CompuServe Messages

Thorsten, Elastic Reality for Windows can indeed be used for many animation purposes. It was designed to be a warping and morphing system but its power and flexibility have allowed it to aggressively cross into other areas. Elastic Reality is unique in that it is a shape-to-shape special effects system. To use it for animation, outline the object to be animated and then duplicate that shape. Drag the duplicated shape along the path and motions you wish the original object to follow, and turn ER loose. It allows objects to pass in front of, or behind, other objects (under your control, of course). And its matting and compositing capabilities are extremely robust. Elastic Reality has been used a great deal in the stop-motion and cel-animation businesses. Examples include the Coke Sun commercials, the belly dancing Ritz crackers and the limbo dancing Triskets commercials. Elastic Reality was also used to repair a botch in the making of Nightmare Before Christmas but in the end, the powers-that-be decided they liked the effect of the botch so the "fixed" scene did not appear in the finished film. Elastic Reality for Windows is a true 32 bit application (and runs wickedly fast considering what it's doing). It will run under Windows, Windows NT and Windows for Workgroups. It carries a list price of $495 and comes with TransJammer, a WYSIWYG dve generator. Jason ERI Technical Support