Stage window pressing the / key (the slash key). On each view you can set an independent projection (Work, Front, Top, Sprites Camera View... - pressing respectively w, f, t, s...), turn the grid on or off (press g), set the polygon mode to wireframe or fill (press .) and rotate, zoom and translate the view (press 1, 2, 3 and drag). This way you can easily control your animation (objects, cameras, lights, 3D paths...) through the multiple reference views. In order to run your animation in real time, we always recommend to set one view only. However, we have been running some of the animations posted on our web gallery (like the one shown here below, containing a QT movie) on a G5 dual 2GHz with ATI Radeon 9800 with 256 VRAM and it did run in real time even with 4 views set to polygon fill... Great Kinemac!
• Group windows. For the users who love to work on one window only, we have added a command which groups the Stage window, the Inspector window and the Sprites window in one window only. Just press Command-Control-1 to toggle between the Grouped Windows and Ungrouped Windows. Click here to see a bigger screenshot.
When the Stage window groups the Sprite and the Inspector window and the visible rendering view is only 1 (not 4) you'll get a layout color outside the bounds of the rendering view. You can drag a color from the color palette onto this area of the Stage to change the color of the layout.
• Lights. You can now easily drag the light source and target icon on the Stage. Hold down the command key when dragging to snap to a 10 points grid. If you set the Stage to display 4 Views you will simultaneously see the changes on the 4 projections.
• Cameras. You can now easily drag the camera eye and target icon on the Stage. If you set the Stage to display 4 Views you will simultaneously see the changes on the 4 projections. The Sprite Camera View will display the result of your changes. Hold down the command key when dragging the eye or target icons to snap to a 10 points grid.
• 3DS Surface Selection and Split. You can now click and select any surface from a 3DS object and split these surfaces to a new sprite. Then you can animate the new sprite independently. For example, let's suppose you import a 3DS model of a car. It comes into Kinemac as a unique sprite. So you can animate it as a unique block. Let's suppose you want to open and close a door of the car in your animation. You have to move the door surface into a new sprite such a way you can animate the new sprite independently.
On the Stage window, hold down the "q" key and click on the door of the car. You can select the door surface only if the original 3DS model had the door on a separated surface (see here aside). Now you click on the button "Surface to Sprite" (Inspector panel, Surface Textures subpanel) and the door surface will be removed from the 3DS sprite to a new sprite called "door".
Now you canimate the door of the car independently. In the case of the picture below, we have splitted the black surfaces to another sprite called "black" then we have changed the size of this sprite during the animation. Look at the animation.
• 3DS Surface Copy, Cut, Paste and Delete. Furthermore, you can copy, cut, paste and delete the selected surfaces from a 3DS object. For example you can cut the selected surfaces from a 3DS sprite and paste them into another 3DS sprite. You can select all the surfaces and delete them from the 3DS sprite such a way to create a 3DS sprite empty, with no surfaces. Then you can paste into this sprite the surfaces you have copied from some other 3DS sprites and compose your new 3DS object.
As written above you can either select the surfaces on the Stage clicking onto each surface holding down the "q" key (to extend the selection hold down the Shift key), or, in the Inspector:Surfaces/Textures subpanel you can click on the rows of the surface list. To select all the surfaces in the list press Command–A (Select All) when the list is active (one of the surfaces is selected).
• Drag image/movie file onto a Surface. The version 1.5 lets you drag an image file or a movie file from the Finder onto the surface of an object selected on the Stage to apply that texture on that surface. This method lets you avoid to assign the color using the Inspector panel.
• Drag a color onto a Surface. The version 1.5 lets you drag a color from the color palette onto the surface of an object selected on the Stage to assign that color to that surface. This method lets you avoid to assign the color using the Inspector panel.
• Added the Undo command when working in full screen.
• Added the change view commands when working in full screen.
Even when working in full screen you can press the key (s, f, k, t, b, l, r, w, d) to select the various different views (Sprites Cameras, Front, Back, Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Work, Default).
• The "Camera" tool has been removed.
In order to modify a camera/view now you don't have to switch to the camera selection mode anymore. Just press the "1" or "2" or "3" key to modify the camera/view as the following:
- Press the "1" key and drag to rotate the current view (if not orthogonal) or the selected camera sprite.
Hold down the Shift key to rotate the target point around the eye point (as moving a photocamera).
- Press the "2" key and drag to zoom the current view or the selected camera sprite.
Hold down the Shift key to move both the eye and the target along the view direction.
- Press the "3" key and translate the current view or the selected camera sprite.
In order to toggle on/off the symbols of the selected camera (top, front, axo, sprite camera,...) press the key ' (apostrophe) or choose the menu item "Views:Show/Hide View Icons".
• Improved the Motion Blur quality when exporting to a QT movie.
• The Paste Sprite Values command now works on multiple sprites selection too.
• The Paste Frame Values command now works on multiple sprites selection too. Furthermore it pastes the keyframes state too (if the frame copied had keyframes) then it pastes the values. The keyframes already "on" will not removed.
• You can now horizontally zoom-in the Sprite view (it was zoom-out only).
• The Bezier view can now be scaled negatively allowing to see the whole view in the Bezier window (it was zoom-in only).
• Reuse of the Texture Image files. Kinemac now internally reuses the image texture (already it did with movie textures), so you can apply the same texture to several objects without wasting your video-memory.
• When replacing a texture with a new one with the same file name, Kinemac updates all the objects' surfaces binded to the texture with the same file name.
