Workstation Specialists m1550 laptop for CG and video creativity review
The first ‘Ivy Bridge’ Windows laptop we’ve looked works well with current-generation creative apps.
The first ‘Ivy Bridge’ Windows laptop we’ve looked works well with current-generation creative apps.
Workstations with Intel's latest E5 chips are just becoming available in the UK - we put two of them through their paces
Eizo’s ColorEdge CG303W is, quite possibly, the best monitor an artist or designer could hope for. It combines a superb panel and incredibly accurate colour output.
Six grand is a lot to spend on a workstation, but the Magnetar X24 is equivalent of the Pagani Zonda supercar, boasting top-of-the-line chips, graphics and storage.
Chris Gavin finds lots to like in this fully featured stop-motion animation package.
Compared to the raft of new additions in Maya 2009, this version might seem rather light in terms of groundbreaking features in the main package itself.
The latest version of Vue doesn’t add any new types of elements to its collection of tools – so its new features are largely refinements and enhancements.
For the release of iClone 3, Reallusion has added a Pro version to the home user-focused 3D tool for quickly putting together 3D scenes for pre-visualization.
Though many creatives are buying 30-inch monitors due to their massive resolutions allowing fine detail to be displayed, similarly-priced 24-inch models such as Eizo’s CG241W offer strong competition.
While The Pixel Farm’s own PFMatch and PFTrack suites, or 2d3’s Boujou meet the needs of the Soho VFX set, PFHoe is of interest to studios looking to composite 3D elements and graphics into their footage realistically, but without breaking the bank.
Cinema 4D’s latest incarnation represents a considerable overhaul of how the program looks and works. First impressions are good – the redesigned interface is readable and refined...
Moujou is a matchmoving plug-in for Maya from 2d3. It takes its functionality from Boujou, the company’s popular standalone camera tracking application.
Eizo is attempting to tackle death of the CRT with its latest ColorEdge monitor for designers, the CG220. It offers the same focus on colour – being the first LCD monitor capable of displaying the whole gamut of the Adobe RGB colour space – and has an inevitably high price.
Like many recent releases of 3D applications in the mid- to high-end range, version 8 of LightWave 3D has concentrated mainly on enhancements to character animation and dynamics.
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.
E-on Software, makers of landscape and environment rendering package Vue d’Esprit, has launched a new version aimed more at the professional 3D market. The prosaically named Vue 4 Professional seems to be an attempt by E-on to make Vue 4 Professional the 3D program everyone wanted Corel’s Bryce to become.
When you open Encore DVD, you are greeted with a faintly familiar tabbed palette setup – but with a cut-down five-piece toolset. The timeline comes from the likes of Premiere, and the layers from Photoshop, so users of other Adobe products (particularly those within the Video Collection) will have little trouble navigating it.
MediaStudio Pro is aimed at professional video editors. It costs around £300, so you wouldn’t expect it to compete with the depth and power of ...
Canon announced this A3+ format inkjet printer last October, but it has only just started shipping. It's a high-quality model at a premium price, intended ...
The new Quadro FX cards from NVidia are based on the company’s GeForce FX architecture. They take over the top spot in their workstation graphics ...