Adobe CS5 Web Premium Part Two: The Flash Platform By Kevin Schmitt
Honesty time, dear readers: I don't think this is going to be an actual review. As Velveeta is to real cheese, there may be some review-like qualities to what follows, but considering the current all-out assault on Flash and everything it stands for, it may be beneficial to take a larger view of what Adobe has done in Web Premium CS5, namely the inclusion of not one, not two, but three separate tools for creating Flash content.
...Read More »
Screentime mProjector 4 for Mac and Windows By Kevin Schmitt
Flash wrappers, as I tend to call the genre of software Screentime's mProjector belongs to, have been around almost as long as Flash itself. Whatever the reason for their rise (the decline of Director, needing offline access to online content, etc.), there are still several options out there for turning your Flash content into desktop applications. And while Adobe's own AIR technology seems to get all the press, there is no reason why mProjector shouldn't be considered one of the top dogs in cross-platform Flash desktop app creation.
...Read More »
Sony Sound Forge 10 By Jeffrey P. Fisher
Sony Creative Software has reached a major milestone with its September 2009 release of Sound Forge 10. Few applications survive all the way to high version numbers. But not only has the latest version of Sony's audio recording and editing program survived, it continues to thrive with a bevy of new features that keep you wondering how you ever worked without them.
...Read More »
Autodesk's Mudbox 2009 By Kevin McAuliffe
The world of 3D design and animation has always had a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" mentality. What I mean by that is when it comes to someone getting into the world of 3D animation, normally (not all the time), they are either strong at the computer/technical aspect, or strong in (classical) animation, and they end up having to bulk up on either one or the other.
...Read More »
e-on`s Vue 7.5 Xstream By Jon Carroll
One thing still challenging to 3D animators and visual effects artists is the creation of realistic landscapes and integrating objects created in their animation software into those environments. There have been over time several different pieces of 3D software that were specifically intended for the creation of 3D environments, and they have used various means to incorporate their landscapes into the rendered images.
...Read More »
PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS By Ko Maruyama
You probably know Scott Kelby from many publications, especially as the editor of Photoshop User magazine. In his latest book, PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS, Scott and Corey Barker walk through several of the latest design tricks and trends Photoshop users recognize in so much of the print work available today.
...Read More »
The Archive Titanium Edition from Digimation By Kevin McAuliffe
I like being a "one-man-show." I not only edit, but I do motion graphics, sound mixing and a variety of other jobs that give my clients a "one stop shop" for all their post production needs. These days I'm moving more and more into 3D design (using Cinema 4D), as it is another service I can offer my clients. There is one problem though, and that is that I can't model to save my life.
...Read More »
Sonopedia: The Encyclopedia of Sound Effects By Kevin McAuliffe
A while back, I took a look at Sound Ideas Ultimate SFX Collection on Hard Drive, and I liked it. On the heels of that review, I was contacted by a representative at Blastwave FX who had read my review, and they let me know that they have their own sound effects collection called Sonopedia (The Encyclopedia of Sound Effects) on hard drive, and wanted to know if I was interested in taking a look. I said "absolutely", and in no time flat, I was powering it up to give it a spin. Let's see how things went.
...Read More »
Adobe Soundbooth CS4 By Joshua Virata
With the release of Soundbooth CS4, Adobe has grounded its digital audio application with more features that pros and prosumers have desired. In this new edition of Soundbooth, Adobe has cleaned up the interface a bit and offered more advanced features in some of its tools. Soundbooth is targeted at people who don't have any experience with any other audio tools or applications.
...Read More »
Adobe Director 11 By Kevin Schmitt
In the spirit of the four year hiatus between versions (and accompanying uncertainty as to the dead/not dead status of the product), it's only fitting I let almost a year roll by between the announcement/release of Director 11 and finally getting around to reviewing it. In any event, Director is back from its long slumber, so let's take a look at what the eleventh release of the former king of the multimedia hill brings to the table.