It's no longer needed to do it manually or to reload the animation file.
• In the Sprite window, drag the Time Marker holding down the Control key to snap to the existing key frame markers.
• When adding points to a 3DPath you can now see the pen cursor at the mouse position.
• Fixed a bug which caused Kinemac to crash at the end of the export to a QT movie.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie or Image and a texture movie was applied to several sprites with different start sprite point.
• Fixed a bug at the Sprite Lights and at the Static Lights. Bulb, Infinite and Spot lights now work properly as Static Lights and Sprite Lights. Furthermore, as written avobe, we added source and target draggable icons.
• Fixed a bug when resizing the Stage window and a Sprite Camera was selected.
• Fixed a bug when using a Sprite Orthogonal Camera and switch to the full screen.
• Fixed a bug when trying to select (click on the Stage) an object shooted by a Sprite Orthogonal Camera.
• Fixed a bug when removing a point from a 3DPath object on the Stage.
• Fixed a bug at the Paste Sprite Values dialog.
• Fixed a bug at the object selection on the Stage window.
• Fixed a bug at inserting frames to the sprites with Alt+Drag on the Sprites window.
• Fixed a bug at deleting the unused media files from the animation folder when saving the animation.
What's new in 1.2.3 version (September 22nd 2006):
• Fixed a bug occurring when creating 3DText objects with some particular font.
• Fixed a bug occurring when extruding SVG files (e.g. logo made with Illustrator).
• Fixed a bug occurring when exporting to a QT movie with small width and height.
• Fixed a bug occurring when exporting to a QT movie with the right duration.
• Fixed a bug occurring when clicking on the button "Set Default" in the Static Lights panel (Inspector).
• Fixed a bug on the interactive objects (scripts).
• Fixed a bug at the license authorization system.
• Fixed a bug at the Background Image when the pop-up menu in the Inspector panel is set to "Tile".
• Fixed a bug at the Camera Lens slider in the Inspector panel.
• Fixed a bug at the Camera Distance slider in the Inspector panel.
• Added more functionality to the multiple sprite selection.
What's new in 1.2.2 version (July 5th 2006):
• Fixed a small bug at the authorization license system.
What's new in 1.2.1 version (July 1st 2006):
• The version 1.2.0 expired on June 30th. This version never expires.
What's new in 1.2.0 version (June 15th 2006):
• Click Here to get an illustrated version of this "What's New" paragraph.
• The final version 1.2 is a free upgrade. It is an Universal Binary application, therefore it runs on both Mac-PowerPC and Mac-Intel machines with MacOS X 10.4 or higher.
• You can drag a 3DS (3D Studio) file onto the Stage window to import your 3D model into your animation. Then, on each surface of the model you can apply: on/off, color, reflection, specular, shininess, image texture and movie texture.
• The texture panel now shows only the surfaces belonging to the selected object in a dinamic list. Every Kinemac object now has its own list of surfaces with the right surfaces names. Rollover the sliders in the list to know which parameters they control (e.g. Reflection, Specular and Shininess). Hold down the SHIFT key while modifying a slider or a color or a check-box to apply the same value to all the surfaces.
• WireFrame. Added the menu items "Polygon Fill" and "Polygon WireFrame" to the "Views" menu. This way you can set the Stage to display the objects as solids or as wire frames (faster rendering). You can quickly toggle the polygon mode Fill/WireFrame pressing the key "." (the dot).
• Multiple Selection. You can now select more objects and move, rotate, delete, change hierarchy, set key-frames, align, duplicate... the selected objects in one shot only. To extend the current selection in the Stage Window, hold down the SHIFT key and select the next object. In the Sprite window, like in the Finder folder list window, you can continuosly extend the selection holding down the SHIFT key and click onto the next sprite. To extend the selection non-continuosly hold down the Control key and click onto the next sprite. To deselect, press the "Escape key" or, in the Stage, click on an empty zone.
• Align Positions. You can select several objects or "one" folder containing several objects and align the objects along the X, Y and Z axes. You can align the objects to the min value, middle value and max value along each axis. In these icons, the red line represents the X axis, the green line represents the Y axis and the blue line represents the Z axis. You could use this option together with the feature "Align Anchors" (here below) to align the bounding box of the selected objects. See in the Inspector the "2D Text & Alignments" panel.
• Align Anchors. You can select several objects or "one" folder containing several objects and set their anchor points along the X, Y and Z axes. You can set the anchor points to the min value (0%), middle value (50%), and max value (100%) along each axis. You could use this option together with the previous feature "Align Positions" to align the bounding box of the selected objects. See in the Inspector the "2D Text & Alignments" panel.
• Align Text. You can select several 2DText or 2DCounter objects or "one" sprite folder containing several 2DText or 2DCounter objects and set their paragraph alignment and the text color in one shot, without opening the edit-text window. Choose the alignment and the color in the Inspector:2DText panel or Inspector:Alignment panel. You could use this option together with the previous features "Align Positions" and "Align Positions" to align the bounding box of the selected objects and the paragraph of the text objects selected.
• Change Font/Style/Size/Color. You can select several 2DText or 2DCounter or 3DText objects or "one" folder containing several 2DText or 2DCounter or 3DText objects and change their font/size/style/color in one shot, without opening the edit-text window. Just select the objects in the Stage window or in the Sprite window then choose the font/size/style from the Font panel and the color from the Color panel. Open the Font panel with Command-T. Open the Color panel with Command-Shift-C.
