Kinematic 0.5.0 is out. Modeling and sculpting in the viewport, a timeline on every graph, photo and sound editing. What's new
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Kinematic / About

Creative tools should be free.

Kinematic is one free app for 3D, pictures, video, simulation, live shows and sound. Here is why it exists, what it holds itself to, and who makes it.

Free to useOpen files and protocolsmacOS, Windows, Linux, Raspberry PiMade in Denver, Colorado
Why it exists

So everyone can make stuff.

Creative software has changed what's possible. The people who learn it pick up a kind of fluency that didn't exist a generation ago, and they use it to make work that didn't exist either.

Kinematic exists to put that fluency in more hands. A teenager in Lagos, a film student in Buenos Aires, a coder in Hanoi and a designer in Berlin can run the same app, on the same terms, with the same tools.

The tool you learn on is the tool you make real work with. A weekend project doesn't need a budget. A two-person studio doesn't need a yearly license to get started. What's left is the work.

What success looks like

A student

Who couldn't afford a tool last year, finishing a piece this year.

A lighting designer

In a small theater, running a whole season on it.

An installation artist

Getting a piece into a museum because the software didn't stand in the way.

Visual artistsCreative codersLighting designersShow-control engineersStudentsSelf-taught learnersEducatorsIndie developersSmall studiosResearchersHobbyistsProfessionals who want a free option beside the tools they already use
What we promise

Four promises.

No price tag, no caps, no asterisks. Every release has to keep them.

Free

Even for commercial use.

  • The download is the whole app.
  • No commercial-use fee, no per-seat pricing.
  • No node limit, no resolution cap, no watermark.
  • Student, studio, research lab or touring show: same build, same terms.
Open

Take your work anywhere.

  • A project is a folder on disk.
  • Standard files: WAV, FLAC, PNG, EXR, glTF, OBJ, FBX, USD.
  • Open protocols: DMX, Art-Net, sACN, OSC, MIDI.
  • If it stops being the right fit, you walk out with everything you made.
Accessible

Works for more people.

  • macOS on Apple Silicon, Windows and Linux, with experimental Raspberry Pi support. The same file everywhere.
  • Runs on a laptop graphics card from the last six years.
  • Works with a screen reader and from the keyboard alone.
Capable

Ready for real work.

  • Concerts, installations, broadcast, lighting, generative art, research.
  • When Houdini, TouchDesigner, Notch or Nuke does something well, Kinematic tries to do it well too.

Free doesn't mean second best.

It has to be fast, the docs have to be good, the app has to be pleasant to use, and bugs have to get fixed.
What it runs on

Runs on the machine you have.

macOSApple Silicon.
Windows64-bit.
Linux.deb and snap.
Raspberry PiExperimental.
About the author

Elliot has been making stuff since he was 12, starting with BBS loaders and side-scroller games written in C, a terminal emulator for dialing BBSes, and, in 1995, a rasterization-based 3D graphics engine called ThreeD.

In high school he wrote vulnerability checks for the Ballista network security scanner at Secure Networks, co-wrote Linux Networking Unleashed and a few other books in that series, and started MimeStar, which built SecureNet Pro, one of the first commercial network intrusion detection systems. It was later acquired by Intrusion.com.

Lots of random side projects: VinylDB, which pulled online record store listings together so DJs could find rare vinyl, and MediaOracle, which recorded closed captions from TV news to compare how stories were told.

In the early 2000s he founded AlchemyAPI in Denver. It began as an experiment in understanding web page text and grew into an API used by around 80,000 developers. IBM acquired it in 2015 and folded the work into Watson.

These days he spends his time on art, robots, photography, film and code, Kinematic included. He thinks little details matter, the kind people don't notice until they're missing. If you spot one that's missing, please tell him, so the app gets better for everyone.

Thanks for trying the thing.

So far

Eighteen releases.

Kinematic was called OGEX until 0.5.0. Every release is on the changelog.

0.2The first release.
0.3Liquids, OpenPBR materials, and characters you can rig and animate.
0.4A viewport in the middle of the app, relightable scans, live motion capture.
0.5A new name, modeling and sculpting, a timeline on every graph.
Say hello

Share what you made.

Bugs, ideas, and the things you built with it are all welcome.

Report a bugOne command collects what we need to fix it. Build on itNodes, panels, shaders and extensions of your own. Reach outQuestions, ideas, or something you made.

Free and open. Yours, forever.

No account, no license key. macOS, Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi.

Download Kinematic 0.5.0