CompuServe Messages

Hi, I should like to pass some comments on Animation Master. I hope it will be taken as a positive criticisam, and I shall not be stoned or expelled from the forum. I had bought AM purely because I can not afford 3D Studio. And ever since I was just tearing my hear. Do not take me wrong. AM is a program full of features, but with very modest toolkit. It exactly looks like product of the small company. Basic concepts of 3D splines and inverse cinematics are so far in front of what 3D Studio has now, that it will take Autodesk years to catch up. But AM was obviously made in harry, and to satisfy programers, rather than with end user in mind. I have been using so far professionally: MS Access, MS Word, Adobe Photoshop, Auto CAD for Windows, Microstation, Corel Draw, Visual Basic and 3D Studio. There are two features all this, very established programs, have in common: user interface consistency and support for the clipboard (except 3DS). As result expirienced user can go very far without opening manuals, and one can excange data with enviroment he is working in. But both this features are mercilesly omitted from AM. I am using it for a two months and I still do not know what each of the commands in fragmented modules is doing. That did not happen neither with MS Word, neither with Auto CAD. I will list just some of unadequte features of the AM: – All around Windows environment it is accepted that Undo is Ctrl-Z, only in AM it is U. – Mirroring is so important it deserves button of its own, not hostile 1,2,3. – Clipboard would be essential for this fragmented program to transfer for example selected patches and splines from Sculpture module to Character for assembly and skining. Or for transfereing rendered images to bitmap editor like Photoshop. Or for importing templates in Sculpture module etc. – True Type fonts should be supported, with few types of the bewelling. At present one simply can not write a single word with this program, where obvious use for this program is production of all kinds of short logo animations. – No program in Windows environment is world of its own. Everybody who is not producing shareware is supporing fully: .DXF, .EPS, .BMP and other file formats. For example AM would be fantastic for thousands of small Architectural practices if it had been supporting fully .DXF or .3DS format. – Material editor should be thrown away and replaced with something similar to 3D Studio's one. It is so complicated, and after lots of hassle, one achieves exactly nothing with it. – Program should be defragmented by Decal, Character and Action module being put together. At least. All other programs have only 2-3 modules (3D Studio) and some have only one (True Space). It should be given floating pallets, what is nowdays standard solution for overcrowded screens. In each magazine review I have read since I had bought the AM jurnalists were complaining about this fragmentation into numerous modules. – Character module should be given quick render option, so that one quickly can see effects of the changes in materials. As well test patch should not be rectangular, but in a shape of ball, simply because it is not possible to check efect of the changes in Specular, Transparency, Ambiance, Refraction and Mirror settings. Same applies to the dreaded Materials Editor. Somebody was simply taking shortcut here ! – Every disent Windows program costing more than L500 should have on line Help. – Animatied textures should be available in material editor. Like fire, vawes, shimering of the light in swiming pools etc. – All the programs in the similar price range repeat all the comand butons from the toolbar in the menu, even Compuserve WinCIM which costs only $25.00. I hope that somebody will take this comments in account when Hash Inc decides to make version 3.0. Dejan Corovic 100120,3037