• Sprite Library. In order to speed up your work we have created a sprite library. The library comes already with some sample object, like animated 3D text, various scrolling text, ...but you can add your own sprites to the library at any time simply dragging a sprite from the hierarchical sprite list onto the library list. You can put in the library the object you will reuse often, like your spinning 3D logo, animated text of any kind and format, coming from the left, coming from the right, scrolling text... etc. Then drag an element from the sprite library list onto the Stage window to import that object into your animation.
• Insert Frames. You can insert frames in a given point of a sprite using the mouse. Just hold down the Option key while rollover a sprite and you will be shown a pop-window reporting the insertion point, current start sprite, end sprite and duration. Move the mouse until you reach the exact insertion point. Now click and drag the mouse to the RIGHT direction until you reach the exact amount of frames inserted (see the value "Frames Inserted: 100" in the pop-up window). Hold down the Command key to snap to 10 frames inserted. Release the mouse. You will notice that the key frames at the right of the insertion point have been translated to the right while the key frames at the left of the insertion point have been left untouched. The duration of the sprite will be increased by the amount of the frames inserted. If you add frames to a sprite folder, kinemac will automatically add frames to all the sprites nested in that sprite folder. If you don't want to add frames to the nested sprites, hold down the Shift key before clicking and dragging the mouse.
• Delete Frames. See previous point. To delete the frames drag the mouse to the left side.
• Spot Light. Addressed the "Bulb" and "Spot" options in the sprite light "Kind" menu. You can choose and assign key-frames to the angle of the spot light, the focus and the decay. Also you can see the cone of the spotlight when selected.
• Link Source/Target Light to Sprite. Addressed the "Link Source Sprite" and "Link Target Sprite" features to the sprite light. Now you can tell a "sprite light source" or a "sprite light target" to move toghether with a given sprite on the Stage. For example you can draw a 3B Bezier path and tell a "sprite light source" to move along that path. And you can move a sprite cube on the Stage then tell a "sprite light target" to follow that moving cube on the Stage. To link a sprite to the light source, drag a sprite from the hierarchical sprites list onto the field "Link Source" in the Inspector panel. To link a sprite to the light target, drag a sprite from the hierarchical sprites list onto the field "Link Target" in the Inspector panel.
• With this version you can set a sprite camera to "Orthogonal". This way the objects following the Orthogonal camera in the sprite list will be drawn just as they were in a 2D space. The advantage to draw in a 2D space is that the objects will be represented with their original size and 2D coordinates as you were paginating a sheet. Click Here to know more.
• Rulers Units: Ticks or Seconds. In the Preferences panel, General sub-panel, you will find the radio button to set the Sprite Ruler Unit to Ticks or Seconds. The sprite ruler, the inspector panel sliders (Sprite Start, Sprite End, Sprite Duration and Animation Duration) and the sprite tooltip will report the values with the measurement chosen.
• Percentage Indicators. If a slider represents a parameter whose values are limited within a fixed interval, like the anchors (0 - 100), the fade (0 - 100) and the volume (0 - 255), the current percentage of the value is indicated by a darker zone over the slider itself (see here aside the anchors sliders).
• Animation Controls. In the sprite window you will find a set of animation controls to go to the beginning, rewind, play/pause, forward, and loop the animation. Hold down the rewind or the forward button holding down the Option key to rewind/forward faster.
• Remote Control. If your Mac includes Front Row, you can play/stop rewind/forward the Kinemac animation using the remote control. Activate the use of the remote control with the "Animation:Use Remote Control" menu item. Use Kinemac 3D animations in your real time conferences!
• Added the "Value Offset" parameter (slider) to the "2D Text Counter" object. Now, more than scaling a value taken from a given sprite, you can add a constant value to the counter.
- The "Take Value" pop-up menu of the "2D Text Counter" now lists only the available parameters of the linked sprite. In the image here aside, the linked sprite is a sphere, therefore the pop-up menu lists the sphere parameters.
- When the "Of Sprite" field is set to "me", the "Take Value" pop-up menu of the "2D Text Counter" object lists a new menu item called "Custom Value". You can choose this parameter from the pop-up menu then assign key frames to this parameter in the "Custom Value" slider below. This way you can have a counter totally customized on the values described by a key–framed bezier curve belonging to the 2D Counter itself. You can edit this curve in the Bezier window (open the Bezier window with Command-3).
• Improved the quality of the compression when exporting to a QT movie. The quality of the image-frames is definitively higher than in the previous version.
• Improved the speed at exporting to a QT movie.
• While exporting to a QuickTime movie or still images, the monitor window now shows the remaining time and the frames/sec exporting speed.
• Improved the interface at drawing and modifying a 3D Bezier Path. You can edit the points in all the orthogonal and perspective views (included all the Cameras and the Work view) much easier than with the previous version. When moving a point you can quickly constrain the movement along a given axis just pressing the axis initial key. For example, to move a point along the axis "x" only, just hold down the "x" key and drag the point. If the view is a perspective view (like the Work view or any Camera view) you can move a point along the x and y axes just dragging the point. Hold down the "z" key to drag the point along the "z" axis.
• Added the Undo and Redo options when moving a point of a 3D Bezier Path.
• The commands "Animation:Insert Frames" and "Animation:Delete Frames" let you now insert/delete frames to the selected sprites only or to all the sprites and to vary/keep the "End Animation". Furtherore, as explained here above, you can insert/delete frames quickly dragging the mouse over a sprite holding down the Option key.
• Added the progress bar when loading a file.
