Multimedia Corner--Double Feature Exclusive

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Multimedia is an impact game. Use videos, fade to slides, add soundovers to speech, and introduce startling colors for important points. These are the games multimedia people play. One of the ways you can spice up your presentations is by using 3D type and graphics effects from the Ray Dream, Inc. addDepth program.

The program uses TrueType fonts, Adobe Type Manager Fonts, and most importable clip art to form handsome titles and breathtaking logo types. The system adds the 3D effect, bevels, perspective, and shading. The authors took an approach that allows for both the advanced and beginning user. Artists familiar with other art manipulating programs can go to work from the ground up to assure originality. The new user can use templates or the program's step- by-step system to create dynamic graphics.

The product works in full color to take maximum advantage of any artwork you wish to enhance. Simple text can be turned into startling 3D headlines that can be mixed with stock graphics, or you can create your own. The program's intuitive 'virtual trackball' allows you to rotate the artwork to any angle to present a perspective angle, shading effect, or lead color.

Using the system you can enter text, then select the style and texture. If you want the text to have a 3D quality, you can then select the height, width, yaw, pitch, roll, and position within the X-Y-Z plane that make up the drawing's space. You can place the text within frames, apply it to logos or other imported artwork, draw figures around the text, and apply what is called a decal. The decal principal is to apply a drawing to the exposed faces of letters in the text. This creates headlines with hints of whatever thought you can find in 2D drawings.

The Macintosh and PC versions can prepare each other's file formats. You can also import drawings and text from such programs as Adobe Illustrator and Aldus Freehand. The Windows Metafile, Computer Graphics Metafile, and Encapsulated Postscript files are also supported. Since some of these file formats are not otherwise editable, the system keeps a copy in its own file format for any last minute editing.

The addDepth software is available for both the Macintosh and Windows PC. The Windows version requires an 80386 or better CPU with 4 MB of RAM. An 80486 or better with 8 MB or RAM is recommended. In either case, the system uses 4 MB of hard disk space. A VGA, SVGA, XGA, 8514/A or other Windows compatible graphics card. The system supports 256 colors and the system should be set to utilize this color quality. A mouse and Windows or PostScript compatible printer are also required.

The Macintosh version requires Macintosh LC or better with 5 MB of RAM, System 7.0 or better, a color monitor, and 5 MB of hard disk storage. The recommended hardware is a Macintosh with 8 MB of RAM and 14 MB of free disk space. For the Power Macintosh the requirement is for 8 MB of RAM with 12 MB recommended. The package includes an extensive library of clip art. Most of the added hard disk storage space is needed for these items.

The product can be found at retail for about $50. The manual and reference card are easily understood. Most people will find they can use the reference card and supplied examples to learn how to use the product. If more is needed, a full lesson type presentation is available as well as an easy- to-read reference section. The product can create some truly magnificent titles for your next multimedia project.

The Art in Multimedia || Side bar: Other Competing Products

The Art in Multimedia

Multimedia is made up of such elements as video, animation, photography, text, sound effects, music, voice clips, and drawn artwork. Each element may require its own editor to prepare it for insertion into a total multimedia presentation. For drawn artwork, the editors have generally been either vector- based products like Macromedia Freehand and Adobe Illustrator, or pixel-based draw and paint programs like CoralDRAW and Fractal Painter.

HSC Software has a new product allowing Macintosh users to avoid the need for both vector-based and pixel-based programs. The KPT Vector Effects software is a plug-in for either Macromedia Freehand or Adobe Illustrator. The product automatically recognizes which underlying program you are using, and adapts itself to its environment. The product allows the artist to modify vector- based artwork with effects that simulate the look of pixel-based creativity.

Vector-based artwork is often favored over paint or draw art in multimedia projects because of its relatively smaller files size and faster load times. KPT Vector Effects claims to be the best of both worlds. The program elements mimic pixel-based effects with formula-based algorithms that add very little to the actual dot-density of the art files. The filter effects the program uses to perform its tasks, and modifies the original art vectors when possible, before attaching pixel-based baggage to the image framework.

Adding the product to a freehand illustration program gives the artist the tools of a photo retouch specialist using products like Adobe Photoshop. Using the program's special filters, you can add blurring, twisting, distorting, texturing, glare highlighting, and global color balancing. You can resize and re- position parts of the underlying art, and add lighting effects such as shadowing and neon gradations.

When the artwork must color match the other parts of a multimedia presentation, the program can adjust drawing tints to the CMYA standard color tints. Copyrights or logos can be added as embossed patterns on the base artwork. When a 3-D effect is needed, the artwork can be rotated to the necessary angle, and either extruded or beveled for depth. The light and perspective can then be added to create the finished artwork.

The product offers some special effects such as the Crayola crayon effect, the warp frame broken window glass effect, and the sketch effect for a hand drawn look. The user interface allows buttons and sliders to control the program's influence on the drawing. Most elements of the program can be used together which allows almost an unlimited number of possible drawing modifications.

The program offers an intuitive interface. The detailed spiral-bound documentation is usually not needed. It is easy to select a tool and try different controls the filter offers. The preview system's rough and full modes make experimentation both a fun and effective use of your creative time. The product point editor is a special bonus for Adobe Illustrator users wanting Macromedia Freehand's capability to locate points exactly by entering their numerical value.

KPT Vector Effects is available for Power Macintosh and Macintosh computers with 68030 or later processors with a floating point unit coprocessor. System 7.1 or later, and either Macromedia Freehand 5.0 or better, and Adobe Illustrator 5.5 or better are needed to use the product. The system requires an 8- bit or better color system with 1 Mb of memory above the requirements of the underlying host' program. The system operates considerably more efficiently when using a Power Macintosh CPU with a 24-bit video card.

Multimedia: Impact goes Deep || Side bar: Other Competing Products

Other Competing Products

Infinite FX by BeIntinite, Inc. - Fifty-five filtered effects with slider bars to increase or decrease the filter's effect on the artwork.

Envelopes by Letraset - Forty envelopes' into which the artwork is slipped. The envelope has controls unique to that effect.

Dimensions by Adobe - A product to add 3-D modifications (only) to the underlying artwork. For Adobe Illustrator only.

Multimedia: Impact goes Deep || The Art in Multimedia

Contributed by C. W. Mann, who also writes the syndicated computer column, BuzzBytes.

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