Ulead Cool 3d - Buyer Be Forewarned

Ulead Cool 3d and Ulead Cool 3d Production Studio

 If you are like me and tend to scan the internet to see what's new and developing out there in the world of graphic software you will probably run across a few dozen programs that fall into the category of 'over kill, under performance'. The Ulead Cool 3d packages (under the title Ulead Cool 3d or Ulead Cool 3d Production Studio) fall into this category as far as my evaluation goes. Both programs work well and are quite reasonably priced but have a somewhat limited output capability. The program is used to create 3d titles and objects to be used on the web or in Flash presentations and give you the ability to construct 3d objects and/or text, complete with texture and color control, lighting adjustment, path animation and special effects. Sounds pretty sweet, eh? The functional versatility falls a bit short of the imagined possibilities though and you end up compromising a lot of your finished 3d pieces because the software just couldn't allow you to dial in the precise tweaks you wanted. Case in point: most 3d packages allow you to adjust the UV mapping of an object so you don't get an unnatural looking texture stretched across the surface of your object.

interface of Ulead Cool 3d Production Studio

 The GUI supplies a visual preview of the preset animated effects that you can add to text or objects. I have a quad core processor on my machine and the animation previews of the effects still chugged along at a snail's pace leaving you frustrated at wanting to see a better, more real-time representation, of the effect.
 The one plus side to this program is the learning curve. This is a quick to learn, quick to use program that allows most people to just begin noodling around and getting used to all the effects you can do. It doesn't take much time before you are up and creating your own animated Flash or animated GIF files for the web. I checked on Corel's website (Corel has taken over the program from Ulead and is now the distributor of Ulead products) and it looks as if they aren't even promoting these programs anymore which leads me to wonder if they are going to drop the program entirely or maybe come out with an updated version.
In closing I will say that if you run across this program on Cnet or some other downloading site and think 'hey great price and it looks like it can do a lot of cool 3d stuff', be forewarned. My suggestion would be to create the same type effects using Flash and Photoshop and give yourself a much broader range of creativity. You can find trial versions of the program on the web so don't jump in too quick, try it before you buy it.

DP Animation Maker

Here's a fun little program that does a few cute tricks and is fun for kids or adults to play around with and may even come in handy to save you some time on a quick effect for a project. I can't see anyone using it a lot but what little it does, it does pretty well and the price is reasonable at just under $27 for the registered version (evaluation copy free to download). DP Animation maker is a smart little program you can use to create animation gifs for websites, backgrounds and other projects with very little effort. Within minutes you will find yourself tooling around the effects toolbar trying out all the plugin effects to create weather, lighting and object animations within your static picture. It also allows for the import of your own static images into any picture and works good with transparent background images like .pngs or .gifs. Sure, anyone with a few mid to high-end progs could recreate the effect, but for those weekenders who want to create some jazzy little images to email their friend or stick or their webpage, DP Animation Maker takes the pain out of construction. If you want to create your own animated wallpaper or screensaver they also offer cheap programs specifically for making those as well. I would download the free trial and play around with it before purchasing but still feel it's a bargain for the fully registered version.

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro....What's an Animatic?

interface of Toon Boom Storyboard Pro

I suppose the first question I should address before going on about animatics is, what is an animatic? Think of an animatic as a multimedia storyboard, a series of images placed together to relay a story or idea enhanced with movement, sound and/or footnotes. Before devoting the time and effort to create an animated story, commercial or media presentation, the smart approach is to plan it out. You can waste a lot of time and effort creating a fully finished piece only to have to ripped apart by editors, producers and clients, then it's back to square one on your project. By conveying the flow of your project through still image usage, you save time and give everyone an idea where you're headed, artistically. Often this can be a stumbling block as well-a lot of individuals out there aren't visionaries and may find it difficult or down-right impossible to perceive your story through still images. So there you are left trying to describe some 'cool move to the left while the first guy jumps in the sir, then the second guy sees him and starts-'...the glazed eyes of those listening tell you the point isn't quite driving home. So what's the happy medium point between finished animation and sketches, workload, effort, project perception? The answer is, the animatic.
The animatic helps bridge the gap of understanding movement and storyline flow of a project and to date I have found that one of the best pieces of software out there to create animatics is Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, created by the sane company that gave us Toon Boom Studio. TBSP is a scaled down version of Toon Boom Studio but gives you just enough tools to make fantastic presentations that you can distribute as a document (PDF) to be printed in a professional looking format (just like the big studios....nice) or in an electronic format to be viewed as a Quicktime movie, which adds the effects of sound and/or motion. The interface is quite easy to learn and use and will have you creating presentations in no time. Tools include tablet/mouse sensitive pen, eraser, color palette-most the basic tools you'll find in any basic paint program, but added is the movement ability to rotate, scale and move elements within your project and time/sync them in accordance to your story flow. Side notes can be added for additional help in understanding your piece, onion skinning capabilities to help you with animation and layers to provide you ease of project element organization. Toon Boom offers a limited time trial offer of their software which is always nice to try before you buy and if you feel you need a good followup program for finished, full animation presentations, Toon Boom Studio is an excellent choice-check both of these programs out at their website.