• When activating the application, Kinemac now brings to front all of its windows.
• If the Stage window is on a second monitor, the full screen will be done in the second monitor too.
• Added the menu item 1920 x 1080 (HD) in the Stage size popup menu in the Inspector panel.
• Improved the speed at creating charts.
• Improved the speed at creating SVG extruded with multiple objects.
• Changed the sprite's toolTip to a shadowed window. The toolTip is visible when the user clicks or drags a sprite horizontally.
• Fixed a bug when resizing a sprite.
• Fixed a bug when inserting/deleting frames (with the menu "Animation:Insert Frames" and the menu "Animation:Delete Frames").
• Fixed a bug when exporting a very long animation to a QT movie.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie with H.264 codec.
• The anchor point (cyan) and the center point (orange), when visible, are shown by any selected object in the Stage.
• Addressed some issues to the sprite lights diffuse color and specular color.
• Addressed the update of the key frame markers in the Bezier Window.
• Addressed the snap while dragging the right handle of a sprite holding down the Command key.
• Other fixes and improvements.
What's new in 1.1.1 version (March 4th 2006):
The version 1.1.1 is a free upgrade. In this version we have just fixed 2 small bugs come with the version 1.1.0
1) Fixed a bug come with the version 1.1.0 which didn't let you re-edit a 3D Text.
2) Fixed a bug come with the version 1.1.0 which didn't let you enter a script value to a non-script sprite.
What's new in 1.1.0 version (March 1st 2006):
• Please take a look here to see an illustrated version of this "What's new in 1.1.0 version".
• This is a free upgrade therefore all the version 1 registered users can upgrade to this version without any additional fee.
• We added our own infinite sliders in the Inspector panel to let you quickly set any value just by clicking and dragging the mouse on the slider.
Drag the slider to left or right to change the value using a 1 unit step.
Drag the slider holding down the Option key to change the value using a 0.1 unit step.
Drag the slider holding down the Control key to change the value using a 10 units step.
Drag the slider holding down the Command key to snap to a 10 units grid.
Double click the slider to enter the zero value.
Double click holding down the Shift key to enter the zero value to X, Y and Z values.
• Added the steppers in the Inspector panel to increase the value to 1 point.
Hold down the Option key to increase the value to 0.1 point.
Hold down the Control key to increase the value to 10 points.
• Activate a lock and get that size change proportionally with the other locked sizes.
• Added the Anchor point fields, sliders, steppers and key frames.
• You can select a sprite then call the menu "Sprite:Duplicate Multiple" to duplicate an object in series using an offset on translations, rotations, sizes... Kinemac will quickly create, in one click only, e.g. 12 beams of a clock just setting total sprites = 12, delta rotation Z = 30. In the Delay tab you can also apply a delay to each curve animating the object duplicated such a way to create e.g. a train of stars moving together.
• You can quickly create an animated Chart by dragging a ".txt" Tab-Text file.
• When pasting the sprite values (with the pop-up menu in the Sprite window) now you will be shown a dialog asking which parameters you want to paste to the selected sprite. It's very useful when you copy the sprite values from a sprite and you want to paste just the animation and not the size or fading or other paramters to a destination sprite. This way you can tranfer e.g. an animation from a cube to e.g. a cylinder keeping size and other parameters.
• With this version you can create movable sprite lights and set keyframes to the source position, the target position, the ambient, diffuse and specular colors, the spot angle, the focus and the decay. This means that you can vary all of these light parameters while the animation is playing.
• With Kinemac 1.0.0 you were able to create cameras with fixed viewport frame (equal to the Stage window frame) and fixed point of view placed in the center of the Stage. Therefore putting e.g. a spinning logo to the low-right corner of the Stage resulted in a deformed perspective. With this version you can place the camera viewport origin to any point of the Stage and to resize the camera viewport frame as your wish. This way you can easily get a central perspective of your objects in any point of the Stage. Also you can set a border and a border-color to the viewport frame. You can use both positive and negative values of border to get a border outside or inside the frame.
• With Kinemac 1.0.1 you can select any object on the Stage window more easier than the previous version. You can now select either the object clicked and any of its parent folders. In the sample here below, the object RedCube is nested within the hierarchy: GroupA/GroupB/RedCube
Direct Selection:
On the Stage window, you can quickly select the RedCube object clicking on it holding down the Option key. This way you will always select the clicked object.
Hierarchical Selection:
a) On the Stage window, click on the RedCube object to select the GroupA.
b) When the GroupA is selected (blue borders) you can double click on the object RedCube to select the GroupB.
c) When the GroupB is selected you can double click on the object RedCube to select the RedCube.
Permanent Selection:
Unlikewise the previous version, the selection of objects nested within a group is now permanent. This means that if you select a nested object (e.g. holding down the Option key), then release the mouse button to e.g. change its size in the Inspector panel, you can quite go back to the Stage and drag it without the need to select it again holding down the Option key or walking through the hierarchy.
Deselect:
Press the Escape key or click on the Stage background.
Group Bounding Box:
More than in the previous version, now when you select a sprite group, you will see a dynamic blue bounding box. The selection color of a group is always blue to let you understand that the object selected is a group therefore you can double click on it to select the next object in the group hierarchy.