...Read More »
more SPORE iPhone gaming By John Haley
Electronic Arts is a big name in gaming, they create Action, Fantasy, Sports, and Strategy. They hit a huge variety of the gaming market, and this year they brought it to the iPhone. What better way to have people love your game even more is a combination of a fun game and the iPhone / iPod Touchâ??s Accelerometer, they way they work makes your feel like you are more apart of the game.
...Read More »
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional By Kevin Schmitt
I have bad news for those out there who were expecting Flash CS4 to, well, suck: It doesn't. Far from it. Adobe certainly seems to have responded to the pressure of having viable Flash competition by delivering a polished upgrade that is chock full of thoughtful improvements and useful new features. So despite the fact that I've spoiled the ending, I hope you'll come along as we explore the latest and greatest in the most recent release of the Flash authoring tool.
...Read More »
Lenovo ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation By John Virata
It's not very often that a notebook computer has the potential to be a game changer in the market. The routine of the notebook manufacturers are fairly predictable. Intel releases a newer, faster and lower power CPU, and the manufacturers build yet a new notebook around it and call it the next best thing. Lenovo has taken a slightly different, yet radical tact to notebooks by building a Wacom Tablet right into the wrist rests of its ThinkPad W700 workstation class notebook computer
...Read More »
Bang Up Job By Ko Maruyama
This week, FXhome announced the release of a new plugin for gun muzzle flashes. This plugin gives all of those compositors access to those flicks of light and flares of fire that issue from the barrel of a gun (even if it's an alien Ray Gun).
...Read More »
E On Software?s Vue 6 xStream By David Basulto
E-On Software?s Vue 6.5 xStream is not only an extremely powerful addition to any 3D workflow; it allows you to be creative to your heart?s content. To create the environments in any other program would take an immense amount of time. In Vue 6.5 xStream it?s a snap.
...Read More »
FPS Creator By Mike Jones
In the late 90s Macromedia Dreamweaver popularized a concept that had long been experimented with - a software application that wrote the programming code for you. Effectively this evoked a paradigm where a user could work visually as a designer and have the software generate the required code based on that visual construction. It is in this mode that we get FPSCreator, a software system designed to allow for a visual and accessible approach to creating 3D First Person Shooter games without ever punching a line of code.
...Read More »
Nucleo Updates By Ko Maruyama
GridIron Software, the makers of Nucleo and Nucleo Pro have announced the release of new updates to their popular multiprocessing plugin and new features to come for Nucleo Pro 2. While After Effects CS3 has new features which takes the place of the smaller of the two plugins, GridIron has dedicated themselves to the support of their product for the earlier versions of After Effects ((AE 6.5 & 7)).
...Read More »
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac By Kevin Schmitt
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, chances are that you've at least heard that you can run non-Apple operating systems on Intel Macs using a number of methods. The one we're going to concern ourselves today is virtualization, focusing on a product that, to the outside observer, seemed to come out of nowhere in the last year: Parallels Desktop for Mac. Version 3 has just been loosed upon the Mac universe, so let's see what's doing in the latest rev of the virtualization solution for Intel Macs.
...Read More »
Alienware MJ-12 8550 By John Virata
Alienware has been making media workstation class systems for several years, and the company tends to offer some interesting solutions targeted at the high end. The company takes advantage of the latest CPUs and graphics subsystems and builds systems that are well thought out, aesthetically pleasing to many, all in mostly black system cases. The Alienware MJ-12 8550 is a super fast media workstation designed to meet the needs of those working with all manner of content creation applications, such as non-linear editing systems, digital audio, 3D, CAD, compositing, and DVD authoring applications.
...Read More »
NO...Doesn't have a thing to do with "that" smartphone...or "that" store...or "that" tablet. It's the next generation. Kids and we mean little kids. That's what today's products are being designed for/targeted at. You happen to buy one...fine. Watch a little, little kid pick up a smartphone. He/she just uses it. They've come pre-wired and we're still trying to figure out how to IM. It's the IGen. They want it instantly. They want to use it instantly. They expect their photos, their video, their music, their stuff immediately when/where/how they want it.
