Eovia Carrara 5 Review

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(More customer reviews)First of all: Carrara is not an application for those seeking the highest of high results (wind simulation, etc.), as can be found in programs like Maya and Lightwave. However, for those of us who may or may not be in a professional studio, but simply want an understandable and extremely powerful rendering program (as well as a much cheaper one), Carrara definitely fits the bill.
The layout in this program is very pleasing, and retains the friendly feeling familiar to those of us who use the excellent but lower-level program, DAZ Studio. Carrara sports easy-to-learn modeling tools, and is almost fully compatible with Poser scenes and objects/files. (DAZ scene compatibility will be available by version 6.)
The best thing about Carrara, however, is probably its fast and very easy to use rendering engine. It supports HDRI lighting and much more, but maintains a very simplistic screen for its rendering controls. (The first thing you will probably notice is that the list of rendering options is only 1 panel long.)
I cannot recommend Carrara enough to people interested in getting photorealistic (or not) results with the simplest and easiest to use of interfaces. As you can see by looking at the images on the company's official website (www.daz3d.com), it delivers amazing results, but the interface and tools are exponentially easier to use than those of any other 3D application in its class.
Plus its really light on system resources.

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Carrara 5 enables artists to build a complete animated project from start to finish -- all with a single piece of software. It multitude of features give you a robust suite of modeling, animation and rendering tools. From the multiple modelers, to the preset textures and shaders to the ultra-fast and realistic rendering, Carrara 5 gives you all you need -- wrapped in an intuitive user interface that experienced 3D artists and novices alike will embrace.Large set of procedural shaders for complex materials Keyframe animation -Bezier, Linear, Noise, etc. Motion path-based animation Inverse Kinematics (IK) & IK chainsBones & constraints Weightmaps painting - Graph EditorPhoto-realistic -HDRI, Global Illumination, Caustics, Skylight, Ambiant Occlusion, Subsurface Scattering, Displacement MappingNon Photorealistic Rendering Network Rendering G-buffer export Batch rendering

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Bryce 5 Review

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(More customer reviews)Who needs, directors, special effect experts, location permits, robots, trained animals, movie stars, costume and set designers, etc.? Bryce 5.0 is all that in a single box and a heck of lot cheaper!
But, there's a fairly hefty learning curve! Bryce isn't easy to master. It's easy to use once you learn, but starting out on your own is tough. I did, but I wish I would have spent the money to buy Susan Kitchens book on Bryce 4.0 first! 'Would have saved me hundreds of hours.
I struggled with Bryce 4.0 in making prehistoric environments from geologic history and the plants and animals that lived in them. Bryce 4.0 easily makes phenominal landscapes, city-scapes, castles, or whatever, but just try to make a person or animal that will move through your scene and you've got your work cut out for you!
But now thanks to Bryce 5.0's Metaball technology where basic sphere shapes better blend into each other my T.Rexs look like the could stand in for those in Jurassic Park. Hopefully Bryce 6.0 will make meta technology for all the building block shapes. Perhaps Corel will even embed a sound generator in 6.0 so you don't have to dub with other software?
A lot of attention has been given to the new tree lab. As long as you don't expect the prefab trees to look anything like what they are named for you'll like it too. However as a forester I was disappointed! This is not to say you can't make fantastic looking sequoias, I'm just saying it's going to take a couple of hours of tinkering. On the other hand this is to be expected. You can't demand software "Industrial Light and Magic" powerful to be "Mickey Mouse" easy.
What I'm most thrilled by is the power and beauty of the animation capability. Long gone are the days of frame by frame adjustments. To make my T. Rex walk all I have to do is carefully link objects together, then show Bryce what I want my dinosaur to look like at this place at this moment in time and than what I want it to look like at a new place, a few seconds later. Then pitch, yaw, roll, zoom the camera as desired or set it to auto track and the software smoothly animates the 100 frames in between. It short you make and put the parts together to make a body and Bryce will bring it to life and make it a movie star!
I've worked with a lot of graphic design and animation software and all others (for public consumption anyway) pale by comparison. Here's the fun thing! Once you get to know Bryce, you'll see it everywhere. It's technology is used extensively in "B" Fantasy & SciFi movies and on prime-time Fantasy & SciFi TV shows.
The old philospher once said, "Give me a fulcurm and a big enough lever and I could move the world." With Bryce 5.0 I say "Give me enough time and enough hard drive space and I can simulate the world!" at any time period.....

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Bryce 5 lets you create realistic 3-D landscapes and animations. Striking an optimum balance between power and ease of use, Bryce is an ideal way to integrate 3-D technology into your creative process. Smooth network rendering saves time by letting you render images on multiple computers. The new Light Lab gives you robust control over lighting direction, and the new Tree Lab ensures a more accurate depiction of real-world environments.

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Strata 3D Pro 3.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)Strata 3D Pro is MUCH better then Strata 3D 3.0. You can't even compare how powerful this software is. It has lot to do with 3D modeling, animation and rendering. The modeling is a breeze, the animation is powerful and rendering is very fast! If your the Professional 3D computer artist, gat this.

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Strata 3D is an easy-to-use 3-D creation package that enables you to quickly drench your imagery with realism. New export features allow you to port stunning content to the Web for e-commerce solutions. Within minutes, create 3-D models, apply sophisticated textures, and add dramatic lighting to render stunning 3-D effects.