• With Kinemac 1.0.1 you can create and edit 3D Bezier paths and link any path to any camera (eye or target) on the Stage. The result is that the camera moves smoothly and without discontinuity along that path. We suggest to create a path this way. Firstly create a Sprite Path calling the menu Objects:Path, then set the view Top, press "o" to set an Orthogonal projection, select the tool "Pen", and while the sprite Path is selected, click on the Stage and drag the mouse to see the control point. Release the mouse and create the next points clicking and dragging as per the first point. You can lately select the arrow tool to move the points in the other orthogonal views (like front, right...). You can also move the points in the Work view and any other Camera view just dragging the points. When a perspective view is selected, hold down the Option key and drag to move the point along the Z axis.
• Improved the rendering speed when running in Full Screen.
• Added a "Selection Color" well in the Preferences panel to let you change the color of the bounding box of the selected object in the Stage window.
• Added the Global Ambient Color in the Static Lights panel.
• Added the Focal Lens Key Frame to the Sprite Cameras Panel. Now you can assign key frames to this parameter and change the focal lenght of a camera dinamically, while the animation is playing, to zoom the scene without moving the point of view.
• Added the hot-key "g" to the Stage window to toggle the grid on/off.
• Click on the Grid tool icon holding down the Option key to modify the grid.
• The Inspector panel now reports the name and icon of the selected sprite.
• The Export Movie dialog now properly remembers the last folder you saved the previous movie to. Also it remembers the last "Frame Per Second" value.
• The Export Frame dialog now properly remembers the last folder you saved the previous frames to. Also it remembers the Frame Rate, the Image Format and the "From Frame To Frame" values.
• Fixed a bug when changing the End Sprite (field) in the Inspector:Geometry panel and the Start Sprite was different than zero.
• Fixed a bug when deleting a sprite. In the previous version Kinemac didn't really select the next available sprite in the sprite list.
• Fixed a bug when duplicating a sprite with textures.
• Addressed the issue when resizing a pie width and the internal radius is different than zero.
• Addressed the issue when fading the volume of a sprite using QT 7.0.4.
• Addressed the issue when panning the Top View along the X axis.
• The toolbar of the Stage window now shows a sorted buttons list with separator, flexible space...
• When you paste a sprite while a sprite group is selected and expanded, Kinemac will paste the sprite within the sprite group, at the last position.
• Other fixes and improvements.
What's new in 1.0.0 version (December 1st 2005):
• Dramatically improved the speed (x10) at rendering 3D OBJ models. Drag a filename.obj file onto the Stage window to import your own 3D model into Kinemac and animate it at the utmost speed your graphic card allows.
• Authorize/Deauthorize your license. Now the application asks for an internet connection at the first launch only, in order to authorize your license. Then you can even disconnect your machine from internet and launch and work on Kinemac without any limit. If you have to move your license to a different machine, firstly deauthorize it on the current machine choosing the menu item "Kinemac:Deauthorize License" (with internet connection), then move the Kinemac application and the RegistrationFile.txt to the second machine and launch Kinemac (with internet connection). Your license will be activated at the first launch. If not, choose the menu "Kinemac:Authorize License". You can authorize/deauthorize a license as many times you want, at any time you want and on any computer you want. To know more about registration and installation please go to http://www.kinemac.com/support/installation
• Added 5 parameters to the object Sphere. Now you can vary (even while the animation is playing) the Internal Radius of the sphere, the Horizontal Angle and its starting point, the Vertical Angle and its starting point such a way to get e.g. half a sphere or a quarter of sphere... see the latest movies in our web gallery to know more.
• Added the 3D Object "Star". You can quickly create parametric stars and parametric polygons choosing the menu item Objects:3D:Star. Then you can vary the number of the sides, the internal radius, the emboss of the center point and the extrusion values in the "Inspector:3D Parameters" panel. You can assign key frames to the parameters "Radius", "Emboss" and "Extrusion" creating morphing effects to the polygon while the animation is playing. Also you can apply a QT movie onto each surface.
• More than using Sprite Scripts, any object on the Stage could be now scriptable. This means that any object on the stage can behave as a button. For example you can click on an object while the animation is playing and get Kinemac go to a given frame or open and play a different animation file. In order to have the objects clickable you have to activate the menu "Animation:Interactivity". To know more please go to our support page: http://www.kinemac.com/support/interactivity
To assign a script to an object simply select the object in the Stage window or in the Sprite window then go to the "Inspector:Script" panel and choose the Event and Action of the script, e.g.:
Event: When the user click on this object.
Action: Open and play the animation file "/Animations/Animation2/Animation2.kmc".
• Added the "Interactivity" item to the "Animation" menu. Always enable this menu item to add interactivity to your animation. When the animation is playing and this menu item is enabled, if you click on an object containing a Script, Kinemac will execute that script (e.g. Go to Frame 200 or Play Animation file...) and will not select that object (e.g. to rotate it). Basically when this menu is enabled and the animation is playing you cannot click-select any object on the stage nor you can use the shortcuts to select cameras/views/tools (like e.g. the "w" key to select the "Work" view and the "Camera" tool). If the "Animation:Interactivity" menu item is enable, when the animation is playing, Kinemac will detect the mouse-clicks on locked sprites too. This way you can lock an object to prevent any modification on the Stage (position, rotation,...) and let the user click on the object to activate your script when the animation is playing.
• Now you can specify the sprite associated to the Action "Go to Start of Sprite" and "Go to End of Sprite". To choose the sprite just drag a sprite from the Hierarchical Sprite List (at the left side of the Sprite window) onto the "Sprite" field in the Inspector:Script panel. You can set the sprite "me" clicking on the "Chain" button, so the Action will result in e.g. "Go to the start of this sprite". With this feature you can easily set a script like e.g. "When the user click on this object, go to the start of the sprite Cube". Even if you move the sprite Cube to a different time point, the script will work properly.
