CD EXCLUSIVES Official Photoshop CS video training PLUS Flash tools worth £150!

THE WORLD’S BEST–SELLING CREATIVE MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION SECRETS UNVEILED How to fulfil any brief – experts reveal the ideas and techniques behind real-life design

SELFRIDGES EUROSTAR ORB DRINKS ATTIK EDITORIAL ADVERTISING PACKAGING POSTERS

27 PAGES OF TUTORIALS THE PERFECT BLEND Our ultimate guide to Photoshop Blending modes ATTENTION SEEKERS Design and output a club flyer – we show you how WEBSITE ESSENTIALS Control your typography in Dreamweaver PLUS: DV CAMS UNDER £700

Printed in the UK Outside the UK and Éire £6 C$ 19.95 No CD? Please see JANUARY 2004 £6 your newsagent 01

9 771360 537024 Host Unlimited Domains with the UK's best reseller solution The Reseller account is a great way to manage multiple websites. Our unbeatable range of features - such as brandable web-mail, website creator and spam filtering - sets you apart from the competition and our award winning online control panel allows you to set up and manage Technical Support services in real-time. Unlimited Domains FrontPage Extensions for your customers You can easily add an unlimited number of You can install Microsoft FrontPage Extensions Exclusively available from Fasthosts, and unique domains to your account at no extra cost. All your 2002 on any of your domains. to the hosting market - Fasthosts' Resellers domains are load balanced across multiple servers using our unique envisage Hosting Technology. Control Panel can now choose to enhance their technical Each domain is a full Virtual Server hosted on your Our award winning online control panel is the support with Brandable TechDesk: choice of Windows 2003 IIS6 or Linux Apache industry leading tool for managing and servers. provisioning your services. You can control • Every element of the the service branded in your name. everything from the web - from setting up • Full technical support available covering: email, hosting, Scripting domains, email, databases, installing domain registration, Internet access and more - envisage supports ASP, ASP.NET, Perl, FrontPage Extensions and more! All of the 9am to 9pm, Monday to Friday. PHP, ODBC and CGI. You can also instantly enable features of the reseller package are managed • You specify the technical support your customers receive. the .NET framework on any of your domains. via your control panel. • All support calls answered in your name. Web Builder Customized Control Panels • Instant online set up and activation from your Our feature-rich online website building tool You can setup control panels for your customers Reseller Control Panel. enables your customers to create their site with an to use to manage their individual domain names easy to use wizard. There are advanced editing and services. You can completely customize the • Unique script debugging and advice service covering options for more knowledgeable users and as a look and feel of your client control panels. technologies such as CGI, PHP, ASP and Perl. reseller, you can custom brand the web builder • Online support ticket reports keep you informed 100% with your own identity and logos. Plus.... of the time. • Your own custom name servers Your own unique technical support premium rate Matrix Web Stats • Create unlimited FTP accounts • With Matrix Stats you can monitor and analyse • SSL Support number - your customers only pay for the expert advice your websites traffic. Matrix Stats runs in real time • Media Streaming they receive over the phone, at just £1 per minute and can be installed on any of your domain names. • Password Protected Folders on your sites including VAT. • Create dialup accounts for your • Your Brandable TechDesk set up, managed and Email customers: become a virtual ISP! administered by us. All your domains have unlimited POP3 accounts ...... and forwarders. We also offer web-mail (which FREE you can brand for your customers), virus scanning, INSTANT SET UP spam filtering and SMS email alerts.

connected Databases £50.00 PER MONTH OR You can setup MYSQL and MSSQL databases £500.00 PA "I've tried all the instantly and use them with any of your websites. reseller offerings out there and it's no *Some of the features mentioned above incur additional charges. Please see www.fasthosts.co.uk for full price tariff. wonder that everyone ...... follows Fasthosts" The power behind web hosting All your hosting needs • Multiple Internet Connections • Starter package from £1.99 GEOFF COLLINS MXT LOGISTICS • Xtreme Support 24 x 7, 365 phone and email • Business packages from £14.99 • Online FAQs, Knowledge Base and White Papers • Developer packages from £19.99 • State of the Art UK based Data Centre • Dedicated server solutions from £89 • UK's best value domain names at www.ukreg.com • 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

To speak to our Sales team call 0870 888 3770

For more details and to launch your service within minutes, visit www.fasthosts.co.uk CA100 INTRO

veryone’s curious – Computer select those colours or opt for that Arts readers especially. If we’re particular style? And what software not getting emails asking the helped them achieve their goal? The E designers and illustrators we result is a must-read – not just for the profile how much they charge for technical insight, but the imagery, too. projects, we’re being badgered to put a Once you’re buzzing with your own Webcam in the office (not a chance). But creative ideas, try some of our in-depth recently, emails have been arriving along tutorials on flyer design in FreeHand MX, a different theme. It seems that you want interface design in ImageReady CS to know not just about the techniques and Flash MX 2004, or typography in involved in a project, but the real nitty- Dreamweaver MX 2004. Read our gritty – the decisions about colours, comprehensive guide to Photoshop’s EMAIL OUR DESIGNERS composition and style. And it’s these Blending modes or head over to the AND ILLUSTRATORS – elements that could well determine a CD-ROM for over two hours of exclusive THEY WILL GET BACK project’s success or failure. video tutorial by Adobe’s own Photoshop It’s not all innate, of course; it‘s not guru, Russell Preston Brown. TO YOU WITH REALLY always a case of you’ve either got it or you Our profiles this issue feature Hydro74 INSIGHTFUL ANSWERS haven’t. You can gain a lot of inspiration and Subliminal Associates – two very from looking at other people’s work and different but successful design outfits thinking about how and why they did who offer plenty of advice of their own. what they did. Don’t hold back on The illustrations this issue also have emailing our illustrators or designers an international flavour to them, with about the creative process – a lot of the contributions from all over the world – time they will get back to you with some indisputable evidence that computer art ILLUSTRATORS really insightful answers. This is an has truly gone global. interactive magazine, so make use of us! Finally, the Computer Arts team wishes But this issue, you needn’t bother, you all a very happy New Year. Keep We take our illustrations seriously here at Computer Arts, and this because we’ve done the legwork for emailing and sending in your artwork month wanted to look internationally for designers. We’re always you. Starting on page 26, the talents throughout 2004. on the lookout for new international talent – so if you’re interested behind four commercial illustration in contributing, contact [email protected] projects reveal exactly what it takes to VICKI ATKINSON fulfil a typical creative brief… How much EDITOR, THE WORLD’S BEST-SELLING input did they really have? Why did they CREATIVE MAGAZINE CIRCUS BY ACRYLICK, SPAIN Amanda Nolan of Madrid-based design agency Acrylick designed the illustration for our Affordable COVER ILLUSTRATOR EDITORIAL DV Cam Group Test on page 94. WWW.ACRYLICK.COM THE CA TEAM MAGICTORCH, UK VICKI ATKINSON EDITOR {THS}, GERMANY This month’s ‘Creative [email protected] Founded by Thomas Schostok, {ths} is a small design secrets’ cover image RODDY LLEWELLYN ART EDITOR studio providing print, Web and illustration solutions was produced by [email protected] worldwide. It created our Dreamweaver illo on page 68. Sam Williams, one ROB CARNEY DEPUTY EDITOR WWW.THS.NU third of illustration [email protected] company and RACHEL ELLIOTT OPERATIONS EDITOR BENNY LUK, HONG KONG Computer Arts regular, [email protected] 24-year-old Hong Kong designer Benny Luk is crazy about Magictorch. Alongside JON ALONGI CD EDITOR vector art, graphics and Chinese culture. He designed the Mike Chipperfield [email protected] spread for our Photoshop Blending feature on page 58. and Sam Chivers, WWW.SIXSTATION.COM Magictorch has CONTACT contributed reams Computer Arts magazine, 123KLAN, FRANCE of stunning artwork to Computer Arts, Computer Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth A consortium of vector enthusiasts who delight in Arts Projects and other publications, including Street, Bath, BA1 2BW bringing a stylised graffiti aesthetic to the Web, 123Klan Dazed and Confused and Total Guitar. PHONE 01225 442 244 illustrated our Flash feature, starting on page 36. EMAIL [email protected] WWW.123KLAN.COM WWW.MAGICTORCH.COM SUBS 0870 444 8455