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Kid Pix Studio Deluxe (Jewel Case) Review

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(More customer reviews)~
***** Kid Pix is definitely the number one Software item on any list for kids age 3-13. I rank it high on the shopping list for Adults, too! This software is incredibly flexible and allows for artistic creativity, while still providing enough structure, for very young kids.
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***** The Software is very very easy to use. Emma and Ben were absolutely professional at this program at age 3. In fact Emma had to warn me when I wasn't saving a picture correctly.
The program allows for freestyle drawing, but also has so many additional touches that make it exciting to the kids. Naturally, the first thing they go for is the "stamps"- little pre-designed artworks of objects commonly used in pictures: teddy bear, cake, etc.
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***** The flexibility of this software makes it astonishingly easy to personalize and expand on: at age 4, Amanda was "editing" the "stamp" of the teddy bear to make it look more like *her* "sugar bear".
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***** This program only gets better, if you add more software from the same company- we got "The Amazing Writing Machine" and were able to import all of the stamps from that program into the studio.
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***** You can also open any photograph in a JPEG or GIF or BMP format, and spice it up with the Kid Pix Studio.
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*****If I could only have one piece of software on my computer- it would be a difficult choice between my Netscape browser, and this Kid Pix Studio.
If this review form allowed it, I'd give it 9 stars *********- (do you get the idea I think its Great?)!

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Kid Pix Studio Deluxe features a kid-friendly interface and a high-spirited approach to creativity with drawing, painting, animation, and multimedia tools designed with kids in mind. Studio Deluxe includes the six art projects from Kid Pix Studio (Kid Pix, Wacky TV, SlideShow, Moopies, Stampimator, and Digital Puppets), with new school-appropriate graphics and backgrounds. Tools include fully editable text, 2,500 rubber stamps, an expanded sound library, and import and export JPEG and GIF images. Get access to all fonts on your system, text-to-speech functionality, and more slide-show control. You'll also find a Teacher's Guide with a curriculum matrix, technical tips, tutorials, and more. Kid Pix Studio Deluxe is expertly designed, with a collection of 30 lesson plans that were created and used by teachers in classrooms across the country.

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Poser Figure Artist Review

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(More customer reviews)This program is a very stripped down version of Poser. There is no animation in this application. It's for posing 3D figures, rendering them and exporting or printing out 2 dimensional images only.
Like many digital artists I don't have the space or money for real human models so this application should help me. To help me actually "draw" the human figure I pose it in Poser Figure Artist, render the figure, print the figure out on my printer and trace over it with paper and a pencil, or export the image (figure) open it in photoshop and use my digital tablet to draw over it. You can actually use your digital tablet in P.F.A. also if you don't want to use your mouse.
It didn't take me long to learn the interface, it's easy and even a little fun. The PDF manual will get you started but does lack some detail. I was able to get a basic pose in a short time by just playing around with the interface and not even reading the PDF manual at first.
Making a complex pose can take a while. The easiest way I found to get a specific pose is to load a pre-posed figure closest to the pose you want then tweak the pose to what you want. One drawback I found was their is no "undo" so you have to save often or have the application "memorize" your poses often as you tweak them so you can get back to a pose if you get carried away with the pose. There are lots of pre-posed figures already in the program for you. Male, female, child, skeletons and a few robot figures are in there. The figures are good and clean and well proportioned (average person height, weight etc).
You can tweak just about every aspect of the figure and add props if you like. You can change the environment the figure is in also (lighting, color and background image).
P.F.A. seems to run fine on my system running windows XP. As with any 3D program the faster the system you have the faster it will run and render. Their are some preferences you can turn down to help your system deal with large render's if you have an older computer and graphics card.
Me being a strictly two dimensional paper and digital media artist Poser Figure Artist works fine for me. If your looking for something much more involved I would get the full version of Poser. I highly recommend going to "e Frontiers" web site and reading all the features Poser Figure Artist and Poser has to offer and choosing which version of Poser works for you.
Shop around, cost for this application vary greatly (I found it on sale for 1/2 off price with optional digital down load).
Their are lots of reference web sites and support for Poser programs if you need help or information. There is a whole community of "Posers" out there. Have fun!

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Poser Figure Artist software provides virtual 3D models allowing artists and graphic designers to draw, learn and explore the human figure and poses of the human body in 3D. Poser Figure Artist includes models with hundreds of poses and facial expressions, hair, clothing and lighting, plus is integrated with an instructional figure drawing guide to provide a powerful learning environment, with all the tools artists need to draw right out of the box.

