Kinemac Changelog

What's new in Kinemac 2.0.6

Jan 26, 2022

When opening a kmc document file, Kinemac will automatically convert it to a unique kmcp file, which is a file package containing the kmc itself plus a "Media" folder containing all the textures linked to the document file. You should rarely need to look within the kmcp file package, but if you really want, in the Finder, you should Control-Click on the kmcp file then choose the "Show Package Contents" menu item from the contextual pop-up menu. Please note, Kinemac prior versions than 2.0.6 cannot read the kmcp files. You can open and convert the kmc to the new kmcp file just dragging the kmc parent folder over the Kinemac Stage Window, then File:Save the new document.
Fixed a bug at importing OBJ materials defined in the mtl file.
Fixed a bug on the 2D scrolling text object.
Other minor fixes and improvements.

New in Kinemac 2.0.5 (Jun 21, 2021)

New in Kinemac 2.0.4 (Jun 21, 2021)

New in Kinemac 2.0.3 (Jun 21, 2021)

The Rectangle and the Cube objects now support the Slices option. On the Inspector/Parameters panel you can assign a given amount of slices to these objects and get a smoother lighting when using light bulbs or spotlights. The higher the slices, the smoother the lighting.
Improved the input, now in %, of Specular, Shininess, Ambient, Diffuse and Emission on the Texture-Options panel and Inspector/Surface panel. You can now achieve amazing results.
Kinemac now properly imports OBJs' texture-images and texture-movies defined on the mtl file (as map_Kd).
The "Import OBJ" panel (click on the Stage toolbar icon "Import/OBJ") features 3 check-boxes.
Split Materials: if a material is assigned to a mesh, Kinemac will create a new surface for that mesh such a way you can assign your own material (color and textures) to that surface. The more you split, the more surfaces you'll get, the more different materials (colours, textures) you can assign.
Split Smooth Shading Groups: if a smooth shading option is assigned to a mesh, Kinemac will create a new surface for that mesh such a way you can assign your own material (color and textures) to that surface. The more you split, the more surfaces you'll get, the more different materials (colours, textures) you can assign.
Smooth Normals: if the OBJ file doesn't define any normal, Kinemac will add its own. If this check-box is marked, Kinemac will smooth these normals too.
Fixed a bug when importing OBJ files with new material (newmtl) definitions.
Defined a new icon and sprite color for the OBJ sprite.
Improved the visibility of the status "On/Off" of the sprites on the hierarchical Sprite List (eye icon).
On the hierarchical Sprite list you can now press Enter to edit the name of the selected item.
The Export To Movie window is now resizable.
Fixed a bug on the Diffuse and Ambient values on the Texture-Options panel.
Fixed a bug on the Texture Width/Height text fields on the Texture Options panel occurring when entering a value while the 2 size where "chained" each other.
The selected static light icons (if any) will be not drawn when exporting to movie/images.
Fixed a bug on the 3 "Decays" sliders on the "Inspector/Static Lights" panel.
Other minor fixes and improvements.
Please note, older versions (Kinemac v. 1, v. 2.0.0 and v. 2.0.1) can't read animation files made with Kinemac 2.0.3 or higher.

New in Kinemac 2.0.1 (Jun 21, 2021)

New in Kinemac 2.0.0 (Jun 21, 2021)

New in Kinemac 1.9.0 (Mar 20, 2012)

The Kinemac application has a new menu item "File:Make Player" from which you can create your own custom standalone Player applications. That means that you can now distribute your Kinemac animations as a stand alone application, without the need to include the registered Kinemac application. The stand alone Player application can play one or several Kinemac animations chained together and doesn't require any authorization to run (no license) because it's free. To know more, please consult the Kinemac Player web page.
Added the Playback buttons (play, stop, FFW, RW...) to the Stage window toolbar.
Improved the quality of the image when exporting to Movie or to Pictures. The antialias is well preserved even when exporting to small movies and pictures.
Improved the quality of the compression when exporting to Movie.
Improved the quality of the MotionBlur when exporting to Movie and Pictures. On the Export Dialog panel you can click on the Motion Blur "Edit..." button and customize the MotionBlur curve to get soft or sharp results, both on the earlier and the latest frames (blur-in and blur-out). You can preview the MotionBlur results while editing the curve.
The exported movie is now flattened. It can be quickly streamed from the web.
The Preferences panel has a new check-box "Save Metadata". So you can include/exclude your personal metadata when saving an animation.kmc file.
The window "Loading document" (when opening a kmc document file) has a new button "Abort Loading".
The window "Edit 2D Text" lets you now control its opacity.
The Texture Option panel now displays the original size of the selected texture image and the texture movie.
The Front, Back, Left, Right, Top and Bottom orthogonal views default "zoom" is now set to 1.0. To set the zoom value to 1.0 to your existing animations you can just click on the view and select the menu "Views:Reset View". When the zoom view is set to 1.0 you practically work with a 2D animation. The images imported get the same size as the original. To set the Front view you can quickly press the "f" key. To go back to the sprites view press "s". You can also switch the current view by the "Views" menu. You can zoom the Front view just rotating your wheel mouse or holding down the "2" key and dragging the mouse. Double click on the lower-left "view icon" (if visible) to reset the view to its default values.
To go to Full Screen press now Command-F as many other software for Mac. The old Command-* has been dismissed.
• Addressed various issues for a better performance on OS X 10.7 Lion.
Addressed various issues on the grouped Stage window (e.g. resizing the window keeps fixed the height of the Sprite view, renaming a sprite, changing to group/ungrouped windows keeps the right sprite view width,...).
Addressed various issues on the Inspector window.
If you change the Stage size on the Inspector:Stage panel, the sprite-cameras viewport size will change proportionally.
Fixed a bug at importing 3DS models.
Fixed a bug at grouping several sprites (sprites and folders).
Fixed a bug at displaying the viewport y origin on full screen mode.
Fixed a bug at displaying the background color on the color well of the Inspector:Stage panel.
Fixed a bug at displaying the Animation Duration Unit (Seconds or Ticks) on the Inspector:Stage panel.
Fixed a bug when exporting to a Movie with the H.264 codec.
Fixed a bug when exporting to a QT movie with odd size (width x height).
Fixed a bug with the Background color set to "None" and with the "View:Polygon WireFrame" menu item on.
Fixed a bug when going to the beginning of the animation (Command-Left Arrow ) while the animation is playing. Now all the media (songs and movie textures) with the "Do not restart when the animation loops" option set to Off, get properly reset to the beginning too. To set the option "Do not restart when the animation loops" to a sprite-song, select the sprite-song then press Command-E. To set the option "Do not restart when the animation loops" to a movie-texture, select the sprite containing the movie-texture, then press Command-5.
Fixed a a bug when selecting a texture well on the Texture Option panel.
Fixed other minor bugs.

New in Kinemac 1.8.3 (Feb 26, 2010)

New in Kinemac 1.8.1 (Nov 26, 2009)

New in Kinemac 1.8.0 (Nov 3, 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.

New in Kinemac 1.6.6 (Jun 23, 2008)

New in Kinemac 1.6.3 (Apr 3, 2008)

New in Kinemac 1.6.2 (Mar 17, 2008)

New in Kinemac 1.6.1 (Mar 12, 2008)

New in Kinemac 1.6 (Feb 5, 2008)

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.