Incomedia Website X5

Most posts on this blog have been favorable to the software reviewed, however I feel it my duty every now and then to point out those packages I feel are not quite up to being as user-friendly or usable in the graphics world as one (or one's company) might lead you to believe.  Inconmedia Website X5 lured me in with the promise of being the 'all in one solution packed with tools to create and publish professional websites, online shops and blogs'. I have my share of programs and small utilities to help me streamline the creation of websites but also keep on the lookout for any new and improved (or equally usable) progs to do this task. Most people are familiar with or have heard about Adobe Dreamweaver and quite a few have heard of some WYSIWYG web software out there that promises making websites a cinch. Website X5 called out for me to put it to the test and right from the word go, they left me unimpressed.
I will admit that they do have all the editing tools needed to make a site, editing tools to create or modify images for your website, Flash support, shopping cart capabilities, but where it lacks is in the freedom to create outside the box. You are instructed from the beginning to start a new project by providing a valid URL for your site (what if I'm just in the planning stage or haven't yet registered a domain?) and then you choose from a plethora of pre-made templates (I hate templates!) that will serve as the boundaries for your page. This limitation stifles someone from the word go and forces them to fit the design around the software rather than the other way around, as it should be.
So to be fair, I suppose if you have no problems being led around by the nose when it comes to designing a webpage, then Website X5 will work for you, but to be honest, if you want a cookie cutter approach to a website design you might a well just save the money and go online to a host like Wix or some other make-your-own site that will walk you through setting up a fully functional webpage that corrals your creativity within the boundaries of their criteria.

Daz 3D-Electronic Paper Dolls To The Extreme

Daz3D

I suppose it's time to get over my love/hate relation with this program and make mention of it for all those out there willing to try their hand at this quite remarkable FREE program. Okay that word 'free' does come with some stipulations but yes, Daz Studio (formerly Daz 3D) is a free program for creating simulated 3d images with models, props and such, all at your control. You can create still images or animations rendered with various settings like lifelike or cartoon finish or even sketchbook. The results are truly amazing when you take into consideration  how little time one needs to spend to become familiar with this software package.
Now for some of the side notes about this program. One of the early predecessors to Daz was a program called Poser, which is still in production today but ha since taken a back seat to the Daz Production mega-modelling favorite. Perhaps some of this is due to Poser's migration between company hands (Fractal Designs to MetaCreations to Curious Labs, now with Smith Micro) but for whatever the reason, Daz is clearly the top do of the hour when it comes to digital 3d figures. The library of humans, non-humans, animals, plants, buildings, organic and non-organic things one can download and install is practically unlimited. That ends up being the cross you must bear when using this program. It becomes too easy to fall into the habit of putting just one more model or just one more set of clothes into your library and before you know it, you're spending more time collecting items for the program rather than using all it's many features. Learning the basics of Daz takes about ten minutes but really digging into hardcore fine-tuning capabilities it has can take a while to perfect. You can easily find yourself inching a model around to get it just the way you want it to look and think, 'gee, I've just spent four hours on this one pose'-trust me, I've been there all too often.
Daz will entice you by starting you off with the program totally free (I believe they do want you to sign up for a newsletter but nothing that intrusive) and you could probably have a lot of fun and do a lot of work with the basic package they provide, but be ready. Once you start playing around with it you'll be on the lookout for more freebie and start signing up to forums that give away stuff for Daz and then before you know it you'll be totally addicted to putting out 3d renderings of muscle clad warriors or babes in bikinis. Go to the Daz site now to learn more about this magnificent-free-program.

Pencil: Back to the Basics of Animaton

A great little free (although they certainly do accept donations) animating program you can download from the web is called Pencil-appropriate enough because it leads you back to the days of animating basics. This little program is the electronic age version of the old animator light table where one would sit and draw pencil rough character and bring them to life via traditional animating techniques. If you have the craving to jump into the wonderfully time consuming world of animation and don't want to be sidetracked with a lot of shortcut tweening functions offered in costly 2d animating programs  then my suggestion is to pick up Pencil. The drawing and animating tools are about as simple to learn as you can get but not in performance. This little prog can do wonders in keeping up with the bigger platform software packages. Made to function at its best with a graphics tablet Pencil still allows you to draw with a mouse (keep that hand steady) however tablets only allow the pressure sensitivity pen width function so be prepared. Pencil supports an audio track so you can put music or sound effects in your production however, one area it falls short is the ability to see a wave form on the timeline to help synch up your sound-ends up being a lot of trial and error with the audio.

I would have to say that Pencil is a great program to hone your animating skills but as far as full production goes, you could end up wasting a lot of time get it to perform as well as other programs like Toon Boom or Flash...but then again, Toon Boom isn't free, is it? Pencil is available for both PC and MAC platforms with an online manual and support forum so if you feel up to polishing those keyframing skills, go download Pencil today.

You Can Never Have Too Many Fonts or Brushes-Can You?

