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.