Read More
In this clip, lynda.com host Mark Abdelnour takes a look at proxy bidding. He discusses the strategy and how it works. He also discusses the maximum bid, and when to use Proxy bidding.
Read More
The blood, gore, adrenalin challenges that were unveiled at E3 and enjoyed at ComicCon are fun to look at, easy to hold but are they really the games people want to plunk down their credit cards to own or rent time with? Seems as though the investors, the players who control the controllers have a different idea of a "good" game than the kids who develop them. While mobs of people play educational, informational, stimulating games our kid huddles in his room and mumbles "The Few, The Proud, The Gamers."
Read More
Adobe CS5 Web Premium Part Two: The Flash Platform
Honesty time, dear readers: I don't think this is going to be an actual review. As Velveeta is to real cheese, there may be some review-like qualities to what follows, but considering the current all-out assault on Flash and everything it stands for, it may be beneficial to take a larger view of what Adobe has done in Web Premium CS5, namely the inclusion of not one, not two, but three separate tools for creating Flash content.
...Read More »
Screentime mProjector 4 for Mac and Windows
Flash wrappers, as I tend to call the genre of software Screentime's mProjector belongs to, have been around almost as long as Flash itself. Whatever the reason for their rise (the decline of Director, needing offline access to online content, etc.), there are still several options out there for turning your Flash content into desktop applications. And while Adobe's own AIR technology seems to get all the press, there is no reason why mProjector shouldn't be considered one of the top dogs in cross-platform Flash desktop app creation.
...Read More »
Sony Sound Forge 10
Sony Creative Software has reached a major milestone with its September 2009 release of Sound Forge 10. Few applications survive all the way to high version numbers. But not only has the latest version of Sony's audio recording and editing program survived, it continues to thrive with a bevy of new features that keep you wondering how you ever worked without them.
...Read More »
Autodesk's Mudbox 2009
The world of 3D design and animation has always had a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" mentality. What I mean by that is when it comes to someone getting into the world of 3D animation, normally (not all the time), they are either strong at the computer/technical aspect, or strong in (classical) animation, and they end up having to bulk up on either one or the other.
...Read More »
e-on`s Vue 7.5 Xstream
One thing still challenging to 3D animators and visual effects artists is the creation of realistic landscapes and integrating objects created in their animation software into those environments. There have been over time several different pieces of 3D software that were specifically intended for the creation of 3D environments, and they have used various means to incorporate their landscapes into the rendered images.
...Read More »
PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS
You probably know Scott Kelby from many publications, especially as the editor of Photoshop User magazine. In his latest book, PHOTOSHOP CS4 DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS, Scott and Corey Barker walk through several of the latest design tricks and trends Photoshop users recognize in so much of the print work available today.
...Read More »
The Archive Titanium Edition from Digimation
I like being a "one-man-show." I not only edit, but I do motion graphics, sound mixing and a variety of other jobs that give my clients a "one stop shop" for all their post production needs. These days I'm moving more and more into 3D design (using Cinema 4D), as it is another service I can offer my clients. There is one problem though, and that is that I can't model to save my life.
...Read More »
Sonopedia: The Encyclopedia of Sound Effects
A while back, I took a look at Sound Ideas Ultimate SFX Collection on Hard Drive, and I liked it. On the heels of that review, I was contacted by a representative at Blastwave FX who had read my review, and they let me know that they have their own sound effects collection called Sonopedia (The Encyclopedia of Sound Effects) on hard drive, and wanted to know if I was interested in taking a look. I said "absolutely", and in no time flat, I was powering it up to give it a spin. Let's see how things went.
...Read More »
Adobe Soundbooth CS4
With the release of Soundbooth CS4, Adobe has grounded its digital audio application with more features that pros and prosumers have desired. In this new edition of Soundbooth, Adobe has cleaned up the interface a bit and offered more advanced features in some of its tools. Soundbooth is targeted at people who don't have any experience with any other audio tools or applications.