One of the more deceptive space gobblers on your computer could be fonts and/or brushes, if you're one of those individuals who love to experiment and create-like me. I found myself being carried away with the bliss of free fonts and free Photoshop brushes, which can be found all over the internet. Some quick sites for brushes, right off the top of my head include Free-Brushes.com, brusheezy.com, and fbrushes.com - but don't just take my word for it, feel free to spend an hour or three perusing the web and stocking up on glints and glistens and cracks and stains, but be prepared to lose your senses. Before you know it you can bog a program down with so many choices of addons that you will forget the importance of the other great design functions your paint program has to offer. At one point I had some 90 different sets of brushes on my Photoshop palette and became frustrated scrolling up and down this huge list just to find something I wanted. I now limit myself to about a half dozen brush options and leave the others alone. A good set of brushes (aside from the standard soft round, hard round ) to keep loaded are a nice lens flare brush, a star glint or twinkle, a few cracks or veins for adding an extra touch to aged concrete or broken glass, some various spray or splatters and blades of grass. Most other functions you need to create an image can be created and better controlled by applying real life pics and playing with the layer settings. Adding a silhouette on a separate layer and setting the layer properties to SCREEN or OVERLAY or DARKER can give some excellent results.
Fonts are another space gobbler and if you aren't careful can leave you lost in a sea of alphabets. I always keep in mind that when designing a brochure or pamphlet, the main body text should be easily readable. Posters and flyers that don't contain much copy are the place to cut loose with expressive fonts but make sure when it comes to putting down important criteria, like the time and place of an event, you use a legible typeface to leave no confusion in the reader's mind. You may have a really wild looking font that you like and have no trouble reading, but you'd be surprised how many people don't hold your excellent powers of observation and discernment. Another thing to remember about fonts when creating multimedia or web projects is, just because you have the font on your machine is no guarantee that the end-user will have that same typeface. Programs will automatically display a substitute set of characters if the typeface hasn't been loaded on the end-user's machine. If you plan to distribute your multimedia (i.e. PowerPoint) presentation, make sure the program allows you embed the font or turn the font into a image. For web projects I usually turn fancy headings into gifs or png's with a transparent background and leave the main body copy set to Arial or Georgia, both being universal fonts.
Now you may look in your files and see that fonts usually come in at about 30-60K spacewise and brush files even smaller than that-not really a big space issue, right? Trust me, before long those things start adding up and a machine will take longer and longer to load a program.
So keeping that in mind if you do need to look for some nice typefaces, a great place to start looking for fonts (every designer has their own personal favorite sites for free ones) is DaFont.com, a great site that has a diverse line of free typefaces and symbols to suit most needs.

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro

comic image being drawn using
Autodesk Sketchbook Pro

Although this program is geared more for those who use an electronic tablet, I found using Autodesks fine illustrating program, Sketchbook Pro, to be a streamlined wiz for creating artwork without all the added sidebar menus or filters and plugins you may never use. This program has a straight forward approach to electronic sketching that comes about as close to actual hand drawing as it gets. It comes with a full range color chart (and the ability to build and store your own custom swatches) and typical drawing tools (pencils, pens, markers, airbrush) which react about as efficient as the real thing. When using Sketchbook you become adapted to creating your image in layers, one of the few functions that help preserve your original image; if you don't care much for a car in red, quickly create a new layer and make it in green, or blue, or whatever color and however many colors you feel like. The tool panels maneuver around the work area at your ease giving you access to all the drawing tools you need but not getting in the way of your work. The canvas and tools slide around at your discretion. Presets can be stored to keep your favorite pen settings and the tools adjust nicely to tablet sensitivity settings. Another nice feature....works for both PC and MAC.
If you go online Autodesk allows you to download a free trial version (full function) of their software so what have you got to lose? I found that at the very least, trying this program will improve skills in other paint programs.

Blender Dishes Up a New Look

interface from Blender 2.4 (top, red)
and Blender 2.5 (bottom green)

 

 

 

 

After a very long hiatus, I am back on the blog scene and feel excited to start fresh with a great new update on an older software package. One of my earlier posts introduced you to Blender, a freeware program that allows you to create 3d models, animate, render-even game creation, while saving you the big bucks usually spent out on such comparable programs like 3D Studio Max, Maya or Truespace. In this day and age when so many software companies are constantly updating versions of their software on your dime, with minimal changes or advancements to the program, Blender continues to provide us a valuable tool an, in fact, has added a sizable update to the interface. One of the problems I had found with the 2.4 and earlier versions of Blender was the network of dropdown menus-even locating simple functions seemed to take more time than was worth to learn the software. The newer 2.5 version has introduced a more user-friendly appearance, more accustomed to users of other 3d modelling programs. The user options allow you to tailor fit the look and feel of the interface, load or create themes to your personal preference. Another added bonus is the consistent look to the interface across all platforms, so when you view those online tutorials and the presenter is using a Mac and you're on a PC, your not saying 'my screen doesn't look like that-where is THAT button?'
Blender continues to grow in performance and gives anyone the ability to download (did I mention it was free enough?) this high performance program. Don't be misled into thinking this is a quick little point-and-click prog though. Time must be given to learning its' versatility but the end result withh astound you.