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Corel Painter IX.5 Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are an artist who works with "wet media"--oils, watercolor, magic markers, pen and ink or if you are a digital artist who creates only with pixels of light on a computer, you should seriously look at Painter IX. This is without a doubt, digital art software at its very best.
I've used a form of Painter since its very first version, which was called Sketcher. This was back before 1990, I am pretty sure, and Sketcher, which was a Fractal Designs product, came in a snazzy cigar box (because many sketch artists keep their charcoals in this handy container.) The software did grey-scale renderings of drawings into charcoal, pencil or ink and it could be used to sketch on graphics tablets.
After Sketcher came Painter, which was sold amusingly in a paint can and did color rendering of oil, watercolor, pencil and inks. Eventually, Painter was sold to Corel, who had the expertise in graphics design software to take Painter to a whole new level. While previous versions of Painter had some idiosyncrasies, Painter IX has been revised to match current graphics capabilities of computers, and has been debugged to the point that it is a pure pleasure to use. As a result, professional designers of everything from brochures to fast cars use Painter instead of real media or in conjunction with art media to create some stunning digital creations. In addition, wet media artists now routinely use digital art software to visualize, compose and test designs before doing them by hand. I do this myself; I take photos or sketches and try out palettes to see how a certain color scheme works. Or I cut and paste elements of a composition to visualize the painting before I sketch it on paper. My own medium is watercolor, and I find it a lot more comforting to have a plan of attack before I hit that scary white (and pricey) piece of watercolor paper. Visualizing my composition on the PC screen is a very useful tool.
If you had tried Painter before and were less than thrilled, you should take a look again. If you have never used a digital arts package and want to be serious about digital art, I can't think of another product I'd recommend.
So, let's get a detailed look into Painter IX and see what it does:
Art Media:
1. Literally 100's of brushes that can be modified in size and quality (hairness, spray direction, stroke depth, and "taught" your personal stroke on the graphics tablet.) You can create brushes, and even make "image hoses"--a way to spray a graphic and paint with say, berries, leaves, architectural elements. You can make your own image nozzle out of any graphic element and even have it shaded with a drop shadow. The image hose is a lot of fun--scrapbookers can find a lot of uses for it as it's rather like a digital rubber stamp.
2. 30 plus media, like oil, impasto, charcoal, crayon, ink, gouache, watercolor, airbrush, oil and chalk pastel, pencil, photo filters, and even woodcut and sumi-e. They are realistic to the point where you can smear the oil around--the only thing is you don't smell the turpentine. The texture of canvas or paper comes through under the media according to the amount you choose, and you can light the finished work to highlight texture and shine.
3. Textured papers like canvas and watercolor. You can input your own textures to make a customized paper. There are pattern fills like cloth and pebbles, and you can make patterns to use as background fill. Any image can be captured to make a texture or pattern.
4. Wet media --like ink, wet oils, watercolor. A wet layer allows you to push the paint around as if the surface were wet. It can be "dried."
5. A mixing palette to mix paints as one would on a real palette.
6. Cloning--copying a picture and then rendering it as if you had a tracing paper over top a real picture. You can grab portions of the picture with your tablet stylus and brush them into oils, watercolors, chalk. You can auto-clone and create a sketch from a photo.
7. Photo filters: a good set of filters used to modify digital photos and scans are included.
8. Typical adjustment features to modify color, remove color, change contrast and light/dark.
9. Animation tools and web design tools. Many graphics software packages have these (Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks) but these allow you to create web graphics with a handpainted or handdrawn look. For anime artists, this could be a huge plus.
10. A scripting engine that lets you record your own operations and play them back with one click to automate your work or create movies. Scripts are automatically saved --meaning you can recover work if your PC crashes.
The major improvements in Painter IX are noteworthy:
1. A 175 page printed spiral-bound manual to get you started and an online help that looks like a spiral-bound manual with everything from online videos, art examples to inspire you and recipes. The tutorial movies from Lynda.com are included in the license. The learning tools are amazing; the spiral bound manual stays open and is easy to navigate. The online tools are lavish and very helpful, because Painter is powerful and there IS a learning curve to get into the most advanced features.
2. Kai's Power Tools (filters for photography) are included. This popular standalone package of photo adjustment tools has Gel, Goo, LensFlare, Lightning, Pyramid Paint, Reaction, and ShapeShifter.
3. There are many new shortcuts, most welcome of which is Quick Clone, reducing the number of steps needed to clone a picture down to a single click.
4. Mixing oils on a palette is more like real media.
5. The watercolor has been sped up to lightning-fast; it was rather slow in previous versions.
6. I found far fewer bugs or crashes--my graphics card is not particularly new and could be bumped up a bit (I have onboard graphics and I could do with adding a better video card) but I still found Painter IX faster and far easier to use than Painter 8.0. The watercolor function was about 10 times faster, at least.
Summary: If you think you'd like to do digital art, this is the one package I'd recommend.
Minimum computer requirements:
· Macintosh: Mac OS X 10.2.8 or higher, 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), 1024x768 monitor resolution, 395 MB disk space.
· Windows: Windows 2000 or XP, 500 MHz Pentium II (or higher), 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), 1024x768 monitor resolution, 380 MB disk space.
Recommended:
A graphics tablet is a must--you can use a mouse, but you won't get the benefits of real media feel without a tablet. The package can use various tablets, but is optimized for the Intuos (WACOM) line of tablets.
Update your graphics card and graphics memory if you have an older PC.


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For more than 13 years, Painter has been the world's pre-eminent Natural-Media painting and illustration software. Corel Painter IX offers the same breathtaking brushes and features that Painter artists have grown to love--but with significantly enhanced speed and performance. All brushes now operate at an average of twice their former speed, and some brushes are 10 times faster. Corel Painter IX also unveils the brand-new Artists' Oils Painting System, a revolutionary Natural-Media painting technology that enables you to sample multiple colors from the Mixer palette and apply them as wet oily paint to your canvas.