Computer Arts_January 2004 3 CONTENTS JANUARY ISSUE 92 SUBSCRIBE TODAY FULL LIST OF CONTENTS AND SAVE 40 PER CENT! MAKE A NEW YEAR’S NEWS FEATURES REVIEWS RESOLUTION NOW… NEVER MISS ANOTHER 12 Atmosphere 1, LiveMotion 0 26 Illustration secrets unveiled 77 Full listing ISSUE –TURN TO PAGE 64 14 New 20-inch iMacs 42 Subliminal Associates 78 Creative Suite 16 Doing the Tango 66 Hydro 74 in profile 82 Modelshop 20 Guest font showcase 88 PowerBook 17-inch 94 Affordable DV camcorders TUTORIALS SHORTCUTS REGULARS 36 Photoshop CS & Flash MX 24 InDesign CS 10 Your letters 50 Flyer design 35 Illustrator CS 22 Win a shiny new Wacom tablet! 58 Blending modes 48 After Effects 6 64 Save 40 per cent on the price you 68 Dreamweaver MX 56 3ds max pay in the shops when you subscribe 75 Photoshop CS 100 Back issues 108 Exposure 114 Retrospective ON THE COVER 26 ILLUSTRATION SECRETS UNVEILED Four of the world’s top designers and design studios reveal the secrets of commercial illustration – from packaging to advertising 58 PHOTOSHOP BLENDING MODES Master some of Photoshop’s best Blending modes and make your illustrations and designs stand out from the crowd! 50 FLYER DESIGN Discover the ins and outs of professional print design, as leading firm Output guides you 26 through the process of creating a club flyer 36 PHOTOSHOP CS AND FLASH MX Learn the secrets of combining Photoshop CS, ImageReady CS and Flash MX 2004 to create dynamic interface elements and designs

58 50 Illustration by Spencer Hickson. Turn to Exposure on page 108 Have your work featured here – email [email protected]

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

42 78

42 SUBLIMINAL ASSOCIATES We meet the subconscious design firm that’s not afraid of throwing their briefs in the bin

68 DREAMWEAVER MX 2004 68 Take control of your site’s text and layout with Dreamweaver MX 2004’s fantastic CSS tools

94 AFFORDABLE DV CAMS Five of the best budget digital video camcorders put to the CA test. Which will come out on top?

78 CREATIVE SUITE REVIEW We deliver our verdict on 2003’s hottest creative 94 software release – don’t miss this!

FULL LIST OF CD CONTENTS ^ FULL PROGRAM PC + MAC AUTO-ILLUSTRATOR 1.0

Check out this awesome illustration tool from Signwave! his month, Computer Arts teams up with Adobe to bring you exclusive video ignwave’s Auto-Illustrator is a To use Auto-Illustrator 1.0, simply enter the T training from Photoshop guru Russell different kind of vector graphics following serial number when prompted: Preston Brown. Learn Photoshop CS from the utility. The company proudly claims man who was there when John and Thomas Sthat it’s “an experimental, semi- 3XP3N-51VE-50FT-W4R3 Knoll pitched the app to Adobe! There’s also Dr autonomous, generative software” – in INFO www.signwave.co.uk. See your CD inlay for the Brown’s handy conversion tool Image Processor other words, a fully functional, vector application’s system requirements (see page 7 for more), plus cool full products graphic design application that can Auto-Illustrator 1.0 and FlashAmp 1.1.2. Enjoy! automatically generate graphics for you with the minimum of fuss. Use the award-winning Auto-Illustrator to help you create incredible vector graphics CD92 CONTENTS and shapes, then export them to your main graphics tools for further manipulation. Remember: this is a full version with no OFFICIAL restrictions – and it won’t time out. Use it to explore a wide range of generative and ADOBE TRAINING (PC + MAC) VIDEO TRAINING: Russell Preston Brown,one procedural techniques, then, with a little of the men responsible for Photoshop, reveals effort and creativity, it could become one of some time-saving techniques and creative your favourite and most-used apps.

ideas in these fantastic video tutorials With just a few clicks, you’ll soon be creating superb vector art. AUTO-ILLUSTRATOR 1.0 (PC + MAC)

FULL PRODUCT: A superb, fully functional ^ vector graphic design app to sit alongside your FULL PROGRAM PC & MAC existing professional graphic utilities – for free!

FLASHAMP 1.1.2 (PC + MAC) FLASHAMP 1.1.2 FULL PRODUCT: Use this fantastic utility with Flash to control animations and other events Fantastic Flash app for controlling animations using sound via sound. See opposite for more e’re really excited to be Username: Computer Arts Special MDM STUDIO HOME (PC) bringing you this full product. Serial number: IN70674 FULL PRODUCT: MDM Studio Home offers four FlashAmp 1.1.2 is a utility for Licence type: Single-User great Web utilities, including FlashCast Home – use with Macromedia Flash Number of licences: 1 a tool that enables you to create SWF-based W that enables you to control animations and INFO www.marmalademedia.com.au. See your CD inlay for the training videos and product demos. See page 8 other events in Flash using amplitude or application’s system requirements spectrum (frequency) values derived from THE TAB (PC) sound files. Amplitude values represent the 15-DAY TRIAL: Take The Tab for a 15-day relative loudness of a sound wave, whereas test-drive, exploring all the features of this spectrum values represent the relative power comprehensive 2D animation package. See of individual frequency bands within a sound. SPECIAL OFFER! page 83 for the CA review With FlashAmp, you can create lip sync Take advantage of our upgrade offers! in Flash MX in seconds, rather than hours. ARTIST SHOWREELS Make sure you take advantage of the special FlashAmp Lite Check out these fantastic showreels from upgrade offer to FlashAmp Pro 2 below. Upgrade offer: $15 (£9) – normally $35 (£20) Yann Caloghiris and The Ronin To use FlashAmp 1.1.2, you’ll need to enter Secure order form: https://secure.element5.com/ the following information when prompted: shareit/checkout.html?productid=196844&language TUTORIAL FILES =English You’ll find all the files you need to complete FlashAmp Standard this month’s tutorials here – Blending modes, Upgrade offer: $35 (£20) - normally $65 (£38) Flyer design, Interface design and more Secure order form: https://secure.element5.com/ shareit/checkout.html?productid=196846&language BOOK CHAPTERS =English Free sample chapters from the latest Apress FlashAmp Pro and Peachpit design books! Upgrade offer: $70 (£41) – normally $120! (£70) Secure order form: https://secure.element5.com/ shareit/checkout.html?productid=196845&language =English Lip-synching need never be a problem with FlashAmp.

