SketchUp 4.0 review
SketchUp stands out among 3D graphics programs thanks to its innovative and simple ‘push/pull’ approach, which makes it easy to sketch 2D shapes and then quickly manipulate them in three dimensions with the mouse.
Reviews
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Portfolio 7 review
According to Extensis, a lot of designers and photographers are in denial about the fact that they actually need a product like Portfolio.
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Softimage|XSI 4.0 review
If you’re looking to invest in a top-flight 3D animation system, there are a few big players to look at – and Softimage|XSI would be included in the list. The reasons for choosing one 3D package over another are many and varied, and the top contenders all have their strengths and weaknesses. Feature lists don’t tell the whole story, and high-end 3D applications all have similar features ...
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Flix Pro 4.0 review
Flash is used mainly for creating vector animations, but recent upgrades have put increasing emphasis on its ability to use video content within SWF files. With the arrival of Flash MX, Macromedia introduced a new ‘flash video’ format (FLV) specifically for that purpose. Flash video hasn’t taken off in a big way as yet, but Flix Pro could be the program that helps to popularize the format.
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NetObjects Fusion 8 review
Macromedia’s Dreamweaver seems to have the professional Web design market tied up. However, Dreamweaver is a vast and complex application, so there’s still a place for programs that provide quick solutions to Web-creation. Fusion 8 is easy to use, but the developer’s shameless money-grabbing is shocking at times.
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PF Match 1.0 review
The market for match-moving software is becoming increasingly crowded – and now there’s another product to add to the list. The Pixel Farm’s PFMatch joins the likes of 2d3’s Boujou, RealViz’s MatchMover, and a handful of plug-in-based solutions in the match-moving market. PFMatch aims to offer a sophisticated toolset and autotracking for the extraction of 3D camera data from film or video footage.
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RealProducer 10 Plus review
It’s been a while since any of the main Web-streaming software tools have been updated, but like the proverbial bus, three have turned up at once. While long-term frontrunner Cleaner sits in development hell, the last month has seen the announcement of updates to Canopus’ ProCoder, Sorenson’s Squeeze Compression Suite, and RealNetworks RealProducer 10.
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Opus Pro 04 review
Although billed with the creative tag of an interactive multimedia tool, Opus Pro 04 is clearly designed with the business user in mind. While this may not be everyone’s cup of Java, the corporate space is obviously where the money is, so a tool that addresses this market directly is definitely worth a look. The company promotes the use of Opus Pro as ...
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Profile Mechanic review
Profile Mechanic consists of two independent programs, sold separately. Profile Mechanic Monitor can calibrate and write ICC correction profiles for CRT and LCD monitors. It provides a small USB colorimeter sensor with interchangeable supports for both types of monitor. Profile Mechanic Scanner creates correction profiles for any flatbed or transparency scanner, as well as digital cameras.
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FileMaker Pro 7 review
FileMaker seems to be aiming straight at the content creation market with version 7 of this database solution. There is a new field type called a Container that can be used to store digital pictures, movies, music, and other digital media – up to 4GB per field. It’s not only for the creative side of the business though, as the Container field can handle Word documents, full Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, PowerPoint presentation files, OLE objects, and more.
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Alias Maya 6 review
Previous updates to Maya, one of the biggest 3D animation package out there, have seen Alias attempt to make the software easier to use. The company has sought to widen its appeal to include designers and DCC artists not working at the cutting-edge of 3D animation, and to slash the price too.
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Final Cut Express 2.0 review
Final Cut Pro may be Apple’s main offering for the professional video-editing market, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the cut-down Final Cut Express as a mere toy for consumers and hobbyists. After all, it was Final Cut Express that finally put paid to the Mac version of Premiere, by offering some impressive editing features at a much lower price.
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NetObjects Fusion 7.5 review
Creating Web sites is a lot easier now than it was ten, or even five years ago. NetObjects Fusion has been around since the late 90s offering an easy to use Web site-authoring solution for those who don’t understand HTML and other Web code. NetObjects Fusion maintains this tradition with a host of wizards and tools to create anything from ...
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Stitcher 4.0 review
RealViz is best known for its professional-quality tools for integrating 3D elements into movies. However, its Stitcher software is a high-grade still-imaging tool for creating panoramas from multiple images. Results can be output as a super-wide print, or put onto a Web page or CD to form immersive QuickTime VR MOV, Shockwave, or ...
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Director MX 2004 review
Director MX 2004 is finally shipping, and the upgrade to the premier multimedia-authoring tool boasts some improvements that you’ll notice at first glance. The ability to dock Movie in a Window (MIAW) tools alongside the other Director palettes is great, and the Windows version features some interface enhancements.
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iView Multimedia Pro review
For many digital creatives, asset management software stopped being useful when Photoshop 7 introduced the File Browser. However, there’s much more to this application than mere thumbnail browsing.
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Studio Artist 3.0 review
Studio Artist isn’t well known in the UK, but it’s an impressive piece of graphics software. The developers, Synthetik Software, refer to it as a ‘graphics synthesizer’, making comparisons with the way that music synthesizers work. But for people with a design background, it’s probably better to compare it to the artistic cloning tools in graphics programs like Painter.
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Panasonic DVC-30 review
With the DVC-30, Panasonic has done a good job of cramming the DVX100’s main features into a smaller case – and adding a few of its own. However, it hasn’t achieved scaling the body size down to that of a consumer-camcorder – a feat achieved by ...
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TourWeaver 1.1 review
TourWeaver, from Shanghai-based EasyPano, lets you link several immersive spherical images via hotspots to form a guided tour – for instance you could create a tour of your house with hotspots on the doors to take you to the next room. You can link to still images, movies, sound files, and to URLs ...
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CorelDraw 12 review
The relative success of CorelDraw upgrades is inconsistent to say the least. CorelDraw was already at version 3 before anyone took any notice; version 4 was astonishing; version 8 was a blinder; version 10 was the dog’s bollocks. All the intermediate releases, however, have come across as fillers, as if they were produced by contractual obligation. This is how version 12 feels too.