Some designers have a background in 3D modeling. I don’t. Still, clients expect me to make their logos spin and dance in 3D space. As much as I’d love to learn how to use Maya or 3ds Max, I don’t have the time or resources to do so.

Thank goodness for Swift 3D 6. It’s a 3D application made specifically for Flash designers. It allows them to draw simple shapes, type text, or import AI/EPS files and extrude them. You can then color and shade the model and animate it using a Flash-like Timeline. Swift 3D ships with preset animations, such as spins and bounces, that you can apply via drag-and-drop. It also comes with a large styles library, so if you want your object to look like glass or chrome, you don’t have to create that look from scratch. You can render out your model in a variety of styles, including photorealism and various cartoonish looks.

Once you import your project into Flash, you see it as a series of layers on the Timeline. Each aspect of the 3D data (reflections, colors, shadows, etc.) is on its own layer, so you have independent control of all the parts.

Advanced users will enjoy Swift 3D’s ability to import industry-standard 3DS and DFX formats. Swift 3D also includes polygon tools for advanced modeling. Developers will enjoy the program’s ability to export models and Papervision3D scenes.

With Swift 3D, I’m able to tell clients, “Yes, I can!”—Marcus Geduld

Company: Electric Rain
Price: $129
Web: www.erain.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Huge time saver; bargain: 25 effects for $129
Not: Mac only; lack of built-in image ordering

Prezi is a Flash-based visualization, storytelling, and presentation tool that allows you to create nonlinear presentations. Using the simple editor, you can place text, images, video, Flash files, and draw lines to show relationships between each item. The final result is a visual map that lets users zoom in and out and navigate to content in a clickable environment.

It takes a while to get used to Prezi’s interface—especially the Zebra, which allows you to position and resize objects. The site offers excellent support with an online manual, tutorial videos, examples, and a blog. Perhaps the best feature is that it allows designers to focus on designing. Using Prezi, you can present a concept and supply multiple branches to supporting media without writing a line of code—it’s like sketching an idea on a napkin!

As a hosted solution, Prezi has three pricing structures: Free, Enjoy (approximately $58/year), and Pro (approximately $176/year). The Free version gives you up to 100 MB of storage on their site, includes the Prezi logo on your presentation, and makes your presentations public. For an annual fee, the Enjoy and Pro versions let you create private presentations and access additional online storage space. Pro allows you to download a desktop version of their editing software. Free and Enjoy users design online by uploading content to the Prezi server. All versions allow you to use the simple editor; download your presentations and show them from your computer; create groups to share and collaborate with; import images, videos, PDFs, and Flash files; and embed presentations into blogs and websites.

Prezi is easy to use but when putting together a presentation, I found it sometimes took several seconds to respond while moving or resizing an object. Even with its few glitches, Prezi is a unique tool you’ll want to consider adding to your toolset.—Cyndy Cashman

Company: Prezi
Price: Approx. $176/year (Pro)
Web: www.prezi.com
Rating: 4.5

Hot: Innovative; easy to use; affordable
Not: Occasional slow response

The MAPublisher plug-in for Illustrator CS3 and CS4 is not for the timid: You should be familiar with GIS (Geographic Information System) data and have a need to publish that data in a visual format. Simply put, the plug-in uses GIS data to create maps in Illustrator. You first create an Illustrator file and import the GIS data (in popular data formats such as AutoCAD, ESRI, MapInfo, and USGS) to create maps up to 200″ square. After importing, you can manipulate the resulting map in a number of ways.

Last time I used MAPublisher, it was version 4; it’s come a long way since then. Exciting new features include the ability to export maps to an interactive Flash file (this alone could expand the user base); automate the labeling of map features (as an optional add-on); use stylesheets for consistent formatting; work with GPS data; crop maps without messing up the overall map coordinates; and use CS4’s multiple artboards. Some of these features take time to set up and use properly; however, most of the setup work can be saved for future use.

