Character Animation Toolkit 1.0

New Zealand–based Character Animation Technologies has released version 1.0 of its first product, Character Animation Toolkit (CAT), a character animation plug-in for 3ds Max that offers a sophisticated way of animating characters of all shapes and forms, from humans and other bipeds to spiders to creatures with any number of legs. The product grew out of the needs of its creators, who were involved in animating a series for Animal Planet and created the foundations of the program out of sheer necessity. We were impressed by the company’s recent demonstration of CAT in our office, both in the quality of the results achieved and of the flexibility that the tool seems to provide. Key features include customization that supports any number of limbs, spline-based controls for controlling the skeleton and limbs, a parametric motion system the company claims is more flexible than IK, and a clip manager that saves animations for later use. The program supports both the HTR and BVH motion capture file formats. CAT 1.0 can be purchased for $995, either directly from the company or through select Discreet resellers.