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Smith Micro's Anime Studio Pro 7 Review
As an Adobe Flash designer, it is relatively easy to animate basic movie clips. However, more complicated animations require a lot more work. With this review of Anime Studio Pro, we found that animation was a lot easier then Flash is, not to mention some niffty 3D features as well.
Anime Studio Pro's drawing and bone tools took me about an hour to get used to compared to standard vector packages such as Adobe and Corel. But, once you get a hang of it you will understand it's simplicity. There is a lot of power behind this product that isn't visible at first.
This product is a standard keyframe editor that exports into many formats including AVI and SWF. You can add and edit your own sound bytes as well.
Here are some product highlights...
Add and edit Simulated Physics
Make 3D objects from 2D vector layers
Organize your content with the library window
Animate curves with precision tools
Record your own sound from within Anime Studio®
Import Poser® Scenes and models
Automatic lip-syncing features
Easily combine video, audio and animation
Attach objects to video with Motion Tracking
Add effects like motion blur and shadows
One thing I really liked compared to all other products is how lines are handled. You can hide just a segment for use on cartoons such as ears etc. But, the coolest thing is that you can make a line thicker within each segment point. Meaning you can have a thick line taper off on any part of the line... this is cool!
One of the most important parts of animation is the "bone" system. Adding and editing bones can be attached to any shape. It is very easy to add bones using the Layer system.
Speaking of the Layer system, this is where you can group, add and animate all your objects. This is SO MUCH easier then the way Adobe Flash does it!
Below left, you will see the very first animation that we created from scratch called "Bigmouth Payback". This animation took us about 4 hours. We did run into "learning curve" issues as we learned and tried this product out. But all I can say is that it was fun... animation doesn't have to be that hard!
CONS: Not really any major cons! However, there may be a learning curve for novice users. But, the help file contained in the product is really - really good.
PROS: Good drawing tools, awesome bone system, import video, images and Poser objects to add to your animation. Great 3D tools and awesome timeline effects and configurations..
CONCLUSION: Any serious animator must get this tool to create amazing 2D & 3D animations. There is a large community of users to help you out. I found Anime Studio Pro very powerful and fun to use. Go get it NOW!!
Smith Micro's Stuffit Deluxe 2010 Review
I remember way back in my early computer days having to compact a large file to just fit on a 1.44mb floppy disk. And if the file was way to large, having to split it into 4-5 zip files to fit on 4-5 floppies was a pain. I was using a free zipping program that does some similar things Stuffit Deluxe does.
But, when I tried out Stuffit Deluxe 2010, I was immediately impressed by everything that it does. Stuffit Deluxe was far more powerful then Winzip or the free program I was using. This program is more then just a zipping/unzipping program. Here are just a few features.
Optimized file compressors
Photoshop & Microsoft Office plug-ins
Browse archives without expanding
Create Zip, StuffIt and TAR archives
Convert to and from Zip and Sitx archives
Self-Extracting EXE Zip Archives
NEW! StuffIt® Connect stores up to 2GB of files and creates invitations to share them
NEW! StuffIt® SmartSend automatically chooses the best way to deliver your files
Built in FTP and email file transfers
Schedule backups from contextual menu
Backup directly to FTP
Burn CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc™
Schedule backup at shutdown
Encrypt StuffIt and Zip files with strong 512-bit and AES 256-bit encryption
Most of the work I do usually requires me to unzip files. So, that is the main feature I use. However, I do use the Self Extracting Archive (SEA) to create self-extracting EXE's. Another feature that I also use is "Compress to FTP" so people can download hugh files from my web server.
For those without a web server, there is the "SmartSend" and "Stuffit Connect" that manages your zip (or stuffit) archives. If an archive is to big, Stuffit Connect allows you to store the file on Stuffit's web server service for others to download. You get one year free for this service.
There are way to many features to even mention in this review such as viewing all your archives (zip or stuffit files) in one location; searching through all your archives without extracting each one; all stuffit features work right inside Windows Explorer.
CONS: No cons! But, there is one feature I would like to see... Self-Extracting ZIP files. Why? Some ISP's and businesses block EXE files from going through their email servers.
PROS: Everything works good! Packed with features. Self-Extracting EXE's, Optimized compression, password protected archives, scheduler for backups and on and on! Stuffit Deluxe is a powerful program for what it does!