The only fault I found was not with the MAPublisher plug-in, but with the tutorials. They certainly showed how to work with the plug-in’s features well enough (and perhaps that’s all you might expect) but I’d have liked more information on how the data could be used after manipulating it with the tools. I suspect Avenza didn’t want to insult their more-experienced audience by telling them how to do their jobs because, as mentioned above, you need to be familiar with GIS and its use. But a section on “why you might need and how you can use this data” might be useful for beginners in the GIS arena.—David Creamer

Company: Avenza Systems Inc.
Price: $1,249 (Upgrade $549)
Web: www.avenza.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Creates maps from GIS data
Not: Cost

GridIron Software’s Flow cannot be fully explained in this amount of space—it’s too vast and too valuable. Instead, I’ll tell you what it does and what it’s good for. In my testing, it works as promised, and beyond.

Flow is a “visual workflow manager” that keeps track of the relationships between all the files you use and gives you access to that data whenever you need it. You need Flow because even though applications such as InDesign and Illustrator remember the locations of the pictures and other assets you place into each document, they can’t keep track of every document that uses an individual asset. For example, if you create a logo, image, animation, movie, sound, etc., and then use it in 245 documents, only Flow can tell you which documents use that asset—even if it was exported to a PDF or PowerPoint file, or rendered to a movie. Without Flow, how could you possibly update every document that uses a specific logo or image?

Flow keeps track of every file placed within every other file, and every exported file generated by a file. And every version. So, it can answer the question, “Where did we get the text that was placed into the InDesign document that created the PDF I’m looking at right now?” It can even show you all the other PDFs that were generated from that InDesign document, and all the assets within those PDFs. It also keeps copies of files every time you save, so you can recover files from several revisions back. Of course, you have control over how many older files it saves to prevent your hard drives from filling up.

Flow tracks the time you spend actually using each application. Because it also tracks the relationships between files, it knows how much time you’ve spent on an entire project—automatically. You can manually or automatically export this data to any database or spreadsheet for billing calculations.

It’s almost universal: Flow works with every common creative app, including the Adobe Creative Suite, video- and sound-editing applications from Adobe and Apple, Microsoft Office, 3D apps, AutoCAD, CorelDRAW, Painter, text files, and any other file you choose to associate with a project—just drag it onto another document in Flow’s map to connect them. Version 1 doesn’t track QuarkXPress or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom files, but GridIron promises to support them soon. It works on Mac OS X 10.5 and above, and Windows XP or Vista.

Given its complexity, Flow’s interface is as simple as I could imagine. The main Map window displays a flowchart that connects all the documents a file is related to. If you click a connected file, the map changes to show all the connections for that file. You can then click any file to open it.

There’s an optional floating Dashboard window that keeps track of files you move (or delete!) that are being used by other documents. This display updates in real time as you move files around on your hard drive. You can also display a similar window in any CS3 or CS4 application as you work on documents. This window shows all the assets that depend on the current file, all the versions of that file, time spent working on that file, etc.

Amazingly, workgroups can even share a Map so that everyone sees changes to all the files in a project as they’re made. For $133 per member of your workgroup, Flow will quickly repay you many times over.
—Jay Nelson

Company: GridIron Software
Price: $299
Web: www.gridironsoftware.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Completely new solution to a timeless problem
Not: Doesn’t yet support Lightroom or QuarkXPress

Director 11.5 will be familiar to users of previous versions but some additions improve productivity, for example: multiple undos/redos, stage docking, enhanced user interface, Sprite, channel naming, and a new Help System. But the hot addition in audio is 5.1-channel surround sound that, along with real-time mixing ability, means you can add a mixer to your movie to import audio files and cast members.

Of prime interest to game developers is the new, advanced-physics that’s based on the NVIDIA (registered) PhysX engine, so you can simulate gravity and other “real-life” effects. Other new features include H.264 support, which means that developers can now include HD content. Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) lets you stream audio or video in web-based applications. And now Director supports more than 40 video, audio, and image file formats—SWF, FLV, F4V, DVD-Video, bitmaps, vectors, 3D, and text, to name a few.

What’s user-friendly and pretty slick is when you open a project created in an earlier version of Director. You can select the encoding applied and choose to re-create the project in a subfolder of the original project folder or to a custom location. I sometimes run across multiple versions of a project created for what I thought was a good, “Oh, I’ll remember-that” reason. But then I don’t remember why I have two versions; so the option to save in the same folder is a terrific addition for me. I’ve upgraded several projects and both the upgrades and the originals do what they’re supposed to do.