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Fireworks 4.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)As a lifelong artist, but relatively new web designer, I have owned Photoshop 6, Illustrator 9, and FrontPage 2000 for as long as their respective lives. Despite the help of numerous 3rd party books, AND the sizable manuals of the Adobe products, I still could not get past using only FrontPage for virtually all web work (I admit, FrontPage is pretty straight-forward and easy). I did feel like a kid on training wheels, and knew my creativity was suffering horribly due to my lack of creative control. I considered trying Macromedia products. I was always a little intimidated by Dreamweaver's rep as a 'professional' web authoring tool, and figured if I couldn't learn the Adobe products, why try to learn DW? Eventually curiosity prevailed and I decided to give the DW and Fireworks 4 demos a try. I fell in love with both. IMO, Fireworks is very intuitive . I quickly learned how to utilize most of the features by simply referring to the 'poor' Fireworks help menu, and trial & error. I produced some outstanding effects, buttons, menus, animations, and banners with Fireworks. (no more tiled GIF newbie backgrounds!) I feel like a pro! I also read a few books on HTML to break away from relying on the "cookie-cutter" designing style of FrontPage. I work in DW code view more than design view now. I use Fireworks design objects almost exclusively. With the seamless intigration, and a little code tweaking (personal preference), I am achieving outstanding results. And to think I was a NEWBIE less than a year ago. I couldn't purchase Fw, DW, and Flash fast enough.
There are several great books on how to use Fireworks. Virtually all of them can be found right here, in Amazon.
While PS6 is the better image editor, Fireworks holds it's ground in virtually all other areas. It is a very powerful program (when used properly).
I tried Fireworks 4 and ultimately bought it (along with Dreamweaver 4 & Flash 5) I suggest you give the demo a spin.

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Macromedia Fireworks 4 delivers a robust solution for Web design professionals who seek a standard way to create and optimize Web graphics. Quickly create resolution-independent vectors, edit bitmap images, and create GIF animations with multiple frames in a professional environment. Fireworks 4 Web graphics workflow is optimized for creating advanced interactivity. Easily develop buttons, rollover effects, and sophisticated navigation schemes with multilevel pop-up menus in a step-by-step visual environment. Support for multiple file formats and common design standards lets you quickly design and produce graphics, HTML, and JavaScript that can be moved seamlessly between popular graphics and HTML applications, such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver. Use accessible controls to reposition, redirect, and reanimate simple animations across multiple frames from within the Fireworks workspace. Quickly set up and execute batch processes, including commands, by using the step-by-step Batch Processing Wizard. Edit and update HTML and JavaScript code and graphics from Dreamweaver, while maintaining edits to your table. Use enhanced setup and export of HTML/JavaScript and images to customize automatic file naming, table handling, and other output options.

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Cosmic Blobs: Lab Rat Edition - Deluxe Version (Win/Mac) Review

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(More customer reviews)My 8-year-old granddaughters love creating and animating animals with this software. They combine animals at will (frog+gorilla=frogilla.) They have only skimmed the possibilities available in this program, so suspect this will be a computer activity that they won't outgrow. There is a tutorial and they needed it. It was kid friendly and very helpful.

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Cosmic Blobs® lets boys and girls from 7 to 14 years old create amazing 3D computer graphics that look like today's coolest computer generated cartoons and video games. It works like modeling clay on the computer for building fantastic 3D models with easy-to-use mouse controls and colorful decorating activities. Bend, pull, poke and flatten basic shapes into animals, vehicles, characters or anything else that can be imagined. Decorate any Blobs surface with paints, decals, patterns or your own photographs. Real computer animations such as hopping, slithering, and running bring the 3D creations to life in a world created by you.

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The Logo Creator: Cartoon Mascot Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)But worth the money only if you are going to be doing a LOT of logos....and who does that? Fun to play with if you have nothing else to do.

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LOGO CREATOR, THE - CARTOON MASCOT EDITI

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Fireworks 3.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have used Adobe Photoshop for more than ten years, first for pre-press layout and design, and then for Web graphics starting in the mid-1990s. Back then, Photoshop was primarily a pre-press tool, and best for manipulating photographs. To make an image Web-ready, one had to use a separate utility or plug-in. Over the years, things improved. The current version of Photoshop, 5.5, is as much as Web tool as it is software for pre-press.
When it was time to upgrade Macromedia Dreamweaver from version 2 to version 3, we purchased the "studio" upgrade that included Fireworks. I had seen a demo of Fireworks at a trade show, and was impressed enough to give it serious consideration, at least for specialized tasks such as creating complex Web page layouts and animations.
That was five months ago. Photoshop and Fireworks are both installed on my computer, but I now use Fireworks for Web graphics about 80% of the time.
Fireworks was designed from the ground-up as a Web design tool. Macromedia has obviously looked at competing Web graphics programs and adopted existing "best practice" in its software. The result is a tool with amazing range.
Fireworks facilitates a number of Web design processes that I had been using in Photoshop. For example, for more complex designs I would often do the entire layout in Photoshop, then slice the image up and dump the pieces into my HTML editor. To make this common practice easier, Fireworks has a slice tool and a Web layer; slices can be exported as individual graphics with accompanying HTML. Fireworks shines in a number of other areas as well: JavaScript rollovers, GIF animation, graphics optimization, object effects, and vector graphics.
For beginners, Fireworks has a number of features to make graphic creation easier: the Button Editor makes creating rollovers quite easy, and the Style panel allows the creation and reuse of graphic characteristics.
Fireworks is a great tool, and I recommend it.

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Fireworks 3 brings efficiency to Web graphics production. Quickly create buttons, animations, and page comps. Everything remains editable, including files from leading graphics applications. Save production time with the History panel, step-by-step button maker, and the Library. Integrate Fireworks code seamlessly into Dreamweaver and other leading HTML editors. Only Fireworks lets you script the entire application to automate workflow.

