K-3D

K-3D is a freely distributable 3D modeling, animation and rendering system. K-3D is a procedural modeler, meaning that the entire history of user modifications are stored when creating a model.

K-3D is designed to generate motion picture quality animation using RenderMan render engines. K-3D allows you to create and edit documents in multiple realtime OpenGL solid, shaded, texture-mapped views. Unlike Blender, third-party render engines (such as Aqsis, PRman, BMRT etc) can be easily integrated into K-3D.

K-3D 0.8.0.1

Price Free to download Size 6.7MB License GNU GPL v2 Developer Tim Shead and contributors Website www.k3d.org System Requirements (Recommended) 400 MHz CPU 256 MB RAM 150MB Hard disk space OpenGL Graphics card  Support Sites: Sourceforge.net, Mailing List, K-3D Plugins, The K3D Site, Tutorials Selected Reviews:

Features include:

• Record interactive tutorials and macros
• Unlimited undos / redos
• Create and edit documents in multiple realtime OpenGL solid, shaded, texture-mapped views
• Scripting interface supports K3DScript and Python, with an open API for other scripting languages
• Model, animate, and interact with animations while they play back for maximum productivity
• Architecture allows complete extensibility at runtime through third-party plugins
• Animated geometric procedural effects
• Control-spline based animation in a uniform interface
• Uses the Pixar Renderman Interface to render motion-picture-quality images with a wide variety of rendering engines.
• Supports Renderman Subdivision Mesh output
• Capable of rendering one million polygons at interactive rates
• Background rendering and batch rendering
• Support for the LuxRender render engine
• Experimental support for CSG operations on polyhedra, using either CGAL or CARVE
• Introductory support for NURBS
• Full RenderMan Support: Aqsis, Pixie, BMRT, PRman, 3Delight, Render Dot C
• Geometry Formats: Wavefront OBJ, GTS and a raw format are fully supported, other ones are optional and depend on PLIB installation
• Experimental plugins include OpenFX, OFF, RIB and X formats
• Interactive Python shell
• Image Formats: JPEG, PNG, TIFF, OpenEXR, BMP, and SUN
  

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K-3D also features in our 'Linux Equivalents to Windows Software' section. The category selector below allows you to filter the different types of software included in that separate article.

Last Updated Friday, June 29 2012 @ 05:01 PM EDT