Two issues for me are the lack of AS3 support as referenced in the Help file: “Flash 9 movies with AS3 or Flex components may not work as intended in Director.” And the price point for Director 11.5 is a little steep.
—Tamara Fry-Pietsch

Company: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Price: $999 (upgrade $299)
Web: www.adobe.com
Rating: 3

Hot: H.264, FLV, SWF, Surround Sound, Google SketchUp 3D support
Not: Lack of AS3 support; price

Vue 7.5 Infinite from e-on software is a standalone product used for creating natural 3D environments from the ground up. It was released with Vue 7.5 xStream, which is a more integrated solution for use in Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya and XSI, MAXON CINEMA 4D, and Newtek LightWave (and it costs a bit more as well). They offer several versions, so there’s sure to be one for every price and level of designer, from beginner to advanced.

If you’re not familiar with Vue Infinite, it’s an advanced application used for creating, animating, and rendering 3D environments. It’s been used by many studios for matte painting and special effects, and has been featured in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. So you can see this is a pretty amazing program that allows you create some great work with a level of detail that you’ll be very pleased with.

Vue 7.5 Infinite enables you to create scenes from scratch, beginning with the terrain, then clouds, water, plants, etc., until you have the landscape that you want. The amazing thing about how the terrain is created is that the scene is always very detailed, even when you zoom in. The overall quality and handling of the procedural terrains have been dramatically improved over the previous versions. Improvements began with version 7, which allowed you to choose from two groups of presets: ordinary procedural terrains and infinite terrains (which creates procedural terrains so large that they offer the option of using it to replace the ground plane). This carries over in 7.5, along with the new features of material mapping on terrains, planetary rendering, improved cloud technology, and animated EcoSystem population.

Not to be overlooked, Vue’s ability to create realistic 3D plants and trees is truly impressive. To create these, all you have to do is click on the Plant tool icon. Vue 7.5 has a more robust selection of species (more than 160) and includes categories such as grass, shrubs, trees, and more. But that’s not all. It’s not too often that you just want to put one tree or shrub into a scene, so that’s where Vue’s amazing EcoSystem technology comes in. This allows you to load a mixture of plants, rocks, and terrain to create a visually pleasing landscape. To top that off, the new animated EcoSystem populations feature enables you to create populations of elements that evolve over time to create effects that evolve, such as the growth of a forest.

This review only barely scratches the surface of what this program has to offer. I think this is definitely a program that you’ll want to check out if you’re creating landscapes of any kind for the digital world. I use Vue as one of the tools in my creative workflow because it works great with my other 3D applications and it’s my favorite tool to compose and render scenes.—Bruce Bicknell

Company: e-on software, inc.
Price: Download $895; Boxed $935
Web: www.e-onsoftware.com
Rating: 4.5

Hot: EcoSystem technology; clouds, water, and import options; rendering
Not: Expensive; powerful system required; steep learning curve

PDF2ID now comes in two versions: Professional and Standard. Professional includes all the Standard features, plus three unique features. For just the second version of the PDF2ID plug-in, it has a nice list of new features.

Two important new features are frames linking and the Typeface library. Frames linking does exactly what the name implies—it tries to intelligently link the frames based on similar type styles. It appears that the text linking is limited to single pages, as it didn’t link across spreads. The Typeface library is a repository of saved font substitutions, which can be referenced for future documents—a big time saver when dealing with standard Windows-to-Mac fonts or Type1-to-OpenType conversions. (InDesign could use this feature!)

Other useful features include the ability to save presets of the conversion settings, and the PDF inspector, which gives general information about the PDF before conversion. The Professional version adds the option of color spaces other than RGB, converting images to CMYK-TIFF, and multiple-processor conversion. It’s well worth the extra $100 for those in the printing business.

There are a couple of features I’d like to see in the next version (in addition to even more accurate translation): Paragraph and character styles named by the typeface and type size to help identify where the styles were used; and the ability to install the plug-in in different versions of InDesign on the same computer (currently, the plug-in removes any previous install, even of the same version).