• Added the action "Play Animation File" to the "Actions" menu in the "Inspector:Scripts" panel. This way you can tell Kinemac to automatically open and play a different animation file when a given event occurs, for example, when a sprite starts or when a sprite ends or when the user hits a key or when the user clicks on an object...
When picking the animation file to play from the panel you can choose an absolute pathname or a pathname relative to the current application pathname. You would use the relative pathname when you want to move all of your animations (called by your scripts) to a different disk or CD. In this case create e.g. a folder "Show" then put the application Kinemac within this folder. Put all of your animation folders within this folder too. Then arrange your script picking the animation files with a relative pathname. The pathname will be stored as relative to the application Kinemac current pathname, therefore moving the folder "Show" to a different disk, the relative pathnames will work properly. We think to release a "KinemacPlayer" application such a way you can put it within the folder "Show" instead of the application Kinemac itself, e.g. when you want to distribute your Show on CD/DVD. The KinemacPlayer is an application which just plays your animations. It doesn't let the user modify your animations nor save, nor create new animations.
• Added the action "Set Stage Size" to the "Actions" menu in the "Inspector:Scripts" panel. You have to specify the size of the Stage in the "Size" field writing "widht x height", e.g. "1000 x 500" (within the quotes).
• Added the action "Toggle Stage between Window and Full Screen" to the "Actions" menu in the "Inspector:Scripts" panel.
• Added the action "Set Stage to Window" to the "Actions" menu in the "Inspector:Scripts" panel.
• Added the action "Set Stage to Full Screen" to the "Actions" menu in the "Inspector:Scripts" panel.
• SVG Extruded objects have now right normals. The sharp corners, the rounded surfaces and the flat surfaces now look properly.
• Addressed the issue on the hierarchical sprite list scrolling. Now the hierarchical sprite list is always aligned to the sprites view even during a drag or a wheel scrolling. Furthermore we eliminated the unwanted horizontal scrolling from the hierarchical list.
• Addressed the issue when changing a parameter of an object (e.g. the X position) when no key frame is associated to that parameter on that time point. Now you can modify the value of the paramenter in the Inspector panel typing a value or moving the slider. Since no key frame is associated to that parameter on that time point you will modify (e.g. translate) the object along its whole sprite duration. Therefore the whole curve describing that parameter will be translated up or down in the Bezier window.
• Addressed the issue when stretching a sprite from the left side. Now you can properly stretch the sprite from the left side with or without (hold down the ALT key) resampling the key frames.The latest option is very useful to add frames to the left side of a sprite without modifying the existing key frames. Addressed the snap to the 10 time-points-grid too (drag holding down the Command key).
• Fixed a small bug when resizing the Stage window and the toolbar was visible.
• Fixed a small bug when resizing a Sprite just after adding a new key frame to the sprite.
• Added the Undo feature when modifying an Inspector field or an Inspector slider.
• Short-Cut changed. To modify the origin and the size of a movie texture upon a Cube or Rectangle surface, in the Stage window, hold down the "m" key (it was Command key in the previous versions) and click on the movie area upon the surface, then release the "m" without releasing the mouse button key and drag the mouse to pan the movie texture. Hold down the Command key during the drag to resize the movie texture.
• Many other fixes and improvements.
What's new in 0.9.1b version (October 24th 2005):
• Fixed a bug (introduced by the previous version) when replacing movie textures in the "Inspector:Texture Mapping" panel.
• You can now vary the internal radius of the Pie 3D Object. Create a Pie and look at the Inspector:3D Parameters" panel. You can assign key frames to the parameters "Radius", "Start angle" and "Angle" creating morphing effects to the pie while the animation is playing.
• As you know, you can zoom a camera or a view holding down the Alt key and drag the mouse. This task moves the eye point along the axis eye-target closer or far from the target point, while the target point remains at the same position. So you cannot zoom behind the target point. In this version, when a camera or a view is selected (the tool "Camera" is selected in the tool palette) you can drag the mouse holding down the Alt & Shift key together to move both the eye and the target points along the axis eye-target. This way you get a translation of the whole camera along its own eye-target axis, therefore the zoom effect is virtually infinite. Please note that way the position of the target changes so any next rotation of the camera/view around the target point will change as well.
What's new in 0.9.0b version (October 21th 2005):
• Antialias in real time. It's a little bit time consuming thus it could slow down the animation playing rate, especially if running on full screen. A nice compromise between image quality and speed is to set the Antialias quality to "Good". The quality "Best" gives you the best results and should be always chosen before exporting to a QT movie or a still image.
• Dramatically increased the speed of the texture movie rendering (about x3). On our machine (G5 dual 2GHz with 2GB RAM - video card ATI Radeon 9800 XT with 256 VRAM - 23" Cinema display) we have been able to play in real time an animation with 9 different QT movies Sorenson3, 320 x 240, 24 FPS.
• You can now reuse a movie texture for a huge number of times. On our machine, we have been able to duplicate 48 times an object with a texture movie Sorenson3, 320 x 240, 24 FPS. It did run in real time.
• Dramatically increased the speed when exporting to a QT movie (about x2).
• 3D Text objects have now right normals. The sharp corners, the rounded surfaces and the flat surfaces now look properly.