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Corel Painter Essentials 4 (Win/Mac) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have children 14, 11, and 9, and I was looking for software that would appeal to their creative side. I am a fairly sophisticated software user, and used to do some programming myself, but had never really ventured into these type of painting/art programs.
Bottom Line: I was blown away by this program, totally impressed!!
Why?
#1 It's easy to use out of the box--- many of the controls are easy enough to figure out just by using them, it installs easy on both Mac and PC systems (I installed the program on both an old eMac and a low end Vista laptop successfully).
#2 It's really powerful--- once you really get into the software, it's amazing all the different brushes and textures and effects that you can do to make really impressive art.
#3 The tutorials are first rate--- A thick instruction manual that actually is well written, and actually teaches you about basic principles of art and painting. There are also a whole series of video tutorials included free. You can tell that a lot of hard work and frankly a lot of love went into this, which is a rarity for computer software these days.
#4 It's a great value--- For all you get, the price is very reasonable. And check the company's website, if you're still not sold they were at the time of this writing offering a 60 day free downloadable trial.
One more tip: Get even a low-price graphics tablet to go along with the software--- you'll be glad you did!

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SketchBook Pro 2010 Review

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(More customer reviews)Drawing and sketching programs seem to fall into two general categories - very powerful but excessively complex, or simple to use but lacking in options and power. SketchBook Pro successfully combines power and simplicity into one package, such that even a weak artist can be productive and successful.
I ran into a problem when installing the application - the installer crashed, giving some odd internal error and number. I tried again immediately and the second try went without a hitch. I assume it is a configuration issue with my system as I have occasional strange issues when installing software.
When first launched, the application asks if you have your serial number and key handy. If you are new to SketchBook Pro, I encourage you NOT to enter them just yet but instead specify that you want a 15-day trial. The reason is that you get presented a quick pictoral tour of the feature set when you run in trial mode (which is really just a time-limited demo mode with everything enabled), which is a nice introduction. Afterward, registration information can be entered through the help menu.
Being new to SketchBook Pro myself, I was startled by the sparse interface when opening a new canvas. There was little on the screen other than the main menu up top and the lagoon in the lower left. Most drawing applications clutter the screen with an assortment of toolbars, palettes, wizards and other things that just get in the way. Autodesk keep their application simple instead, putting the essentials out there and leaving everything else off the screen until it's really needed.
Most elements of the application are available in radial menus, accessible either through clicking on icons on the lagoon or right-clicking on the canvas. All menu items have help tips to guide along the way so you know what option you're choosing. Radial menus can be a surprise to those who have never been exposed to them, but once used to them they are very powerful and easy to use.
Plunging into the various options available, I immediately discovered a couple of things I have never before used in drawing applications. First, I discovered the symmetry options, which makes creating mirror images easy. Using the axis, I was able to draw a crude figure of a person in about 10 seconds without even expending any real thought. Even more productive for me, though, was the ruler, especially in combination with the layering tool. The ruler is a slight misnomer, as it is actually more of a straight-edge against which to draw straight lines.
Another interesting surprise was the help system. When I launched the help system, rather than bring up a compiled help file, my default web browser launched and I was presented with one of the best help systems I have seen. The help is easy on the eyes and very straightforward to use. There is sufficient detail with pictures to address almost any conceivable question that might arise.
SketchBook Pro is very fast and very responsive on my system. I am running Vista with 3GB of ram and a dual-core 2.1G Intel processor, and there is only the slightest hint of hesitation on rare occasion.
Having never played with SketchBook Pro before and being a poor artist, I was shocked that I could create viable results in minutes. In the hands of a professional artist, this is a powerful and easy-to-use package. Emphasis was placed on productivity, but power was not taken away.

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Autodesk SketchBook Pro software offers best-in-class sketching capabilities for professional designers and artists from all industries. A paint and drawing application designed specifically for use with digitized pen tablets and Tablet PCs, it can be used in any creative process where pen and paper would traditionally be used. With a patented user interface that is fast and intuitive, even new users can be productive within minutes. Autodesk SketchBook Pro represents the next generation of digital design products that focuses on the user, translating technology and functionality into a natural drawing experience.

Your Digital Sketchpad So versatile and easy-to-use, it can be used in any creative process where pen and paper would traditionally be used:
Concept sketching and ideation
Illustration
Character studies
Set and level designs
Story boarding
Annotation and review

High Quality Results
The look and feel of traditional tools that experts demand
Custom texture brushes
Interactive brush symmetry
Interactive rulers and ellipses

Fits into all Digital Workflows
Reduce time scanning and touching up paper sketches
Reduce the use of paper
Open and save common file formats, including Adobe Photoshop: TIF, BMP, JPG, PNG, PSD

Streamlined User Interface
SketchBook Pro is designed to maximize flow, offering a natural drawing experience
Highly discoverable UI
So easy-to-use, any user can be productive within minutes.
Patented Marking menus provide access to major tools with just one-flick
Do-it-yourself custom brush creation


Communicate More Effectively Share visual ideas quickly with integrated e-mail feature Instantly email sketches and annotations
What's New With 2010, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro continues its tradition of delivering an affordable, easy-to-use, natural drawing experience with the quality expected by professionals.
New: Rotate Canvas
The navigation puck now has a rotate ring for smooth rotation of the canvas view.
Automatically snap to 90 degree increments

New: Blur & Sharpen Brush
Two new brush types in the brush palette.
Paint blur effects directly in SketchBook Pro
Use the sharpen brush to tighten imported photos or images.

New: Symmetric Brushing
Easily draw anything symmetric.
Horizontal & Vertical interactive mirroring brings drawings to life instantly... and fun too.
Great for character design, product concepts, graphic design, automotive sketches, and vehicles of all kinds.

New: Custom brush features
Create your own Custom Textures
Capture and reuse graphics
Make specialized brushes
Export/Import custom brushes
Save out XML with a TIFF map that you can share with other SBP users.

Customizability
Set up your preferred tools in the Lagoon, including your custom DIY brushes
Access marking menus right at the cursor
Hotkeys for each lagoon item
Assign these to a pen-button or tablet keys
Now you can work completely in full screen mode, calling up tools as you need them.