6 Computer Arts_January 2004 On the CD ^ VIDEO TRAINING PC + MAC RUSSELL BROWN’S POWER HOUR COMPUTER ARTS EXCLUSIVE! Official video training and brand new Photoshop CS techniques from the godfather of Photoshop, Russell Preston Brown

Learn Photoshop CS from one of the pioneers of the application – Russell Preston Brown.

(Left) Preston Brown talks you through the intricacies of the new Layer Comps feature.

These exclusive video tutorials from Russell Preston Brown and Adobe discuss the new features of Photoshop CS – including the new Lens Blur feature, pictured above. his month, we’ve teamed up with Adobe to offer you exclusive Photoshop CS T video training from Russell Brown – one of the forefathers of the application. There are a whopping eleven video tutorials in total, each presented in Russell Brown’s unique and entertaining manner and dealing with a massively diverse range of Take advantage of the new features of the File Browser, as Preston Brown shows you how to get your Photoshop and digital photography workflow just right. Photoshop CS topics. These expert tutorials will teach you the ins and outs of the new Learn how to create stunning lighting effects OFFICIAL just using layers with this insightful tutorial. Shadow/Highlight command, give you a valuable insight into Photoshop we challenge any user of this program ADOBE colour management, give you the full not to discover something new. VIDEO lowdown on the new Layer Comps We also bring you Dr Brown’s Image TRAINING feature and much more. There’s also a Processor. This is a fantastic script, fascinating tutorial on how to light your accessible from the Photoshop photographs by using layer masks – a File>Scripts menu (just browse for it THERE ARE A WHOPPING ELEVEN VIDEO TUTORIALS IN TOTAL, EACH PRESENTED IN RUSSELL BROWN’S UNIQUE AND ENTERTAINING MANNER technique you will certainly use in from this menu), enabling you to many projects. quickly convert images from any There’s over an hour of valuable format, to any format. Powerful advice, tips, tricks and techniques here batching capabilities make this a that you cannot afford to miss – Russell fantastic time-saver. Preston Brown is one of the world’s INFO Head to www.russellbrown.com and leading authorities on Photoshop and www.adobe.co.uk for more info The new Shadow/Highlight feature in action – learn all about how to bring dark areas of your photographs back into view with the expert tips.

Computer Arts_January 2004 7 ^ FULL PRODUCT PC MDM STUDIO HOME Your chance to experiment with MDM’s feature-rich application development suite

DM Studio HOME is a suite of four exciting Web tools that will add to your productivity and give you the ability to produce fantastic applications, training videos and Flash-based interactive Mdesktop wallpaper. Usually sold for £150, the HOME edition is for use on personal projects only. If you want to distribute your files on a royalty-free FULL basis, upgrade to the PRO edition – see below. In the meantime, check out exactly what you’re getting with MDM Studio Home… APP WORTH £150 FLASHCAST HOME

This gem of a utility is a nifty application that you can use to create training videos and learning tools in the SWF format. The application captures your desktop activity, including mouse-clicks and key presses, and then enables you to output the resulting file as an SWF. An intuitive spreadsheet-like interface gives you control over individual captures – making it easy to create SWF-based video training for showing your colleagues a new technique or as a general training resource.

FLASH STUDIO HOME

Flash Studio HOME is a superb tool for compiling a fully customisable projector file (.exe) or Windows screensaver (.scr) from your Flash 4, 5 or MX SWF files. In addition, the tool enables you to create organic-shaped .exe files, so you can give your applications new and interesting shapes – perfect for making presentations stand out. It also enables you to extend Flash ActionScript with fscommands and pack five additional files into the .exe application.

FIRESTORM REMOTE EDIT HOME

Firestorm Remote Edit HOME enables you to connect to any Website on the Internet via FTP, and edit or update any aspect of it in a true WYSIWYG environment. You can actually make changes as if you’re working locally. With the HOME edition, you can upload images, as well as make changes to text and so on. Spot a mistake online while you’re out of the office and, thanks to this highly practical tool, it’s easy to remedy the situation. Save £100 on MDM Studio PRO! We’ve teamed up with Multidmedia Limited to bring you the chance of getting your hands on MDM Studio PRO, the fully-specced tool with many more features, and one that grants you the right to distribute your files commercially – all for only FLASHCANDY HOME £119.99. That’s a saving of £100! To take advantage of this offer, simply go through the ordering process as FlashCandy is one of those tools that’s both useful and fun to use. In a nutshell, normal at www.multidmedia.com and enter the following coupon code: it enables you to create Flash-based wallpaper for Windows machines – so you can add interactive and animated content to your desktop with ease. mdmHomeUPG You can create an installer for the wallpaper, and the tool even gives you a

WYSIWYG preview of the wallpaper before you create it, so you can add installer INFO For more details about MDM Studio HOME and MDM Studio PRO, see www.multidmedia.com. messages and change the install directory. Please note: you must have an Internet connection to install this product. Offer ends 31 May 2004

8 Computer Arts_January2004

HAVE YOU GOT A POINT TO MAKE ABOUT THE MAGAZINE, A CREATIVE PRODUCT, A SHOW OR THE INDUSTRY AT LARGE? EMAIL YOUR THOUGHTS TO THE TEAM AT [email protected], OR JOIN LETTERS US ONLINE AT FORUM.COMPUTERARTS.CO.UK

DISCOVERY was the answer. I never heard of Photoshop until I have even had the greatest opportunities to create I’ve never written to a magazine before, but I can’t went to an Adobe seminar out of curiosity, and was logos and designs for my friends’ businesses, and put this off any longer. I wish I could personally buy totally blown away. even teach some for those who wish to learn. your mag for every graphic artist I know, because I bought the programs, but felt intimidated In short, thank you for your continued dedication only then would they see just how great and because there was so much to learn. I tried using to the graphics world, your research and dedication professional Computer Arts really is. the enclosed books, then I started buying additional to utmost perfection. Within the few 100+ pages, Not to get too verbose, but I’ve been diagnosed books which left me confused, because I didn’t know there’s essential information for those who do not with Multiple Sclerosis, which is slowly taking away where all the tools were located. Just by chance, I have time to procrastinate. You have tapped into the physical use of my drawing arm. Being a creative walked into the bookstore and noticed CA magazine the best, and that puts you head and shoulders person, I had to find something and my computer had Photoshop on the cover; above the others. on closer inspection, I realised Ken Kirtland it had tips and tricks, step-by- step projects, samples, etc. Wow, we’re absolutely honoured that we’ve been Everything that could feed a able to help you out, and really pleased you’re nation of graphic artists, in pushing your computer skills further, despite your fact. I bought one, took it setbacks. Once you’ve done work you’re really proud home, loaded the disc, of, please send it in to our Exposure section, where followed the tutorials and, we display all our readers’ works. to my surprise, finished a project. I overcame my fear. Now I’m an addict! TUTORIAL CD FILES Because of CA, my I’ve noticed on the forums discussion about how confidence has struck a high. some tutorials don’t actually come with files, where I’m no longer afraid of not you’ve explained that readers should follow the being able to physically techniques with their own photographs. I’m in draw, and have had enough two minds about this; I’m one who believes that knowledge to assist our practical magazines should provide everything the graphics department user needs to follow the techniques, but on the other Get your artwork in print by sending it to us as high-resolution TIFF or JPEG files to the with some very Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth St, Bath, BA1 2BW, UK. following address: Exposure, tight deadlines. I