• The menu item "Help:Kinemac Help" has been linked to our Support Web Pages. Calling this menu will tell Safari to open the Kinemac Help On Line page on our web site. It includes animated graphics on how to work with Kinemac.
• Automatic Scrolling Sprite window. When the animation is not playing, the Sprite window will automatically scroll to always show the Time Marker. For example, when you go to the first frame with Command <- or to the last frame with Command -> or you jump between the key frames of the selected object pressing the TAB key, Kinemac will automatically scroll the Sprite window. If you want the automatic scrolling even while the animation is playing, mark the new check-box "Automatically scroll the Sprite window during the playback" in the Preferences panel. Since in case of a heavy animation this feature could slow down the speed of the animation just when scrolling the Sprites window, we preferred to add this feature as an option.
• Addressed the texture issue on the SVG extruded objects, SVG revolved object, OBJ 3D models, cylinders, tubes, pies...
• As requested we made the Key Frame buttons in the Inspector panel bigger. Now is clearer when a key frame is on or off.
• Improved the control when saving files. Now Kinemac preserves you to "Save As:" an animation within its parent animation folder.
• While modifying the views Default Camera, Perspective, Front, Back, Left, Right, Top and Bottom, now you can see the values changing in the Inspector:Camera panel.
• The Inspector:Camera panel now shows the status of the Key Frames (on/off) properly.
• The Inspector:Camera panel now shows the right camera values (eye and target coordinates and distance eye-target).
• Restored the snap to 15 degrees to the Bezier Window when dragging a Control point holding down the Command & Alt keys. See version 0.8.0b.
• Fixed a minor but annoying bug which caused to ask to save the changes all the time, even when not needed. Now you have to save your animation once, then the save promt will run properly.
• Fixed a minor bug when changing manually song and movie paths in the "Media Edit window" (you can open that window double clicking on the "Movie" fields in the "Inspector:Texture Mapping" panel, or in case of "sprite song" you can double click the sprite). Now Kinemac will copy the High Resolution media files within the animation folder if you specify so.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to image files and some HR movie has been defined.
• Many other fixes and improvements.
What's new in 0.8.0b version (September 22th 2005):
• Added the Sprite Movable Cameras feature such a way you can now display the animation from "several and moving" points of view.
You can define as many cameras you need in the Sprites window and change camera on the fly during the animation.
You can animate the sprite cameras by defining key frames as well as for any other object on the stage. Also you can link the camera eye point to an object on the stage such a way they always move together. And you can link the camera target point to an object on the scene such a way that object, even if moving, always remains in the center of the screen.
See later the chapter "Cameras/Views" to know more.
• Improved the views Front, Back, Left, Right, Top and Bottom. Now you can zoom with the mouse wheel and with Drag + Alt key. You can pan the views (drag) and toggle between orthogonal and perspective view (pressing the "o" key). Anyway you cannot rotate these views. They are made to let you always have 6 absolute points of view on your model. Use instead the new entry view "Perspective". Consider this view as a working one. You can rotate this view around your model, zoom and pan as you check any detail of your scene. Also use this camera to select objects that otherwise are hidden by other objects in the scene. Just rotate the view until you see the hidden object you are looking for, then select the "Arrow" tool in the Tools palette (or shorlty press the key "a"), then click on the object to select it. Press the key "c" to select the tool "Camera" again.
• Added the menu item "Reset View" in the "Views" menu. Call this menu item to reset the current view. You cannot reset the "Sprite Movable Cameras" view, since it regards several cameras in the Sprites window.
• Added the Tool palette. Actually it includes functions as: Object Selector, Camera Selector, Grid on/off. It will contain more tools on the next releases.
• Added the angle-snap feature to the Bezier View. Drag an handle (green and orange points) holding down the Control & Command keys in order to modify the control point of the curve using multiple angles of 15º. You will see the tangent of that angle and the value in degrees. See later the chapter "Bezier window".
• In the Stage window, you can now select an object behind another object holding down the Control key when clicking over the first object.
• Added the forward/back short cut in the Stage Window. Click on the Stage window holding down the 'e' key then drag the mouse to the right or the left to go forward or back in the animation. It works even while the animation is playing and on the full screen Stage window too. It's very useful to control the animation in full screen.
• Activate the command "Go to Frame" in the "Animation" menu.
• Fixed a minor bug occurring when changing the animation playback point (with mouse or keyboard) while the animation is playing. Now the media are properly updated to the new playback point.
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The following has already been done in the previous version 0.7.0b but we forgot to mention here.
• Added the menu "View" which lets you set 7 different views to the Stage window.
• Added the Zoom feature in the Sprites window. You can zoom the sprite view from 1:1 to 1:20 using the slider at the bottom-right corner of the window.
• Added 3 kinds of zoom in the Beziers window.
1. Zoom by slider: you can zoom the beziers view from 1:1 to 20:1 using the zoom slider at the bottom-right corner of the window.
2. Zoom area: hold down the Command key then click and drag the mouse defining the area you want to zoom.
3. Zoom point: click on a given point of the view holding down the Alt key then drag up/down the mouse to scale the view from that point.
What's new in 0.7.0b version (September 7th 2005):
• Added the "Change Font to a Group of 3D Objects" feature. Select a "Group" sprite containing several "3D Text" sprites then choose a font/size/style in the Font panel. The change will affect all the objects in the group.
• Added the "Remove single or group Key Frame" feature in the Inspector panel and in the Bezier window. Click on the KeyFrame icons holding down the ALT key to remove that keyFrame. This way you can remove e.g. the 3 KeyFrames (positions x, y and z or rotation x, y and z) in one click only simply clicking on the Positions KeyFrame icon or the Rotations KeyFrame icon.