DIY Palette items can be reordered

New: Numeric color input
Direct RGB input fields in the Color Editor.
To support the custom color palette on Windows, you can now accurately define RBG values before saving them.
The Mac version continues to use the Apple Color editor.
Preset primary colors & gray scales now available for customizing in the lagoon.

New: Guides
Create perfect straight lines, circles and ellipses.
The Ruler and Ellipse guide bring a new level of precision to refine your sketches.

New: Scale enhancement
The transform puck now allows non-proportional scaling
Tweak the horizontal or vertical proportions of a selection or entire image directly in SketchBook Pro

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Disney Magic Artist Studio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have 2 kids ages 6 & 3. Both of them can work with this program independently. My 6 year old son loves to create scenes using the animated characters with music. Then he saves the scenes, pulls them up later, and adds color to them. My 3 year old daughter just loves to color in the spaces with the different coloring utensils. She can change the utensils by herself. My son has figured out parts of it that I haven't even done yet. Get it with the Sketch Board so the kids can use it like a drawing tablet and it is tons of fun! The only reason I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 is because I can't figure out how to work some of it. Then again, I don't spend as much time with it as my son.

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Disney's Magic Artist Studio lets you draw, paint, and create animations with your favorite Disney characters. Create, animate, and print your images with tools and paints that burst onto your screen. Roses sprout from your canvas, and butterflies soar through 3-D paintings virtually dripping with color. Disney character images dance to disco, rock, classical, and island beats.

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Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 is the best digital sketchpad I've ever used! I majored in art in high school and have always used art, crafts or designs in many of my jobs. I've designed t-shirts, done miniatures, sewn clothes for antique dolls, silkscreens for cloth patterns and general art work and photography. Once I owned a computer, I found many great photo programs over the years, but up until now, I really never found a great sketch or art program. I own Corel's Painter, which is not only time consuming to learn the media applications, but it's slow, misses strokes and has several bugs in it's applications. Corel keeps giving me patches, but it has become tiresome to keep downloading patches all the time! I actually would rather do my art by hand than deal with all of Painter's issues.
I've been using this Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 every day, to see how smoothly it runs, and it not only runs smoothly, it's unbelievably fast! I have a Windows XP, and it took only a few minutes to download this great program. Once downloaded, I skipped the directions, as I wanted to see how quickly and easily I could learn to use this program on my own. Talk about easy to learn- anyone from 5 to 95 could use this without reading a direction! I am truly amazed that I could draw a sketch, a complicated geometric design for a piece of dress fabric and a dress pattern all in one sitting! The sketchpad itself is uncluttered with a small corner interface control, that allows you to bring up the nicely small tools window, brushes window or colors window. There is a brush property circle that allows you to choose both the brush size and flow for coverage. You can place these windows anywhere out of your drawing area or keep them off the screen completely.
The Brushes window includes a nice array of media types: pencil, airbrush, marker, chisel tip pen, ballpoint pen, paintbrush, felt tip pen, smear, blur, sharpen (does a great outline), hard eraser, soft eraser, flood fill and flood fill for all visible layers. The Tools Bar window has undo, redo, select, lasso, crop, zoom, rotate, ruler, elipse, symmetry X (top and bottom), symmetry Y (side to side), free hand, line, rectangle, polyline, oval and layers. Those symmetry features made my geometrical fabric design take only minutes to complete! What a great feature! The colors window features a color wheel, where you can create any color imaginable, then save it in the blocks below it. For your image, it has image size or canvas size, crop, adjust, rotate, mirror canvas, flip canvas vertically, mirror layer, flip layer vertically and both symmetry X and Y. Your finished art will work on the standard image formats- TIF, BMP, JPG, PNG and PSD.
I wish I had this program years ago, before I wasted so much time, money and constant patching on Corel's Painter! I'm just happy to have this Autodesk's super fast and easy Sketchbook now! For anyone who just sketches or draws, the inexpensive price of this program will pay for itself on the money you'll save on paper, pen, paints and inks! It's a wonderful, fast and easy money saving way to do story boarding, concept sketches, illustrations, fabric designs, pattern designs and anything that you would normally use a sketchpad and your choice of media for! Artists, designers and crafters will love the professional results they'll get with this BEST digital Sketchbook that I've ever used!
(With my review, I've included 3 images. If you don't see them on the top of this page in Images, you can find them by clicking on my name, then going to My Profile-Customer Images. The first image is of my computer screen, so you can see the corner interface control called the lagoon, which can be moved side to side or removed completely when sketching. You will also see the great moveable tool bar, brush window and color window- which you can move these three anywhere on the screen or remove, when sketching. It's simplistic screen design needs no directions! I made a City Skyline In Fall sketch in 5 minutes using the paintbrush and air brush along with the freehand, line and rectangle tools and spent another 5 minutes coloring it.
The second image I made in 20 minutes for a fabric print design using the symmetry tools. I used both symmetry tools X and Y along with flood fill, airbrush and paintbrush. The third image took me the longest time to create- 35 minutes, due to more detailed floral designs I wanted to create for a scarf print. I again used both symmetry tools X and Y along with flood fill, airbrush, paintbrush and the felt tip pen.
The fabric designs that used to take me endless hours by hand to create, now takes me a mere 20 to 40 minutes with these great symmetry tools! For fast painting, the airbrush and flood fill take seconds to use! The flood fill, which is a paint bucket, can be used to cover an entire area, or you will quickly learn like I did that you can also use this little paint bucket to splash a little color on for a beautiful effect! I did all three of these using only my mouse.
For more professional art, you will want to use a pen and tablet connected to your computer port. Wacom makes the best pen and tablets in all sizes and prices. For a beginner, try the inexpensive Wacom Bamboo or Bamboo Fun tablets and pens. For professional use, the more expensive Wacom Intuos4 Larger sized Pen and Tablets give you the ability to draw, design and paint anything with total pen control for hairline detail! I couldn't believe how easy and fast this program is to use- now everyone can be an artist!)

