Developer
http://openfx.org]
System
Windows 95/98/NT/2000, soon Linux .
Download
Free subject to the terms of the GNU General Public Licence - see
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
File size 40MB
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Openfx is, just as its name would lead to believe, an open-source 3D project. Having downloaded the application itslelf - which you may use freely - more technical minded users can also download the code and join the lively developer network.
The non-developer download is large at around 40MB, but this includes the basic Help files and a large selection of models, scenes, textures and animations to get you started. It also comes bundled with some useful format conversion tools such as .avi to mpeg.
The standard four-pane layout is used in both modeling and animation modules. Models can be built with NURBS patches, drawing tools or edited primitives, but while the deforming tools are excellent the point editing system is far too fiddly and this is compounded by the fact that the OpenGL shaded view cannot be edited directly.
Animation is by stepped keyframe but there is also a kinematics feature and the separate rendering module takes full advantage of multi-threading promising to halve rendering times!
Openfx is a very serious and very flexible application. There seem to be some stability problems, but for a version 1.0 it is an excellent piece of software.
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