MetaCreations Corp. (1999) MetaCreations | KPT 5. www5.metacreations.com/products/kpt5/
As children, we all had toys we couldn’t stop playing with. For me, it was a vast Lego collection. Today, it’s Kai’s Power Tools 5.0. The latest version of this venerable Photoshop plug-ins package is one mind- absorbing toy your mother won’t be able to take away from you.
As with Legos, you’d be wise to read the directions before beginning to build your Ultimate Space Station. KPT5 sports a unique MetaCreations interface that takes getting used to. Choosing any of the KPT5 plug-ins warps you into the “Kai OS,” a place where shadowed windoids, a gray stone background, and a unique attitude dominate. Go forth bravely, though, because the QuickStart manual provides lots of help.
Once you become familiar with the trippy interface, using the individual plug-ins is pretty simple. ShapeShifter, Blurrrr, Orb-It, Noize, Smoothie, FiberOptix, RadWarp, and a trio of fractal plug-ins make this package one that designers, photographers, and artists can all put to good use.
ShapeShifter is, at its core, a bevel plug-in. It extends the bevel idea by allowing artists to control material appearance (plastic, metal, and so on), 3D light sources (position, inten- sity, and color), and more. You can use masks to composite multiple objects, and you can edit bevel paths.
Blurrrr also extends a simple action — the blur — and executes large, real-time previews and 128-bit math. Blurrrr effects include Hi-Speed Blur, Camera Optics, and Zoom Blur. You can control many aspects of a blur, such as radius, angle, and length. If you’re still using the blur plug-ins that Adobe Photoshop provides, get this real toy instead.
The Noize plug-in offers preset noises with adjustable frequency. Perlin noise, soft clouds, nebulae, swirls, crumples, and other sounds are available. We found the Noize filter perfect for adding slight variations to oth- erwise flat patterns, such as grass or water.
If Noize isn’t cool enough for you, try FiberOptix. What good would a cat be without fur? Not much. FiberOptix puts fur on your cat (or just about anything else) with relative simplicity. Want to see your name as a worn, gradient-rich shag carpet? Fire up FiberOptix. Like some of the other plug-ins, it generates masks from 3D data for easy compositing.
For users whose inner child is satisfied with a simple ball, KPT5 provides Orb-It. This aptly named plug-in can make balls out of anything. Apply Orb-It to a layer or selection, then adjust the 3D lighting, color, reflectivity, and more. Wow, balls!
The Smoothie plug-in effectively cleans up dirty masks by blending the edges on black alpha masks in real time. RadWarp does what its name says — it radically warps any image to look as if you were viewing it through a funky kaleidoscope.
These plug-ins are great, but they don’t hold a cande to KPT5’s fractal plug-ins, which include Frax4D, FraxPlorer, and FraxFlame. FraxPlorer creates stunning scenes that resemble the coolest parts of outer-space movies. After setting the base shape and gradient, this plug-in gives you animation with rewind, step forward, and other features that allow you to sit mesmerized for hours (or until the perfect fractal appears) . Frax4D generates fairly realistic multidimensional objects. The coolest of the fractal plug-ins may very well be FraxFlame, which generates fractals in quasi-neon colors. Use it to create your own virtual aurora in seconds.
“Kai’s Power Toys” might be a more accurate name for Kai’s Power Tools. Sure, you can do real work with these tools, but it’s tough to stop playing with them.
Barzeski, Erik J. (June 1999). Kai's Power Tools 5.0. MacAddict. (pg. 60).
MetaCreations Corporation
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KPT_5.zip
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
SheepShaver