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Relied on by professionals, adored by everyone who loves to draw... SketchBook Pro translates sophisticated technology and professional functionality into a natural drawing experience; use it anywhere you would traditionally use paper and pen!

A Natural Sketching Experience A dynamic and streamlined UI that is easy to learn and fun to use.View larger.

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ArtRage Deluxe 2.5 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)ArtRage is a natural media digital art software with several very nice features, some challenging those of Painter and Photoshop. The first thing that I liked was the software's graphic user interface or workspace. Given the number of features and the amount of controls to customize the tools, you would expect a complicated and intimidating GUI similar to that of Painter or Photoshop. Instead, you have an uncluttered workspace with only six panels bordering the edges. Also, as you are working, these few panels automatically disappear out of the way as your brush approaches and reappear again as you move your brush away. Other nice features are a rotating canvas and pen tablet support. ArtRage can import and export several image formats including JPEG, BMP, PNG and PSD.
Those artists who begin their artwork by blocking out the major shapes and colors in their painting will appreciate ArtRage's Tracing Image feature. This feature allows you to import a photo or sketch as a starting point for your painting. ArtRage projects the imported tracing image onto the canvas and you can control the scale and opacity of the image. For example, while tracing the outline of a rose with the Pencil tool, I set the opacity to around 80% which allowed me to see the details clearly. Later when I began to add color, I lowered to opacity to about 30% to create an "onion skin" of the trace image. For artists who like to paint from a reference image, ArtRage allows you to "pin" a reference image or images directly on to the canvas. Once the reference image is pinned to the workspace, you can reposition the image next to the area you are working on.
ArtRage has two ways to work with color; Trace Color and Normal Color. Trace Color is a feature which takes all the hard work out of choosing colors. As you paint with any of the tools, the software chooses the colors for you, based on the trace image. If you prefer to choose the colors, you can switch to the Normal Color mode and ArtRage has several color pickers including a Numeric Color Picker and the basic RGB and HSL color pickers.
With the Custom Color Picker feature, you can narrow your color choices in the color picker panel to a smaller group of colors such as complements, warm colors or cool colors. Finally, ArtRage comes with several preset Color Samples. You can even create and save your own custom color sets and color samples.
Now that we have our digital colors, we are ready to paint or draw. Each of the natural media art tools in ArtRage can simulate traditional art media including oil, pencil, palette knife, airbrush, chalk, glitter, paint roller, paint tube, felt pen, crayon and eraser. The realism and amount of custom control over the tool's properties such as wetness, pressure, hardness and angle, are surprising for the price. The natural media tools can also be used with the Metallic Paint option which gives a metallic characteristic to the media and to the canvas. In the Papers Settings Panel, you can choose a preset paper type and control several aspects of the canvas such as grain, roughness, color and opacity.
Another feature that one would expect in only high end software is layers. ArtRage's Layers panel rivals its competitors'. You can work on individual areas of your painting on separate layers. You can also copy, group and merge layers. Each layer has its own properties, such as opacity and blend modes, and can be moved, scaled and rotated. You can control the characteristics of the paper or canvas for each layer. ArtRage also supports transparency for layers, Photoshop's blending modes and has the ability to retain layer information when you import or export your artwork in PDS format.
The Stencil Picker is a very nice feature that can have many applications. The stencils and rulers work in three modes. In the Stencil mode, you can use the stencil or ruler as a mask to prevent paint from touching the canvas. In the Ruler mode, the stencils and rulers act as a combination straight edge and snap to function. As you move your paint brush along the edge of the stencil, your brush will automatically snap to the edge of the stencil giving you a nice clean edge. The Guide mode works like the Ruler mode but allows paint to spread under the stencil or ruler, giving a softer edge. ArtRage comes with a nice selection of preset stencils and rulers. You can also create and store you own.
Besides the built-in resources such as color samples, preset paper types, trace images, stencils and rulers, ArtRage comes with several video and pdf tutorials, sample paintings, quick start guide and a nice user manual.
I almost feel embarrassed to suggest additional features. But if I had a "wish list" for ArtRage it would include just a few things. For art media tools, I would like to see a watercolor brush and a drawing pen with a really fine point. As for new features, I would like to see selection tools and tooltips. Although ArtRage does have a multiple undo feature, it would be nice to have a history panel.

