Craft Animations, the inventors of the Hyper-realistic Physics Engine (HYPE), has released Craft HeliCam v1.30, the first tool of the commercial plug-in suite, Craft Camera Tools (CCTs), for Maya.
CCTs, previously released for 3ds max, is used by animators to control and record camera movements directly in the viewport, in realtime, with a joystick. CCTs offers animators freedom from the unnatural robotic perfection of spline curves. CCTs move cameras with a natural human imperfection, offering HYPE Freedom and timesavings.
The Craft HeliCam algorithms are based on research in modeling of helicopter physics. The finishing touch of the research required more than a year to be integrated into realtime environments, and the end result was the beginning of HYPE. When HYPE finally worked, it contained both unprecedented realism and speed. The algorithms are incredibly fast and still manage to perform ultra-realistic helicopter behavior. This can be seen if a helicopter mesh is connected to the camera. When this is done, steer the helicopter mesh from a perspective view.
The camera movements are controlled with HYPE and recorded with Razorback MoCap, a sophisticated real-time based viewport motion-capture technology. These technologies save very much time for the animator, since the movements are automatically smooth and natural. They also introduce a new paradigm in animation technique. With CCTs, Craft Animations believes it has set a new standard for the next generation of camera movement keyframing.
An evaluation version of Craft HeliCam is downloadable at: www.craftanimations.com or directly at www.craftanimations.com/downloads/Craft_HeliCam_Eval_for_MAYA_v1.30.zip.
Craft HeliCam can be purchased from Craft Animations resellers (such as Graphics Domain in the U.K.) or directly from www.craftanimations.com. There is an introductory price of $299 for Craft HeliCam until Dec. 23, 2004. After that it will retail for $499.
Also, Craft HeliCam will be demonstrated by Graphics Domain in London on Dec. 3.
Craft is currently working on the Maya for Mac version, which will be released and announced later this year. Craft SpaceCam for Maya is planned for release in a few weeks, followed by Craft SpyCam and Craft AeroCam.
Craft Animations & entertainment is a Discreet-approved SPARKS plug-in developer. The firm is located in Gothenburg, Sweden, and has a team of highly skilled and highly productive programmers, physicists, mathematicians, 3D modelers and 3D animators.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