...Read More »
Adobe Director 11
In the spirit of the four year hiatus between versions (and accompanying uncertainty as to the dead/not dead status of the product), it's only fitting I let almost a year roll by between the announcement/release of Director 11 and finally getting around to reviewing it. In any event, Director is back from its long slumber, so let's take a look at what the eleventh release of the former king of the multimedia hill brings to the table.
...Read More »
more SPORE iPhone gaming
Electronic Arts is a big name in gaming, they create Action, Fantasy, Sports, and Strategy. They hit a huge variety of the gaming market, and this year they brought it to the iPhone. What better way to have people love your game even more is a combination of a fun game and the iPhone / iPod Touchâ??s Accelerometer, they way they work makes your feel like you are more apart of the game.
...Read More »
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
I have bad news for those out there who were expecting Flash CS4 to, well, suck: It doesn't. Far from it. Adobe certainly seems to have responded to the pressure of having viable Flash competition by delivering a polished upgrade that is chock full of thoughtful improvements and useful new features. So despite the fact that I've spoiled the ending, I hope you'll come along as we explore the latest and greatest in the most recent release of the Flash authoring tool.
...Read More »
Lenovo ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation
It's not very often that a notebook computer has the potential to be a game changer in the market. The routine of the notebook manufacturers are fairly predictable. Intel releases a newer, faster and lower power CPU, and the manufacturers build yet a new notebook around it and call it the next best thing. Lenovo has taken a slightly different, yet radical tact to notebooks by building a Wacom Tablet right into the wrist rests of its ThinkPad W700 workstation class notebook computer
...Read More »
Bang Up Job
This week, FXhome announced the release of a new plugin for gun muzzle flashes. This plugin gives all of those compositors access to those flicks of light and flares of fire that issue from the barrel of a gun (even if it's an alien Ray Gun).
...Read More »
E On Software?s Vue 6 xStream
E-On Software?s Vue 6.5 xStream is not only an extremely powerful addition to any 3D workflow; it allows you to be creative to your heart?s content. To create the environments in any other program would take an immense amount of time. In Vue 6.5 xStream it?s a snap.
...Read More »
FPS Creator
In the late 90s Macromedia Dreamweaver popularized a concept that had long been experimented with - a software application that wrote the programming code for you. Effectively this evoked a paradigm where a user could work visually as a designer and have the software generate the required code based on that visual construction. It is in this mode that we get FPSCreator, a software system designed to allow for a visual and accessible approach to creating 3D First Person Shooter games without ever punching a line of code.
...Read More »
Nucleo Updates
GridIron Software, the makers of Nucleo and Nucleo Pro have announced the release of new updates to their popular multiprocessing plugin and new features to come for Nucleo Pro 2. While After Effects CS3 has new features which takes the place of the smaller of the two plugins, GridIron has dedicated themselves to the support of their product for the earlier versions of After Effects ((AE 6.5 & 7)).
...Read More »
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, chances are that you've at least heard that you can run non-Apple operating systems on Intel Macs using a number of methods. The one we're going to concern ourselves today is virtualization, focusing on a product that, to the outside observer, seemed to come out of nowhere in the last year: Parallels Desktop for Mac. Version 3 has just been loosed upon the Mac universe, so let's see what's doing in the latest rev of the virtualization solution for Intel Macs.
...Read More »
Alienware MJ-12 8550
Alienware has been making media workstation class systems for several years, and the company tends to offer some interesting solutions targeted at the high end. The company takes advantage of the latest CPUs and graphics subsystems and builds systems that are well thought out, aesthetically pleasing to many, all in mostly black system cases. The Alienware MJ-12 8550 is a super fast media workstation designed to meet the needs of those working with all manner of content creation applications, such as non-linear editing systems, digital audio, 3D, CAD, compositing, and DVD authoring applications.
...Read More »
Command & Conquer 3 returns, cheesy video and all
It's another bleak forecast for the future in the new video game "Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars"
...Read More »
Vegas Pro 8 + Free Vegas Seminar Series