CONCLUSION: You may think that all unzipping programs are the same, but any serious developer will find Stuffit Deluxe is the Cadillac of them all Go get it NOW!!
Smith Micro's Poser 8 Review
As a graphic artist, sometimes it is difficult to find a picture with a person that is positioned just the way you want. Traditionally you can use a 3D application and create it that way. However, it is a lot more time consuming. That is where Poser 8 will speed up the process.
The Poser 8 interface is much more streamlined then in previous versions. I also find Poser 8 faster then the last version. One improvement I like is the "tree-like" Library; it is easier to use. The Library contains new version 8 content and almost all figures, poses and props from all earlier versions. There are humans, animals, props, hair styles and much more. I like the preset poses, which allow you to set your figure's pose automatically (great time saver).
Using Poser "out of the box" is easy to use if you are just using basic figures with matching props. Other then that there will be some things you will have to learn and using the included help manual will really benefit you!
You adjust your views on the stage by using the colorful hands, head and navigation ball on the left. You can control the direction of your light source very easily. You have the options of how the rendering window displays in design mode and render mode. On the top of the application are tabs where you can set options for material, face, hair, clothes and bones.
To fine-tune your figure's poses, you can adjust every part of their body right down to the fingertips. You can adjust there size, location and many morph settings. You even can get more complicated by morphing just parts of a model using several methods.
One feature you may like to play with is the Face screen. You can adjust just about everything on the head. You can even customize the face by importing your own face. You can adjust the lips and eye expressions to make smiles, close eyes and raise eyebrows.
Something that you will be doing a lot is working with Conforming and Dynamic clothes. Conforming cloth automatically clings to the a figure; think of a tight shirt or socks, they move with the figure. Some clothes do not conform from figure version to version. However, there is "Wardrobe Wizard" to convert clothes so you can use older clothes on newer characters.
Dynamic cloth is pretty cool for clothes. It allows you to drape a cloth on any object, but it hangs depending on object movement. Then if you really want to be blown away... you can animate the dynamic cloth by using wind or collision dynamics!! COOL!
Another feature in Poser 8 is the creation and editing of Bones on your very own new objects. Bones is the mechanism used to move your objects and pose them. You will need a 3rd party 3D application to create your new characters if you want to develop your own characters.
Animating in Poser 8 is easy and straight forward. There is even a "Walking Designer" wizard that will help you animate your figure to run or walk. The animation functions use the traditional keyframes and timelines and each part of the body has it's own timeline line! There is also Lip-Sync functions using a WAV file that allows your figures to look like they are talking.
Now that you have posed everything, you need to render it and export it. The rendering is fairly fast and good if you setup the proper lighting scheme. Exporting your animation or still pose is fairly straight forward. You can export in most popular formats; AVI, PNG, SWF, 3DS, OBJ and others.
I mostly do vector projects, so exporting to SWF (Flash) is what I use a lot. However, I found that exporting to SWF could use some improvements. The quality is not what I anticipated (even following the help manual's suggestions). You may be better off exporting to 3DS and importing into Swift3D. BUT... I did find a cool consolation prize. That when I export a PNG with transparencies, I can load a beautiful PNG render into flash that can go on top of my vector flash graphics and show the graphic transparency wonderfully. That is Cool!!!
There is another cool little rendering feature where you can render, print or export to AVI your animation or still that looks like a drawing from basic black and white to color. Animators would use this to show off their work on "Paper-looking" output like animator's draw when creating cartoons.
CONS: There was only one thing I found that needs improvement according to my needs. The SWF (flash) export isn't what I expected for Flash use.
FYI... (not a CON, but my preference): From an ethical standpoint; A lot of clothing and charcters are geared towards sexy well figured women with short skirts or hardly no clothes at all. Trying to create a Christian woman (on left) or modest business women takes some work. It is hard to find proper clothes online that can be used for business or religious purposes because most clothes for women are made with a sexy look to them.
PROS: Poser 8 has a much improved interface that performs better then version 7. The workflow is better too. More content is provided that is easily accessible in the improved Library. Creating and animating projects is much faster then if you had to do this in a 3D application from scratch. The rendering is pretty good. Great import and export formats so you can use with other 3D applications.
