New update to cross-platform, open-source rigging framework features an easy-to-use biped workflow and enables portable rigs across applications.
MONTREAL -- Fabric Software has announced the release of Kraken 1.2, a cross-platform and open-source rigging framework built with Fabric Engine.
Leveraging Fabric Engine’s API, Kraken allows Technical Directors of all levels to easily create custom rig components that produce identical results across different animation applications such as Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Softimage.
Kraken was initially developed at Hybride Technologies, a division of Ubisoft. It is now an Open Source project with Hybride and Fabric continuing development with contributions from multiple studios.
“Kraken is free to everyone,” said Fabric Engine CEO Paul Doyle. “We’ve provided a solid foundation for the system and will continue to improve on it with each new release. Involvement from the community is very welcome and we’ve had significant interest and contributions already from the Oculus Story Studio team. They’ve provided amazing feedback to help drive the direction of the system. We encourage everyone to fork the repo and take it for a spin and provide feedback on their experience.”
The main feature of the latest release is the addition of a Biped workflow, which includes built-in Biped rig components and menu items that allow developers to quickly create pre-built Biped guides and generate rigs from those guides. In addition, there have been UI improvements including the integration of a Python logger.
Kraken 1.2 is available now on GitHub. There are two ways to access it:
- download a pre-packaged Kraken release from http://fabric-engine.github.io/Kraken/
- clone/fork the repo by going directly to the GitHub page https://github.com/fabric-engine/Kraken
Source: Fabric Software
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