★LETTER OF THE MONTH THE LICENCE QUESTION

I read with interest last month’s letter package. A valuable saving for any small concerning Adobe’s licensing for the studio or freelancer. Creative Suite. I often read about people There will always be people who ignore disputing licences, and I’m urged to recount the licence, but beware. The Web agency how expensive software used to be a few next to us, shall we say, omitted paying for years ago. You were also required to have a some of their seats and landed themselves decent range of software that could cover in big trouble. I hate to be a doomsayer but any client demand. there are people out there watching and To set up our studio around four years checking anything from portfolio sites to ago was approximate to the cost of a small awards nominations, and after what I saw castle, for example. We had an awesome them go through, I can categorically say it’s suite – full licensed versions of Photoshop, not worth it! Invest time and money in your commotion, Director, Katabounga talent and it’ll definitely pay off. (remember that one?), GoLive, Maya and Name and address withheld much more, but we didn’t make a significant profit, just had a lot of fun. Something else that’s different these days is For Adobe, Macromedia, Corel and the lack of manuals – it’s all PDF these days. others to offer their suites of tools in As for licensing, that’s a serious issue. It’s too packages is an absolute boon. The savings easy for young start-ups to follow the tide of involved amount to the cost of a decent 3D piracy, which is utterly inadvisable. If you want to make it as a professional digital artist, it’s important to invest in your own software as much as your talent.

10 Computer Arts_January 2004 NEXT MONTH COMPUTER ARTS 93 ILLUSTRATOR CS & PHOTOSHOP CS IN ACTION Design outfit Identikal shows you how to make the most of these latest new upgrades

In CA 89, Rob Lindström didn’t provide CD files with his exclusive Flash and Photoshop tutorial, because he wanted readers to follow the tutorial with their own work. He’s since made an exclusive wallpaper from his image at www.designchapel.com. ESSENTIAL FREE INSIDE MAGAZINE! Macromedia Masterclass MX 2004 – Issue 2. We continue our special hand, I’ve been dipping in and out of Computer Arts four-part series on creating rich Internet applications in Studio MX 2004. for four years, following tutorials that catch my eye, Issue 2 brings databases down to size – as easy as pie! and the chance to do what they do with my own photographs or textures is great. So yes, although *Supplement available to UK newsstand and subscribers only. To subscribe, call +44 (0)870 4448 455 it’s great to have a CD packed with resources, I’m also fine with being challenged a little. After two years of reading CA, I was ready for my first proper brief – after four years I reckon I might even launch my own studio… Dan Jaye

We always ask the experts who write our tutorials to send files to us, but that’s not always possible for copyright reasons, mainly. You’re right, though – following a tutorial with your own materials can, in fact, be more fulfilling than just using someone else’s resources. However, we continue to make an effort to provide tutorial files whenever possible, because we PAINTER 8 CUBAN COUNCIL IN PROFILE feel they make the magazine a complete package. IN-DEPTH This eclectic design studio (above) has done some amazing work. Read You can now download the nun photograph – click We can’t get enough of all about its impressive output and witness some great design work on Issue 89 at www.computerarts.co.uk/cdrom. Corel’s natural media app. Pro illustrator STILL MOVING Derek Lea takes you Experiment with great effects using stills from your video footage PHOTOSHOP CS TRAINING through the creation of I badgered my employers to get me a copy of the a contemporary image, 3D CHARACTERS GROUP TEST Creative Suite after reading your superb supplement. with a traditional feel We put five of the best 3D character modelling and animation tools to the test I can do my job fine using InDesign and Photoshop, but I’d like to see where Illustrator and a more advanced knowledge of the former apps might take Nik Photoshop plug-ins, Illustrator CS demo and much more! my work. Where do I get a list of training courses? ON THE CD How much do they cost? I’d like to pick a good one before I approach my boss with the great news. I’m already getting a renewed subscription to Computer REVIEWED SOON Arts, so I might be asking a bit much here! LightWave 7 Adobe Atmosphere Character animation New cameras from Jemima Harris tools Group Test HP and Sony Boris FX 7 DAZ|Studio Ulead DVD Workshop 2 Radeon 9800 Mac Edition If there’s anything better than getting a new upgrade, EditStudio 4 New video-editing it’s getting your boss to pay for it. We run a list of tools from Canopus New printers from Iomega CD-RW USB 2.0 Silo HP and Epson current courses in our News section – see The Learning Curve on page 17. Two-day courses cost around £500; most are software-based, and as the Creative Suite is new there’ll be a lot of choice. Also check out our Classified section at the back of the mag. ON SALE 22 JANUARY All contents correct at time of going to press

Computer Arts_January 2004 11 SEND ALL NEWS, COMMENTS AND LINKS TO MARK PENFOLD NEWS AT [email protected]

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

IMAC Apple’s latest all-in-one gets a 20-inch screen p14

TANGO MPC reveals secrets of latest cult TV ad p16 Adobe’s Atmosphere, which can generate interactive 3D stage sets like this, is set to replace LiveMotion 2. ATMOSPHERE 1, LIVEMOTION 0 SOFTWARE One in and one out for Adobe. Not that you’d notice OPINION Ignore the prophets of doom – go freelance! p17 ith equally little fuss be none the wiser. One-to-one tech more advanced Flash, and version 2, either way, Adobe support for the title continues until launched last year, fared little better. has retired one 31 March 2004. With scant publicity from Adobe itself, W application and and a general perception that the discreetly launched another. POOR FLASH RELATIVE program would always be playing Atmosphere, its “3D interactive stage Originally launched in 2000, catch-up with the more ubiquitous set for the Web,” has finally escaped LiveMotion was initially conceived as Flash, LiveMotion never fully lived up from a beta period many thought an adjunct to Macromedia’s Flash, with to its potential. would never end – while LiveMotion, the emphasis on improved authoring The move also comes amid seen by some as Adobe’s answer to tools. It offered many of the same speculation that Microsoft is COMPETITION Enter the Flash Flash, has been put out to pasture. capabilities as Flash, but was able to developing a ‘Flash-killer’, codenamed competition of a lifetime p18 LiveMotion 2.0 was officially output to a greater number of formats Sparkle, reportedly to be included discontinued on 15 November, and used JavaScript throughout. with the next version of Windows although unless you caught the But the application met with a (codenamed Longhorn) in 2005 or WEEKLY UPDATES tiny notice on Adobe’s home page lukewarm response from Web 2006. This set of tools would allegedly www.computerarts.co.uk explaining this, you’d presumably designers already familiar to the be integrated with Microsoft’s .NET