CONCLUSION: The "cons" above are not deal-breakers, there are work-arounds. I completely enjoy using it. I like it even more then Poser 7. If you are not a hard core 3D designer, you will find Poser fun and yet powerful. There is a lot of options under the hood that can produce some really nice projects. The learning curve is medium compared to complex 3D applications. Poser 8 is an awesome application. I cannot wait to really dive into this thing and produce some decent stuff. There is so much more I could say!! Go get it NOW!!
FlashText FX Review
With all of the great features in Adobe Flash, one thing that is missing is an easy way to create text effects without lots of code, tweens and symbols. FlashText FX solves this problem with a very great integrated component that will take care of all your text effect needs... within Flash! We have previously been using an old text effect software that created swf files, symbols and tweens that is impossible to edit without re-creating the effect. But, now we have opened a whole new world in Flash with this inexpensive component.
What can we say... WOW! And this is just been released at version 1. Flashloaded has really hit on a way to animate text within Flash without the tedious, symbols and tweens.
After reading the simple instructions I was able to create a text effect (see below) for the first time within 15 minutes using just a dynamic text box and two components on just one frame (see the left screenshot).
The "FlashTextFX" component hooks up to your text box. The "FXStep 1" component provides the text effect. You can have multiple effects too, even on separate frames and on separate fields and even in movie clips!
The "Component Inspector" screen (see left screenshot) is where you apply all the effects. There are no pre-set effects; you edit your effect with various actions. This means that the effects are unlimited!
The way FlashLoaded developed this component using bitmap data to do effects is what makes it so powerful. You can animate whole fields, lines, words, letters and even down to pixels! Just incredible!
Also available for settings are; bezier curve, rotation, alpha, tint, blur, glow, scale, easing and duration settings... all this is done without messing with the timeline. You can also save text effects so you can load them later. Cool!
What I really love about FlashText FX is the fact that it is all done inside Flash with no tweens and symbols; no importing SWF files from other text effect software. This makes the size of a SWF so much smaller. FlashTextFX will only add 26kb for the effect component that is saved in your swf.
PROS: Complete freedom on how your effect looks, NO tweens and symbols. Fairly easy to use once you understand how to use the component.
CONS: Well.. not many con's. The only thing I would like to see is the inspector panel made to be more compact in size; it takes up a little to much screen.
Any Flash developer that needs a serious text effect engine HAS TO GO GET FlashTextFX. This rates as important as any add-on you would need!
Box Shot 3D Review
Something that you see a lot on web sites are box and ebook covers that look like real boxes that your purchased product comes in. These virtual ebook covers and software box covers look so real. We here at TechniPixel have been doing this by hand with "okay" results. We could of done this in a 3D application, but it took less time to make it by hand. That is where Box Shot 3D comes in! It's fun and easy to make realistic covers.
When you first launch Box Shot 3D you kind of get the impression that it is a small utility. But when we got into it, we found out that it is a powerful 3D application that handles camera angles, lighting, shadowing, enviroments, background color, cover layouts (called shapes) and raytracing rendering.
To use Box Shot 3D, all you have to do is create your cover graphic in a paint program such as PhotoShop. Then you can apply regions (maps) of your image to reflect which part of the cover you want that map to display as. You can do front, back and sides of covers.
The magic comes when you apply all the 3D settings, rotate your view to where you want it and then render it using the built-in raytracing engine. The realism is incredible.
See the image on left that we made using Box Shot 3D. It took us 10 minutes to create the cover in our paint program. It then took 5 minutes to setup our report, then another 3 minutes to render it.
PROS: Will save you lots of time creating 3d covers, realistic renderings, many layouts and 3d settings to bring your cover to life. CONS: Well.. not many con's. The raytracing is slow, but that is the raytracing technology and not Box Shot 3d's issue.
For the time that you save creating covers compared to doing them in a 3D application, getting this application should be on the top of the list. And for only $54 us dollars... it is a great deal!
GroupMail Review 5
Anyone who seriously runs a web site needs one specific tool to communicate with their users directly; and that is a bulk (mass) emailing program. We have selected GroupMail as our primary tool to send news letters to our clients. And we have to say that GroupMail is a great complete solution.