• Added the Undo to the "Set Key Frame" commands in the Inspector Panel.
• Added the Undo to the "Set Key Frame" commands in in the "Set Key Frame" Popup menu (Sprites Window).
• Added the Undo to the "Paste Sprite Values" command in the "Set Key Frame" Popup menu (Sprites Window).
• Added the Undo to the "Paste Frame Values" command in the "Set Key Frame" Popup menu (Sprites Window).
• Added the Undo to the "Add Key Frame point" command in the Bezier window.
• Added the Undo to the "Remove Key Frame point" command in the Bezier window and in the Inspector panel.
• Fixed a bug when quit after exporting to a QT movie.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie using a texture movie with auto-repeat.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie using an high resolution texture movie.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie using DV codecs.
• Fixed a minor bug when dragging a control point in the Bezier window.
• Fixed a minor bug when redrawing the grid in the Bezier window.
• Fixed a minor bug at refreshing the hierarchical Sprites table.
• Fixed a minor bug when modifying a Bezier curve then selecting a different Sprite.
• Fixed a minor bug at displaying a new added key frame point in the Bezier window.
• Other improvements and fixing. A lot more in the next version!
What's new in 0.6.2b version (August 3rd 2005):
• Introduced the Motion Blur feature in the Exporting Movie panel and in the Export Images panel. The Kinemac animation runs in real time at 60 frames per second (fps). When you export it to a QT movie with 60 fps you get the maximum quality of the movement. But you cannot use that 60 fps QT movie to e.g. burn a DVD because it is to heavy to play. Also it gets a high data rate and a high data size. So you need to export your animation to a QT movie using a lower fps value (e.g. 30 fps). For example, your original animation is 1 second long so it has 60 frames. You export it to a QT movie at 30 fps, so that QT movie will contain 30 frames. Kinemac will mix 2 original frames to compose one QT frame. In order to get a good blur effect you need to specify a higher value (2 is not enough. Suggested values are from 8 to 64 or more). Kinemac will do the resampling job automatically. Using a value like 64 blurred frames produces a fine smooth result but requires a long time rendering.
• Added the temporal compression when exporting to a QT movie.
• Now you can use the Quick Time Option panel to customize the keyFrame rate and the data rate values.
• Kinemac now uses an internal antialias engine to create alialiased output when exporting to a QT movie or to an image file.
• Added a Monitor Window to let you see in real time the output image when exporting to a QT movie or to a series of image files.
• You can drag a kmc file and a rss3d onto the Stage window in order to open that animation file.
• You can change the pathname of a song sprite double clicking the sprite and choosing a new song path reference.
• You can change the pathname of a movie texture applied to an object double clicking the movie field in the Inspector panel and choosing a new movie path reference.
• If the movie texture you applied on the surface of an object is to heavy to play in real time, you can create a low resolution version of it (e.g. Sorenson3, 30 or 24 fps, 240 x 200 pixels) and set this low version movie as movie texture. Then double click on the movie field in the Inspector panel and define the pathname of the high resolution movie. When running in real time Kinemac will use the Low Resolution Movie. When exporting to a QT movie, Kinemac automatically will use the High Resolution Movie.
• Fixed a bug when exporting a soundtrack to a "From Frame To Frame" movie.
• Fixed a bug when exporting to a RSS3D file.
• Other minor improvements.
What's new in 0.4.1b version (July 18th 2005):
• Fixed a bug when setting a key-frame on an existing key-frame point.
• Fixed a bug when re-editing a 2D scrolling text.
• The 2D Scrolling texts can be as long as your RAM allows.
• Fixed a minor bug about typing a new value in the scrolling speed field of the Inspector panel.
What's new in 0.4.0b version (June 23rd 2005):
• This version saves the animations as NewsTrailer (RSS3D ) format. If you want to promote some product (e.g. CD, DVD, Movies, Songs, Concerts, Books,... or sell tickets for concerts...) you can post these files on your web site and let your clients be informed about your products using our screensaver "NewsTrailer". NewsTrailer automatically picks your animations from your web site and play them on your clients' screen all the time it comes out.
NewsTrailer will be available for download in few days. To know more about NewsTrailer, please go to http://www.kinemac.com/products/newstrailer
• Added the import of 3D model as format OBJ (WaveFront). We still have to define groups and materials. This feature in this version is just to play with some OBJ model. We will improve it in the next version, of course.
• Added the feature "Software Update" in the preference panel. You can choose to check for new versions manually or automatically.
• Improved the rendering speed for the scrolling text.
• Some improvement in the Preferences panel.
• The user can mark the check-box "Save 2D Text as PDF" in the Preferences panel (Export Tab) such a way that animation file will display the text properly even on a different machine which has not installed the fonts used within the animation file.
• Other minor fixing.
What's new in 0.3.8b version (June 06th 2005):
• Fixed a bug when dragging images onto the stage, which created objects with wrong size. Now Kinemac creates rectangles and cubes with the image size.
• Fixed Undo on objects without key frames.
• Fixed import objects filename.kmcobj without key frames.
• Fixed a bug which asked the user to save the changes to the file even if he didn't make any change.
• Fixed a bug when opening animations on a different machine (the window origins were wrong).
• Other minor fixing.
What's new in 0.3.6b version (June 1st 2005):
• Just the first public beta release. Happy zero birthday Kinemac!
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