12 Computer Arts_January2004 News

PLATFORM ART ONLINE PUBLIC ART London Underground supports digital artists online The latest releases, updates and software news INKSAVER 2.0 If you get through ink cartridges with any regularity, you’ll love InkSaver 2.0. Using clever software, the app optimises printer data so that your printer uses less ink – up to 75 per cent less according to Digital Workshop. Compatible with all major printers, but currently only available for the PC, InkSaver 2.0 costs £30. www.digitalworkshop.com

GIMP 2 FOR OS X OpenOSX has just announced the impending full release of Gimp 2.0 for Mac OS X. The latest version of this open source rival to Photoshop features vector paths, editable text ondon Underground’s online showcase for its and G5 optimisation. Although the Platform Art project has now gone live. The site, current iteration is still ‘test’ code, a Ldesigned by Airside, gives visitors a chance to full release, costing $15, isn’t far away. see digital artworks which form part of the Tube’s http://openosx.com/gimp2/ ongoing public art program. METAL FX WINS ‘BUSINESS OSCAR’ “The site is a natural extension of our involvement in MetalFX® has been awarded the the visual arts and recognises that some great work is Innovation of the Year Award at the being produced which is purely digital,” explains prestigious National Business Awards project curator Tamsin Dillon. Plans are already afoot 2003. The pioneering system can print for a major event in February next year, followed by a 104 million metallic colours using a rolling program of commissions. five-colour press, so printers don’t Creatively, Airside was given free rein – “London need to update their machinery; the Underground let us go really leftfield,” says designer fifth colour (the special MFX® silver Nat Hunter, who worked on the project. The result is ink) provides the metallic effect. www.metal-fx.com an idealised trip through the capital’s underground, digital figures. “We used snatches of overheard complete with strange characters and interactive art. conversations which made no sense because you only BRANDABLE TECHDESK Airside drew on experiences its designers had had caught the middle or end of them,” says Hunter. Web-hosting firm Fasthosts has on the Tube when it came to creating many of its quirky INFO www.tube.tfl.gov.uk/pfaonline launched a brandable technical support helpdesk for its reseller’s customers. Web studios will now be runtime environment, providing (also free). All tools are available for able to offer clients a technical ‘after all-in-one Flash and Director-style Windows only. sales’ support hotline for email, functionality that would improve Many expressed surprise at Adobe’s hosting, domain registration and Internet access in their own name. workflow considerably. decision to develop a Web 3D ‘virtual www.fasthosts.co.uk world’ application when so many INTERACTIVE 3D before them had failed. During its long The axe finally fell on the HDRI TEXTURE CDS On the other hand, the launch of incubation period, Atmosphere has troubled LiveMotion 2.0 Realtexture has brought out two Atmosphere is likely to raise a few become popular among small online on 15 November. 360-degree full-sphere HDRI texture eyebrows – not least because the communities and enthusiast CDs. With no visible cameras and program has been in public beta developers, but few large enhanced resolution, Volume 2 since March 2001. Atmosphere is a commercial sites have yet provides 24 exterior lighting textures, VRML-like tool for creating interactive embraced it. With almost and Volume 3 interior lighting. Each map comes in four flavours: 3D sets designed for the Web and zero fanfare at its launch, Fisheye/Lightprobe, P-Sphere, enabling users to collaborate within it seems likely that Vertical Cube and Horizontal Cube. them. As well as 3D objects, it has Adobe will be targeting www.realtexture.com facilities for embedding directional Atmosphere more at sound, streaming audio and video, educational and artistic SMARTSOUND FOR PREMIERE PRO Flash animations and physical users than major SmartSound’s Quicktracks plug-in behaviours, all via a relatively e-commerce sites. for Premiere Pro is a simple audio sophisticated JavaScript environment. Adobe had no editing tool, complete with royalty- Atmosphere actually consists comment on free music library. Of particular interest is SmartSound Elements, a of three core products: the free the matter. click-and-play collection of 23 tracks. downloadable player (which enables INFO Atmosphere Access to the ever-expanding online users to view the sets), the Atmosphere costs $399 and is SmartSound library is also provided. authoring program itself, and the now available to download from The basic package costs around £58. Atmosphere Collaboration Server www.adobe.com www.smartsound.com

Computer Arts_January2004 13 Stay abreast of the latest art-enhancing technology 20-INCH G4 CPU UPGRADES Channel Dynamics has just IMAC announced a new power HARDWARE boost card for G4 Mac owners: Apple’s PowerLogix’s PowerForce G4 wide-screened boy Dual CPUs. Running at speeds of 1.2GHz or 1.4GHz, the new CPUs he run-up to MacExpo in November sport twice the L2 cache (512K) of saw Apple unveiling its latest previous cards and draw 40 per consumer-pleaser: the 20-inch iMac, cent less peak. They should cost which features “the largest flatpanel around £355. T display ever offered in an all-in-one desktop.” www.powerlogix.com Costing just £1749, the machine benefits from a 1.25GHz processor and impressive FUJIFILM FINEPIX 610 Fujifilm has launched the first 64MB NVIDIA FX5200 graphics chip, and compact digital camera with a should be on sale right now. six-million effective pixel CCD. While specifications-wise the iMac is The new model also has two LCD identical to its 17-inch predecessor, the screens: one for viewing images; machine isn’t just a case of window-dressing the other for defining camera by Apple. With the processing power and settings. Fujifilm claims its high- graphics capability needed for high-end resolution technology will enable apps now in place – and unlikely to develop the device to generate a recorded much further in the case of the G4 – Apple output of 12 million pixels. Price yet to be confirmed. clearly believes some consumers are more www.fujifilm.com interested in refined features than upgraded hardware; in this respect, the iMac delivers. DUAL 1.8 G5 The addition of the professional-sized Apple is busy again this month, display is a case in point – if you’re working releasing a 1.8GHz dual processor with video or in publishing, the extra screen G5. This brings the starting price real-estate is definitely for its new range of dual processor worth considering. workstations to £1899. Fitted with INFO www.apple.com 512MB of RAM as standard, the new G5 drives can also store up to 8GB. All new machines come with OS X Panther installed. www.apple.com EPSON SCANNER BREAKTHROUGH FREE ULEAD SCANNER HARDWARE Latest technology gives Epson flatbed device edge over film scanners Buy a copy of Ulead’s award- winning PhotoImpact XL from pson has just released details of its Perfection 4870 position of these defects are then mapped and automatically any PC World retail store before 24 Photo, a flatbed scanner capable of producing repaired, delivering, as Epson says, “a scanned image which December 2004 and you’ll receive a free Xerox 2400 scanner, worth £70. Eresolutions to rival that of dedicated film scanners. improves on the original print.” Handy if the wallet’s feeling a little With a top optical resolution of 4800x9600dpi and a Available in February, the Perfection 4870 should cost threadbare in the run-up to moving transparency lamp, the Perfection 4870 can easily around £399. The software bundle features professional Christmas. Check the Ulead enlarge a 35mm film scan to A1 size, while the built-in Grain scanning app SilverFast SE6. Website for details. Reduction – just one of the hardware’s Professional suite of INFO www.epson.co.uk www.ulead.co.uk tools – enables you to remove any visible film grain from blown-up transparent media with ease. SONY 8X DVD BURNERS It also incorporates DIGITAL ICE, a revolutionary They may only be PC compatible, new hardware image-correction system that but Sony’s new dual DVD-RW drives, the DRU-530A and DRX- removes dust and scratches from 530UL, are capable of burning at images without the blurring 8x speed – the fastest currently usually associated with software available. Both models support solutions. The technology DVD+R and DVD+RW, as well as works by using a pair of DVD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW and CD- light sources to pick out ROM for maximum compatibility. the shadows that surface The DRU-530A is the internal blemishes, creases and tears version of the drive; it costs £179 create on your media. The and is available now. The DRX- 530UL, price yet to be confirmed, Forget those erroneous software will be released in January. corrections made to your scanned images; www.sony-europe.com now Epson puts the hardware in charge.