GroupMail offers several versions from a free (100 sent email limit per mailing) to an Enterprise version packed with powerful tools. On their web site they list the companies who use their product; and they have some big names using their program.
When I first downloaded GroupMail Personal Edition, I was able to setup Smtp, group (email address list) and message using an already made html page in 5 minutes. Their approach to groups (mailing lists) and messages is so easy to understand.
The Personal Edition allows unlimited email campaigns, unlimited groups and unlimited message templates. GroupMail also includes a number of already made html templates.
The biggest asset of GroupMail is the ability to compose html messages either by importing an already made html page or you can compose a message right in GroupMail's own html editor. And just for kicks... you can even link directly to an already made web page on your web site. That is awesome!!
After composing your message, you can test it right in GroupMail to preview it or send out a test email to yourself. When you are ready to send, you just select the group (email list) campaign that you want to send it to. You can send your group mailings either by using your email's SMTP settings or using GroupMails own on-board smtp which is faster.
Of course, GroupMail also has a robust set of functions to handle subscriptions, unsubscriptions and bounce-back emails right inside the program. All you have to do is setup a form on your web site for your visitors to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are lots of free PHP form codes online to accomplish this easily.
PROS: Unlimited group emailing lists, message templates and unlimited email smtp setups. Preview messages, options to send both html and text based messages. Composing your own, importing or linking to html page templates.
CONS: Well.. not many con's. One feature we would like to see, is the ability to just check off hand selected recipients without using the email exclusion functions.
We tried several mass mailing programs, even the $400 ones; and we feel that this was the easiest and most natural feeling program out there. For the price and flexible functionality, you must check this out.
SWF Studio 3.4 Review
SWF Studio is a small, but powerful application that creates standalone Windows EXE programs our of Flash (SWF). It is basically a beefed up Flash Projector player... but it is so much more!!
When you SWF Studio 3.4 for the first time, you are not overwhelmed by it's plain simple look; it is not a flash application. But, have you even opened up a hood of an old car and heard the engine roar!!
SWF Studio allows you to customize almost every part of your Flash/Windows application, including the icon, title caption, wher it displays, whether it is minimized or maximized at startup.
You can also save your Flash projects as a screen saver, with settings too! You can even include "Plugin" functionality into your project. You also have the option to include all external files inside your EXE or extract them when the app is first started. Can you say "Truly standalone application!!"
And let's not forget the most powerful aspect of SWF Studio... it's own ActionScript API, you can load and save files locally on a PC, run databases with Flash!! You can also work with a lot of Windows API's too!
Something I think will be neat to do (which I haven't tried yet) is to have your flash application talk to your own DLL if you have VB or C# development tools. That's right!! You can do a whole lot more with your flash app, then just animations!
On the left is my first program (Web Launch) that I made using SWf Studio. I love using flash to make interfaces pretty, but when I was able to load and save XML... within the application, I was thrilled!
PROS: A very powerful Flash application projector application with a lot of options. They have an awesome support staff!! CONS: Well.. I haven't found any yet. It is still new to me.
SWF Studio is a great application to develop desktop applications on the Windows platform using Flash. I would recommend this to anyone!!
Swift 3D Review
We develop our flash content using Flash Professional 8, however Flash 8 doesn't include the capability to create 3D images. That is where Swift3D come in!
Swift3D creates very clean flash (swf) files that can be imported into Flash either as one frame or multiple frames if you are doing any animations.
Swift3D comes with several basic model objects that you can design with. You can even import models from other 3D programs. There is also an Extrude and Lathe editors to create various 2D objects into 3D. Editing individual nodes is now possible. Also included is an animation system to do animation with, a big plus for Flash developers!!.
If you use traditional 3D programs, you will feel at home using perspective, front, back and side views. You also have control of light sources and material textures.
PROS: Great export options for flash file (swf). CONS: The 3D windows are a bit tricky to get used to. Not much options to customise the interface.
Too many features to list. But Swift3D is the leading software for Flash 3D creation. A must have!!
Smith Micro's Anime Studio Pro 7 Review 
The Face Screen 
The Dynamic Cloth Screen 
The Setup (Bones) Screen 
The Sketch Render Screen
Old Fashion Christian Lady (We Made)