While the PDF2ID plug-in works well overall, don’t expect seamless translations—even for simple PDFs. A great deal depends on how the PDF was created. This version did a better job converting graphics, but still had trouble with basic two-column text threads. If you need to convert a number of PDFs, this plug-in can save a lot of re-creation time.—David Creamer

Company: Recosoft Corporation
Price: $399 Pro; $299 Standard
Web: www.recosoft.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Easy-to-use conversion plug-in
Not: Text flow doesn’t extend across multiple pages; basic translation errors

As an animator, I’m always excited when Smith Micro announces a new version of their products, and the release of Manga Studio EX 4 is no different. Smith Micro tweaked the existing tools and added a host of new features, including a suite of vector-graphic tools, professional color set, mesh transformation, improvements to the text capabilities, and much more. Those of you who are familiar with Manga Studio EX 4 know that it’s considered the go-to program for the comics art industry, but artists in many areas are finding the features offered are useful in their fields as well.

For those of you who aren’t sure exactly what Manga Studio is, it’s a vector- and raster-based program that allows you to create drawings using the Pencil tool naturally, as you would with a traditional pencil and paper. It’s even better if you’re using a Wacom Cintiq tablet (or any Wacom product) as it gives you total control over your lines and inking capabilities. It offers numerous tools for toning, speed lining, lettering, and perspective. It also allows the importing of 3D objects and 2D images and the importing and exporting of file types including JPEG, BMP, PNG, PICT, and TIFF.

Some really cool things are happening in the new version of Manga Studio EX 4 with both new features and improvements to toolsets and functionality. For me, the new vector toolkit and the professional color set are the two best new features. The vector toolkit allows the new vector drawing tools to integrate seamlessly with rasterized pens. This makes it possible to convert a raster layer into editable vectors. The Pen and Line tools still function as they did in the previous version no matter which format you choose, but the vectors allow you to scale up smoothly for a clean image. The professional color set is just as impressive, as it has addressed a huge limitation (lack of working in color) that Manga Studio 3 had compared to other art programs on the market. As with anything, you could work your way around this by assigning a specific color to an individual layer, but if you were going to work with many colors, this definitely wasn’t the solution. With Manga Studio EX 4, the problem has been addressed. In addition to the 1-bit (black only), 2-bit (black and white), and 8-bit (grays) layers, you now have a 32-bit color layer. This new layer allows you to place all the colors you want onto one layer, making life much easier.

As with any review, there’s never enough time to go through all of the new features or updates but some others worth noting are the addition of a professional filter set that gives you a suite of advanced creative filters; a new story editor that allows you to enter and edit the text for your entire story and distribute it across pages; and advanced text input so you can enter text directly on your page. The most notable updates are that you can export to more formats than ever before with the addition of TIFF and PDF. Also updated are more 3D objects and fully customizable pattern brushes.

Manga Studio EX 4 is a comprehensive program for creating comics or illustrations of any kind. There’s a bit of a learning curve for the beginner but there’s content and tutorials that will get you up to speed in no time. Professionals will have no regrets, as this is the best program out there for creating comic graphics and boards, bar none.—Bruce Bicknell

Company: Smith Micro Software, Inc.
Price: $299.99
Web: www.smithmicro.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Natural art tools; pro-quality output; export formats; story editor; cost
Not:

Carrara created a name for itself by being an affordable, versatile 3D application that includes modeling, animating, rigging, terrain building, and rendering features. Carrara 7, available in Express, Standard, and Pro (which we’re reviewing here) editions for both Mac and Windows, offers entry-level and advanced users a cost-effective alternative to what can be a very expensive arena to break into.

I’ve been reviewing Carrara for quite a few versions now and have to admit that the new version has some much anticipated (and welcome) features. Carrara 7 Pro steps up the game with the addition of 3D Paint, Multi-pass Rendering, improved content support, UV editing/unfolding, and a COLLADA export function for Windows, making it more robust than ever before. This software package still has its familiar and easy-to-use interface, providing a professional toolset that will have you creating amazing 3D work in no time. I reviewed the new features materials and was creating scenes in no time with the models, scenes, and textures that were included in the software. (Sorry folks, the extras are only in the Pro version.) So let’s take a look at some of those new features.