14 Computer Arts_January2004 Introducing theAdobe It’s group. acreative support All other trademarks are the property of theirrespective of are owners. theproperty All othertrademarks Acrobat, GoLive, Adobe, “T Illustrator, the Adobe logo, InDesign, Photoshop, reserved. Allrights ©2003 Adobe Systems Incorporated. www.adobe.co.uk/therapy It you want, withoutholdingyourself back. you canthink, play around all andtinker Plus, it’s gotAcrobat you trackofyour manageandkeep files. with VersionCue Photoshop, combines full,It newCSversions of ’s more thancreative software. ® Illustrator, , ™ aninnovative tool to help ® THERAPY Professional. Sonow ® InDesign, ® Creative Suite. ® andGoLive ® ools fortheNew Work” Adobe Systems Incorporated intheUnite and Version Cue of are ortrademarks eitherregistered trademarks d States and/orother countries.

Adobe® Creative Suite Tools for the New Work™ The hottest sites and services on the Web…

FIRST BORN www.firstbornmultimedia.com The sophisticated home site for New York interactive design agency First Born is exactly what you’d expect it to be: smooth, enjoyable and easy to use. An impressive array of clients are on display, mostly from the worlds of fashion, sport and cosmetics, including Calvin Klein and Gucci.

SEGURA INC www.segura-inc.com Concentrating mostly on print design, Chicago-based Segura has produced great work for a range of clients – from ‘Da Vinci’-themed merchandise for Ernst and Young to art for Vertigo Comic’s The Filth. It’s the sheer quality and variety of work on display that makes this site worth visiting. DOING THE TANGO ASGER CARLSEN www.asgercarlsen.com MEDIA Moving Picture shakes up Britvic favourite This selection of shots taken by the Swedish street photographer Asger he Moving Picture Company Improved integration between Carlsen on a recent trip to America used a combination of Photoshop and Shake also proved a reveals just what a bizarre place the Land Photoshop, Shake and After tremendous asset. “It’s changed the of the Free can be. The images are well Effects to paint, composite and way we work around here,” explains observed and convey a sense of place T animate the wobbly, gelatinous titles Cook, enthusiastically. “We can now brilliantly. It’s like looking through the out-takes from someone’s private album. for its latest ‘Taste Buddies’ Tango ads, import Photoshop layers and effects directed by Ulf Johansson. wholesale into Shake. It’s great!” VECTORIZE With only a week to fulfil the brief, Flexibility is another key issue. “I www.vectorize.de co-ordinating workflow effectively started work developing an alphabet Aside from teeming with great vector between the three apps helped ensure around the text given to us,” says Cook, artwork, this smartly designed site also delivery on schedule. “The great thing “but inevitably that changed.” The makes extensive use of photography and about working this way, instead of with improved integration means MPC can typography. The best-executed piece on inferno or Henry, is that you get to play a now implement changes more quickly the site is the interface for ‘Reflections’, a collection of images from a recent trip role in the creative process,” explains and effectively than before. to California. The tutorial section is also MPC Effects Artist Martin Cook. INFO www.moving-picture.com worth checking out.

DESIGN COUNCIL www.designcouncil.org.uk Design agency Simulacra was behind this superb revamp of the Design Council Website – which aims to give users all the information and assistance they require. According to Simulacra, the site “offers a means of translating enthusiasm for design into practice.”

TIGER www.tigermagazine.org Issue 29 of this online Flash magazine is a real scorcher, showing off some classy fashion photography, interspersed with first-rate illustration. The work from Enrique Radigales and Matt Pagett alone make this issue worth looking at. Don’t forget to check out the interesting articles, reviews, and links to the sites of contributing artists.

WANT YOUR NEW SITE FEATURED? Send the link to MPC was responsible for the entire post-production work on the Tango ads, using inferno and [email protected] with the subject header ‘Websites’. combustion to create Strange Soda-quaffing Ken’s miniature ‘wobbling’ alter egos.

16 Computer Arts_January2004 News

SKETCH AND TOON 3D New rendering module for Maxon’s Cinema 4D

axon has released a non- photorealistic rendering module Mfor Cinema 4D R8.5. Called Sketch and Toon, the add-on gives Cinema 4D users numerous new rendering options, tailor-made for specialist users such as engineers, architects and fine artists. THE BIG BOOM While the new module is versatile, offering SUBJECT Successful graduates Mike Doney and a good selection of non-photorealistic Katie Tang burst onto the UK illustration scene rendering modes, it’s also extremely easy to generates layers of possible new output last summer as TADO, and, in their opinion, use, with three different modes catering for options for 3D artists. there’s never been a better time to go freelance beginner, intermediate and expert designers. Sketch and Toon is available now for £249, Maxon has sensibly integrated Sketch or as part of an upgrade package to R8.5 for Looking back over the past 12 months is a rather strange and Toon, so that combining its effects with owners of Cinema 4D R8 at £299. experience for us. Almost exactly a year ago, we’d just other Cinema features, such as Radiosity, INFO www.maxon.net attended our graduation ceremony in Leeds Town Hall. We’d finished our degrees in Graphic Art and Design and were taking our first tentative steps into the Big Wide World – both living at home, skint, on the dole, and trying to work out what the hell we were supposed to do next. We knew we wanted to keep working together and to do our own thing, but we had no idea how to go about it. The problem is, many university courses don’t offer the kind of advice and support graduates need at this time in order to enter the world of freelancing. Yes, a few lucky design students may get work placements with large companies through their universities, but illustrators in particular seem to be left to fend for themselves in the scary freelance world of approaching

