Built from the ground up with a particular focus on performance, Houdini for Mac supports 64-bit Intel-based Macs running Mac OS X v 10.5 Leopard. Houdini for Mac offers a standard Mac menu bar, a window menu on Houdini's Dock icon and drag and drop support. QuickTime support has also been added for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

"Mac OS X Leopard delivers true 64-bit computing allowing 3D applications like Houdini for Mac to render detailed animations quickly and easily," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations. "We're thrilled that Side Effects is bringing Houdini to the Mac so 3D professionals can seamlessly collaborate across multiple platforms."

For all platforms, Houdini 9.5 includes a number of key productivity enhancements including FBX export with support for geometry, lights, cameras, animation, hierarchies, skeletons, weighted skins, UVs, geometry caches, particles, and dynamic simulations. Adobe Illustrator and eps import has also been included for motion graphic artists.

To streamline workflow and make Houdini more accessible, a tool shelf was added in Houdini 9. Houdini 9.5 continues to utilize the shelf with new Rigid Body fracturing tools, debris generation tools, river and wave simulation tools, and tools for generating fluids-based fire and smoke.

In addition, an animatable “all-purpose” Ramp parameter type has been added to help artists build shaders and control effects such as particles or L-systems. Artists can also use real-time shadows in the viewport and Houdini 9.5 now supports hand-coded OpenGL2 shaders.

“Customer requests have fueled many of the workflow improvements in Houdini 9.5,” says Cristin Barghiel, Director of Product Development, Side Effects Software. “One example is the ability to make nodes inside locked Digital Assets editable. And the Wedge tool is an important productivity enhancement that lets artists render out multiple iterations of a shot using randomly generating parameter values, much like photographers using bracketing to explore exposure variations.”

Houdini 9.5 is available in four editions: the free Apprentice and $99 non-watermarked Apprentice HD are for personal projects and learning; the $1,995 Houdini Escape with modeling, animation, characters, lighting, rendering and compositing; and the visual effects focused Houdini Master with all of Escape's features plus particles and integrated dynamics such as rigid bodies, wire, cloth and fluids is available for $7,995. Visit www.sidefx.com for more information on support plans and upgrade prices.

3D Artists can participate in the public beta using Houdini Apprentice or Houdini Apprentice HD which contains all of Houdini Master's features except for third party rendering and FBX export. Artists who want the benefits of using Apprentice HD, can purchase it now from the Houdini Store and then continue using the license once Houdini 9.5 is released. Existing Houdini Apprentice HD licenses can be upgraded through the Houdini Store for $69.