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Paint blend sketch and draw on your computer!Easy-to-use ToolsArtRage Deluxe gives you realistic art tools in a simple and stylish environment. Start creating your own works of art right away just pick up the mouse and start painting!Tutorials and MoreArtRage Deluxe includes tutorials and videos to learn from reference images for tracing and stencils for painting precise shapes. You ll have the artwork and guidance you need to create amazing art!Tools of the TradePaint and draw with oils brushes pencils rollers pens and more. Blend and smear paint on the canvas and use the bristle texture of your stroke to add depth to the image. The Metallic Paint option gives you spreadable blendable gold and silver oil paints sparkling glitter silver leaf sprays and other incredible effects!ArtRage Deluxe makes creating art easier than ever!Start creating from the moment you open ArtRage!Creating your artwork has never been easier. Start a new painting using the tracing paper function. Loading your owntracing image gives you an image to use as a reference and creates a canvas for you to work on.Customize tools and colorsPick colors zoom in and out and trace your image as loosely or tightly as you see fit. Use layers to isolate colors effects and lines. Mix them at will! Choose areas and layers of your work for a variety of color and effects line quality blending paint thinners canvas roughness paper textures and more! Draw strokes using varying pressure with a wide variety of tools.Finish your work with fine detailing airbrushing distortions or varying backgrounds. The creative possibilities are endless!System Requirements:Windows:Vista XP 2000 or Tablet PC800MHz processor or faster256MB of RAMMacintosh:OS X 10.3.9 or laterG4 processor or faster256MB of RAMFormat: WIN 2000XPVISTA/MAC 10.3.9 OR LATER Genre:ENTERTAINMENT UPC:717103856488 Manufacturer No:ARDHBX2

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CoreFX Three Level Complete Drawing Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I downloaded the trial version (just do a Google search) which is good for 3 days (no save/print). I was very impressed and so were my kids. It's especially impressive that they essentially include three different versions for various ages, the Basic being very appropriate for a young one to explore their artistic talents, and move up as they get older. The whole program is very easy to use and intuitive and has a lot of neat features that high-end graphics programs do and even some they don't. The Advanced version has tools like "horizontal and vertical symmetry" which, for example, would allow you to draw one side of a butterfly and the other is drawn at the same time. The tool and color selection is quick and easy and the textures for the various tools seem very realistic. It has "roll over" identification of each selection. I tried the animation feature with no help or tutors and in a few minutes created an animation of a stick figure walking (it has an "onion skin" feature that allows you to see the previous frame as subdued, allowing you to draw the next frame "over" it). I think where this program would really stand out is with a Wacom tablet or especially a tablet PC.
Again, very impressive for the price. I will probably be purchasing it soon.

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Powerful graphics software program includes realistic art tools for painting and drawing clipart photo editing and animation; easy to use with choive of skills levels to suit all ages and experienceFormat: WIN 98MENT2000XP Genre:PRODUCTIVITY Rating:NR UPC:827077363636 Manufacturer No:COFX-3105

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Anime Studio Pro 7 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It isn't really that little. I have been messing around in it since version 5 and for pure vector animation (I don't do any web stuff...) this is way easier to use than flash with the same results in the end.
Now that they have finally added a library function in this latest version like flash has, there is really no longer any appeal for me with flash. Keyframing is just SOOOOOOOOO much easier in Anime Studio. The bone system is more refined. The drawing tools aren't as good as illustrator, but they arent as frustrating either, and with this latest version I am starting to need Illustrator less and less. Haha, and Flash's Drawing tools are a total joke compared to A.S. When I tried to draw some characters in flash I just laughed, I was like, HAHAHA!!! this is IT? I guess they want you to just do all your drawings in Illustrator so that you have to export a bunch of files and organize them into your library. A.S. saves you from that boring process and saves a few minutes of your time.
I still need my After Effects though, nothing can replace After Effects for taking your vector animations to the next level. Hopefully in future versions of Anime Studio they will have better camera tools and D.O.F. controls like After Effects has.

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Anime Studio Pro is the ideal application for professional artists and animators looking for an alternative to tedious frame-by-frame editing. Bolstered with powerful features like bone rigging, lip syncing and audio recording, 3D shape design, physics, motion tracking, and more, Anime Studio is the indispensable tool in your production pipeline.

Create High-Quality Animations
Make your own characters, objects, and scenes using powerful vector-based drawing tools combined with the ability to import your scanned drawings and images.
Powerful Production Tools Robust bone-rigging and drawing tools make character creation and animation easier than ever. Save time animating with the new Curve Profile, Follow Path, and Stroke Exposure tools, plus new automatic line-smoothing features.
Physics Simulation Intuitively integrate simulated physics into your projects and create stunning animations where you set the density, gravity, friction, and springiness of objects and see how they collide.
3D Shape Design Make your own 3D objects from vector layers and bring them into your 2D animation projects. Choose from Extrusion, Lathe, and Inflate, then select from multiple shading options for your 3D model, including Smooth, Toon, and Hatched.

Unlimited Output Formats Output to formats including NTSC/PAL D1/DV Standard and Widescreen; HDV and HDTV 780p and 1080p; AVI, MOV, Flash, and more.
Features
NEW! Set the density, gravity, friction, and springiness of objects and see how they collide with Simulated Physics
NEW! Make 3D objects from 2D vector layers
NEW! Quickly organize and access your content with the new library resource
NEW! Animate curves with precision tools
NEW! Record your own sound clips from within Anime Studio
NEW! Use StuffIt Connect to upload video and project files to the Web, making collaboration easier than ever*
NEW! Import your Poser Scenes and combine 2D and 3D animation. Requires Poser 7 or later.
NEW! Gather up and organize all your project files in one location
Implement realistic shading based on line and object contrast within each layer
Make your characters talk with automatic lip-syncing features
Easily combine video, audio, and animation
Attach objects to video with Motion Tracking
Import Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator files
Pen tablet support simulates drawing on paper
Add effects like motion blur and shadows
Output in HD or for the Web; easily export your projects at ideal resolutions for iPad, iPhone, and Droid
Customize functionality with LUA scripts
Upload directly to YouTube and Facebook
* A free one-year subscription to the StuffIt Connect service is included with your Anime Studio purchase, offering 2 GB of storage and 4 GB of bandwidth per month.

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