Paint and fine-sketch effects are clients, presenting portfolios, chasing invoices and dealing easy to recreate with Maxon’s with those lovely folks at the Inland Revenue. Courses should finely configured plug-in. start addressing the practical realities we all face, as well as the creative ones. Illustrators are usually employed on a freelance basis, so the best kind of work experience you’re going to get is when you go out there and do it yourself! Be prepared for a period of LEARNING CURVE sorting out your portfolio, self-promotion, knock-backs and WHETHER YOU’RE INTERESTED IN ILLUSTRATION, 3D, WEB skintness. All of these negative things pale into insignificance DESIGN OR VIDEO, YOU’LL FIND A COURSE HERE TO SUIT when you have the buzz of getting your first proper job, or receiving some positive feedback from somebody you respect. AQUENT MERIDIAN The thing to keep in mind is that now is a really good time to London Henley, Oxfordshire be setting up freelance. It’s tough to get started, sure, but Aquent runs scheduled and privately Meridian runs a wide range of graphics, Web organised training across a full range of and programming courses from its own there’s currently a boom in design awareness and illustration creative apps. Courses are limited to four studio – and on-site for corporate clients. – and there’s a high demand for fresh, innovative and exciting students. Certifications include Adobe, Intro to Director work. We’ve found that the industry is very receptive and Maxon and Quark. 15-16 January, £495+ encouraging to new talent. At the moment, it’s just a case of Photoshop Advanced Intro to Photoshop making yourself known to the correct people, via lots of careful 28 January, £200+ 15-16 January, £495+ research. You’ll probably find that most people are like-minded www.aquent.co.uk www.meridiantraining.com and easily approachable. And once you start to build a reputation, things have a habit of snowballing. IDEAL TRAINING TRANSMEDIA The one piece of advice that we’d give to anybody thinking Banbury, Oxfordshire London, Bristol A certified Adobe training provider, Ideal Transmedia runs scheduled and bespoke of starting out is to get yourself ready, then jump in headfirst. runs a limited selection of graphics-related courses covering Web development, graphic You need to be 110 per cent committed, as the only way to courses, centring on Adobe’s Creative Suite. design and DTP apps from its Greenwich learn the ropes is through personal experience. We’ve had Corporate training is also provided. studios or on-site by arrangement. our fair share of knockbacks and low points, but if you keep Quark to InDesign Photoshop Fundamentals focused and positive then you’re halfway there. Register 29-30 January, £450+ 7-8 January, £445 yourself as being self-employed, keep on the right side of the PhotoshopBasic Flash MX 2004 Rich Media design taxman and enjoy being your own boss – especially setting 25-26 February, £450+ 8-9 January, £445 your personal working hours! www.its-ideal.co.uk www.transmedia.co.uk INFO You’ll find TADO on 0114 230 6271 and [email protected]. Visit www.tado.co.uk or Site Gallery, 1 Brown Street, Sheffield, S1 2BS

Computer Arts_January2004 17 Hannes Hayha’s Doorsteps, winner of A CALENDAR OF the Flash ESSENTIAL RELEASES, category. EVENTS (AND WISHFUL THINKING) FOR ALL DIGITAL CREATIVES JANUARY Computer Arts Projects 54 The Masterclass issue. Out 8 January Apple Releases £150 iPod and heads for world domination Computer Arts 93 On sale 22 January ATI and NVIDIA Both ship new pro workstation graphics cards Nikon and Olympus Still waiting for affordable SLR digital cameras from these manufacturers Photoshop Elements 3 Adobe reveals the new Elements, with Grigoris Leontiades won the Best tools borrowed from Photoshop CS Non-professional Film BAF award for 1+1. FEBRUARY The Haunted Mansion Disney’s BRADFORD Eddie Murphy flick should hit UK cinemas on 13 February ANIMATION FESTIVAL Computer Arts Projects 55 Designing the perfect portfolio. On sale 5 February AWARDS Top industry figures reward fresh animation talent combustion 3 Discreet finally ships its premier app for the Mac ovember saw the National Museum of breakdowns – as a video for his band, Lodgers. “The main FreeHand MX 2004 Will Photography, Film and Television hosting the character came straight from the toilet signs I’ve always Macromedia update its much-loved illustrating tool? tenth annual Bradford Animation Festival Awards, admired. Alcohol is also great source of inspiration,” Computer Arts 94 N where a panel of industry judges selected seven explains Hayha. On sale 19 February winners from over 600 international entries. Guest speakers Other winners included Grigoris Leontiades, who shined CorelDRAW Corel ships a new included subversive animator Bill Plympton, and Philip Hunt, in the Best Non-professional Film category with his version of the graphics suite Creative Director of Studio AKA. thoughtful 1+1, and Dad’s Dead, Chris Shepherd’s multi- incorporating Kai’s Vector Tools Star of the show, and clear winner of the Flash category, award winning piece, which took away the Best Professional was Hannes Hayha’s Doorsteps. The Finnish director created Film award. Check out the full shortlist at the BAF Website. ■ MARCH the piece – a hilarious cycle of booze, cigarettes and INFO www.nmpft.org.uk/BAF Computer Arts 95 On sale 18 March Softimage|XSI Major update? Cinema 4D R9 Maxon announces THE GREATEST version 9 of its acclaimed 3D tool Maya 6 Should be here by now. STORY NEVER TOLD Or at least version 5.5… COMPETITION Win top software and world fame Computer Arts Projects 56 On sale from 4 March ere’s your chance to show off those Flash skills, DVD Studio Pro 2.5 Apple’s courtesy of The Greatest Story Never Told, an .5 upgrade finally arrives H online competition inviting you to submit original 19-inch widescreen laptops animations between two and 20 minutes long. Due to hit the shelves now The four winners will each receive international coverage for their work on US TV series Flash TV, in magazines such APRIL as Computer Arts and .net, and online at the competition Cinema 4D R9 Expected to be in Website. If that isn’t incentive enough, then check out the beta testing right now prizes: a lifetime of free Web hosting from Media Temple, Computer Arts Projects 57 plus copies of Studio MX 2004 and 3ds max 6. On sale 1 April Devised by FlashTV.com, the competition aims to Director MX 2004 The multimedia demonstrate what a great storytelling medium Flash MX can giant is revitalised for a new era Computer Arts 96 On sale 15 April be. There are 16 genre categories in all, so take your pick and Shrek 2 In last production stages get creative. The closing date is 15 January 2004. ■ INFO www.thegreateststorynevertold.com

18 Computer Arts_January2004 3d software leader

Our users don’t always have the right version… hts reserved. Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. and 3ds max are trademarks or registered Autodesk Autodesk Canada Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product or trademarks belong to their respective holders. © Copyright 2003 Autodesk, Inc. rig

Even as you read this, someone is reporting a company using cracked copies of 3ds max™.That company could end up paying a hefty fine as well as suffering the embarrassment of being caught. Could that be your company? On the other hand, if you’re one of over 150 000 legal 3ds max users and you’re tired of being in competition with companies who don’t buy their software, call the BSA on 0800 510510 or visit www.bsa.org to access your local site. There is a reward up to £ 10 000 for information leading to a successful settlement. www.discreet.com traps) to compensate for the heavy font’s acute GUEST FONT SHOWCASE intersections. The results prompted him to develop Lee Fasciani, the designer of this month’s guest font, Napier, Napier further. “I expanded on this feature,” elaborates Fasciani, “adding it to many of the details the thinking behind his simple yet elegant typeface characters I’d already made, creating some suitably quirky glyphs. “I wanted to design a robust, compact font requirement to obtain uniqueness,” he says. “It’s a And the name itself? “It doesn’t reflect the font’s that contains some interesting and notable personal challenge…” design or inherent characteristics,” he says. “It’s characteristics,” explains T.26 typographer Lee While creating and adjusting the letter-forms, named after a good friend of mine, Lee Napier.” Fasciani. So what drives him to create? “A he began to incorporate subtle indentations (ink INFO www.t26.com