Let’s begin with the four main workflow tasks: Modeling, Texturing, Animation, and Rendering. Initially, you open the project on the Assembly Room where you put the scene together. You can quickly switch between these tasks to speed up workflow and to better visualize the final output.

In this version, 3D Paint is a key new feature, which can be accessed from the Assembly Room. It allows textures to be selected, edited, and painted onto an object, as well as giving access to various channels and shading domains (RGB, RGBA, etc.). This tool gives you four standard ways of applying paint to your object: the default paintbrush, an airbrush, an image stamper, and the line tool.

Another new feature is Multi-pass Rendering, which allows you to render the image out as multiple shader layers saved as separate image files. This offers several benefits, one of which is that it increases productivity: Artists can render out a scene and perform postproduction work on individual layers, rather than having to make changes to the scene and render the whole thing out again.

Here’s another new feature that I really like. You can now import DAZ-format content without having to go through the hassle of plug-ins or workarounds! This means that you can perform DAZ Studio or Poser tasks and have the modeling, rendering, and animation features of Carrara all in one place.

Included in the Pro version is a fair number of models, scenes, and extras that are well worth the upgrade. In the Standard and Pro versions, the UV Editor has been expanded so you can edit UVs in the main viewport and you can relax UV seams when in the editor. The Pro version also gives you the ability to unfold UV maps.

Overall, Carrara 7 has a lot going for it as an entry-level 3D application. The new features definitely make this a worthwhile upgrade, as the 3D Paint, rendering options, and content support (to name a few) give it a lift from previous versions. Its low price and learning curve make it a great solution for students and amateur designers; however, its robust features makes it ideal for the professional crowd as well.—Bruce Bicknell

Company: DAZ Productions, Inc.
Price: $549 (Upgrade $349.95)
Web: www.daz3d.com
Rating: 4.5

Hot: 3D Paint; Multi-Pass Rendering; modeling/UV enhancements
Not: Toolset can be confusing; render times slower than expected

Ask Web animators what application they use, and the majority will tell you it’s Adobe Flash. That’s too bad. Although Flash CS4 has made great strides by adding 3D and inverse kinematics (bones) to its toolset, it’s a limited animation program when compared to Toon Boom Animate.

Toon Boom Animate includes the following features that Flash lacks: lip-syncing, 3D multiplane cameras, cell swapping, multiple brush tools, and motion blur. Like Flash, Animate includes onion skinning, animateable effects, path editing, gradients, inverse kinematics, masks, reusable symbols, sound support, layers, vector shape tools, and multiple color palettes.

Animate’s palette support is much more complex and fully featured than that in Flash. For instance, each drawing tool in Animate can have its own color. In Flash, if you chose stroke and fill colors, all drawing tools will use those colors. Morphing in Animate is also much more feature-rich than it is in Flash (where it’s called Shape Tweening). Animate contains a suite of tools and controls to allow you to get exactly the morph you want, and it can import most standard formats, including MOV, SWF, PSD, AI, and PDF. It can export QuickTime movies, FLV, and SWF (Flash) files.

As a long-time Flash animator, I most enjoyed using Animate’s lip-synching tools, as this task has always been arduous in Flash. Animate lets you draw mouth shapes for each common sound. It then analyzes the audio and automatically maps mouth shapes to the soundtrack. You can override its analysis if necessary, manually choosing which mouth shape to use at a specific time.

Traditional animators will love the fact that Animate includes Xsheets (exposure sheets), which are spreadsheet-like charts used to plot out animations in a standard film and video workflow. Animate’s Xsheets are more than just charts; you can plot keyframes on them instead of on the Timeline if you prefer that workflow. I find it best to use both the Timeline and the Xsheet. The Xsheet gives you many more details about what’s going on in each frame; the Timeline gives you a quicker, more-compact overview.

A strong point for Flash is also one of its weak points: its small number of tools. The smaller the tool set, the easier the application is to learn. New users can be up and running with Flash within a few hours. On the other hand, Animate’s complexity means a steeper learning curve without the plethora of books, courses, and online training videos you can find for Flash. To help new users, Toon Boom has loaded their website with training videos and “getting started” documents.

Another strong point in Flash is ActionScript. Flash isn’t just an animation tool, it’s also a computer-programming platform. Toon Boom has wisely chosen to focus only on animation, so you can’t use Animate to code interactive movies or games, but Animate does include a scripting language that allows you to automate repetitive tasks in the application itself.

One thing missing from Animate is a Type tool. If I had to choose between animating text in Animate or Flash, I would choose Flash. Although Flash has a Type tool, its text-animation features are sorely lacking. I usually animate text in After Effects, which includes the most advanced text-animation tool I’ve found.

Available for both Mac and PC, Animate retails for $999.99. Compare that with Flash, which is few hundred dollars cheaper, retailing at $699. Those prices seem about right, given the animation features of the two applications.—Marcus Geduld

Company: Toon Boom Animation Inc.
Price: $999.99
Web: www.toonboom.com
Rating: 4.5

Hot: Full-featured; powerful tool for professional animators
Not: Pricey compared to Flash; no Type tool

Burning CDs and DVDs is built into most operating systems, so it amazes me that the value for this product remains. With the tenth version of Toast sporting tremendous updates, improvements, and revisions, Roxio continues to provide more than just a better burning option. Having reviewed every version over the years, I’m still impressed because with each version Roxio bundles even more tools for a very well-rounded suite for burning and archiving your media.

Roxio is moving forward and responding to the new formats, technologies, and the demands of their customers. According to Vito Salvaggio, Sonic Solutions V.P. of Consumer Products, “We want to make sure that, as consumer usage patterns change and evolve, our product evolves with [them].” It was an expected pleasure to find support for the newer AVCHD video archive type (used by newer models of HD camcorders) and that things such as Disc Cover and CD Spin Doctor are still there, too.

The Toast 10 Titanium Pro package includes versions of SoundSoap (noise-reduction audio software); FotoMagico (HD image presentations); LightZone (image editing); Streamer (content streaming to iPods, iPhones, and other mobile devices); and Sonicfire Pro (soundtrack editing for video), plus support for Blu-ray and high-definition authoring. Salvaggio continues, “We asked ourselves, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could move the entire contents of the camcorder to a pristine archive?’ so you can archive and back up your [video] in its original high-def quality.” The answer is, indeed, yes.

Is Toast a necessity? If you find yourself doing a lot of archiving, video, and duplication of media (including iPods, iPhones, and external drives), then the answer is, again, yes. Toast 10 will save you a lot of steps and expenses with great results.—Daniel M. East

Company: Roxio
Price: $149.99
Web: www.roxio.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Full-featured; easy to use; superior to OS disc burning
Not:

Now this is a program that will get your creativity flowing and get you out of any modeling rut that you may be in. GroBoto 2.1.8 is like a breath of fresh air as it’s unlike the majority of 3D programs out there that are complicated and expensive. This program is fun, easy to use, and best of all it’s very inexpensive! That’s almost unheard of these days because most users suffer before they can actually enjoy the 3D programs.

Why is GroBoto so cool? Well, GroBoto is designed to give the user organic 3D shapes quickly with very few modeling hassles. As a matter of fact, some of the standard 3D tools that you’re used to seeing aren’t even present. What you get here is something called a Bot, which is a preset 3D object in GroBoto derived from a collection of 3D primitives. Once you place a Bot into your scene, you use an abundant set of tools and options to customize the shape and textures that your Bot is made up of. While the ability to import your own 3D models isn’t available, there are more than 110 Bot types to inspire your creativity, and you can create some very cool stills and movies much quicker than you could in some of the other 3D programs.

GroBoto has to be one of the most enjoyable, visually stimulating software programs that I’ve reviewed. Although it isn’t a full-featured 3D program, it is a creative outlet to get the juices flowing again. I’ll definitely keep this one on my desktop! GroBoto is a great product to expand your creativity without spending a fortune.—Bruce Bicknell

Company: Braid Art Labs LLP
Price: $79
Web: www.groboto.com
Rating: 4.5

Hot: Unlimited creativity; 3D creation tools; render time; fun
Not: Can’t import 3D models