20 Computer Arts_January2004 aß+?‰™Í Ï Ô ‰Ä ͆j W”¬jÍj ÍjÞÍÖÁj ͝ wÁ Ï ?Á͉ÄÍÄ^ ?Ä ÖÄja Mß .™ß +‰WÍÖÁjÄ ”?~jݝÁÄ± +?‰™Í Áj?‰Ä͉W ”?ÍjÁ‰?Ä ‰j j?͆jÁß Ä‰™^ WÁÁaja ”jÍ? ?™a Mj?ÄÍß w‰™~jÁ™?‰Ä a‰ÁjWÍß ™ ͝ ߝÖÁ Ï ”ajÄ^ ‰™ Á?ßÍÁ?Wj ¶Ö?‰Íß± +Á‰Wja ŽÖÄÍ Ì|šš ‰™W 7
0^ aß+?‰™Í Ï ‰™Ä a‰ÁjWÍß Í ?ß?^ ÏaÄ ”?Þ^ ‰~†Í8?Üj ?™a !
| ± Á ajÍ?‰Ä W? å¤yÔy Ȥo¤o¤ Á j”?‰ ‰™wK”?ޝ™W”¬ÖÍjÁ±W±Ö ”?~j _ÔååÏ Mß
± ?a?ÄÄjÁ™‰ PRIZE FIRST PRIZE: A3 MIDNITE INTUOS2 WORTH £703

graphics tablet is essential to any digital artist, whether you’re into illustration, graphic design PRIZES or photo-retouching – giving you a natural A way of painting, drawing strokes and editing WORTH images. This month, we’ve teamed up with Wacom to WIN bring you the chance of winning one of three ultra- £1460 desirable graphics tablets – a simply gargantuan A3 model, plus one A4 and one A5 Intuos2 tablet. The Intuos2 range from Wacom offers some of the best graphics tablets on the market. They provide WACOM 1024 pressure-sensitivity levels and absolute pinpoint positioning, meaning you can rely on them to always be accurate when working to tight deadlines. Offering new digital over-sampling technology to track input devices, the tablets prove accurate and reliable; even TABLETS! in the most demanding of creative environments. All the tablets we’re giving away come complete with Three Wacom tablets to be won in an Intuos2 grip pen and mouse; the former features a new ergonomic shape and a rubberised grip area, being our fantastic competition optimally balanced for freehand work. The 4D mouse, with

22 Computer Arts_January 2004 Competition

SECOND PRIZE: A4 REGULAR PLATINUM INTUOS2 PRIZE WORTH £458 THIRD PRIZE: A5 PLATINUM INTUOS2 PRIZE WORTH £299

the A3 and A4 prizes, now comes with a fingerwheel, improved ergonomics and a rubberised sculpted grip QUESTION area. The third prize A5 tablet comes with a Wacom WHAT IS THE ACTIVE AREA ABOUT 2D mouse, for easily navigating around your desktop when you’re not using the stylus. OF THE INTUOS2 A3 WE’RE Wacom has donated three tablets for the lucky GIVING AWAY? Founded in 1983, Wacom has winners. First prize is an A3 Midnite Intuos2. This huge established itself as a world tablet (12x18-inches active area) is ideal for anyone TO ENTER market leader for graphics interested in digital art and design, offering maximum Try the easy way, via our Website. tablets, and a pioneer in the drawing area. Second prize is an A4 Regular Intuos 2 1) Put the Computer Arts CD into your CD drive. development of the pen as a Platinum – often the size of choice for professional 2) On the Contents screen, click Compo. computer input device. The artists and designers. The third prize on offer here is an 3) Enter Wacom as the competition name, fill in the rest of the form, then click Submit Entry. If you don’t have Web access, you can still enter by sending us your answer on a company’s mission is to create A5 model, a compact yet accurate tablet for anyone postcard to: Wacom competition, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW. a natural innovative interface involved in digital creativity. These are stunning tools Please include your address and a telephone number so we can contact you if you win. between computers and users. that you cannot afford to be without, so why not try and It has successfully evolved, get your hands on one for free! THE RULES making the digital working Three great prizes for three lucky winners – and The closing date is 22 January 2004. Employees of Wacom and Future Publishing, their environment more natural, all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning agents and families are not permitted to enter. Multiple entries are not accepted. The editor’s decision is final and there are no cash alternatives. No other correspondence ergonomic and flexible, so that is answer the simple question and drop us a line will be entered into. If you are entering by post and do not wish any of the companies computer technology can be in the usual way. Either enter online at our Website involved in this competition to contact you with further offers, please indicate this on used for a wider variety of by going to www.computerarts.co.uk/competitions your entry. We will not pass your details on to third parties. ■ tasks by everyone. or simply send us a postcard.

INFO For more information on Wacom and its line of graphics tablets, point your browser at www.wacom-europe.com

Computer Arts_January 2004 23 SHORTCUTS

application of choice, with intelligent different ink combinations, such as Cyan features demonstrating that Adobe has and Magenta, or Black and UV VARNISH. INDESIGN CS been listening to what designers actually This way it’s possible to tell quickly and want. Take, for example, the job of visually that spot colour is going to Working with spot colours used to be fraught with producing a magazine cover, with a spot overprint correctly. difficulties. Now, however, thanks to InDesign CS’s UV varnish highlighting the text in a Photoshop image. Previously, this new ability to import spot channels in Photoshop involved exporting the image in the files and preview colour plates within the app itself, cumbersome DCS (Desktop Colour crossed fingers at repro time are no longer required Separation) format invented by Quark, which enabled spot channels to be preserved and output at the repro stage. nlike designing for the Web, But it was notoriously difficult to preview, where corrections can be made especially on-screen. after the fact, designing for print Now, it’s a much more straightforward Ualways produces one heart- process. Open a CMYK image in stopping moment after another as the Photoshop, create a new channel and deadline approaches. One of the main name this something the printer’s going causes for tension is wondering if colours to understand at press time, such as UV If all this clicking on and off plates seems will print correctly – in particular, difficult- VARNISH. You can now design using the like overkill, then you can quickly preview to-gauge effects, such as overprints, traps, new alpha channel, filling it with text or overprints only by enabling the Overprint rich blacks, varnishes and spot colours. images that get previewed on-screen in Preview (View>Overprint Preview). Best of There’s no worse feeling than opening the colour of your choice (varnishes are all, you can continue to work in this mode box after box of annual reports, only to normally transparent). The next stage is to if you want, which gives a more accurate discover that the metallic ink on the cover convert the alpha channel to a spot colour impression of what the finished, printed has knocked out the colour underneath channel by selecting the Channel Options page will look like. You can easily toggle rather than overprinting it. Often, it’s too and choosing Spot Colour. You can adjust overprinting off and on for objects that late or too expensive (and usually both) to the solidity of the spot colour so that a have been created in InDesign from the do anything about it. The professional semi-opaque varnish appears transparent; Attributes palette (Window>Attributes). edition of Adobe Acrobat 6 has some it doesn’t affect the transparency of the excellent proofing tools which enable you spot channel itself, only how it is to check plates and preview overprints, previewed in Photoshop. but wouldn’t it be great to be able to do that from within InDesign, so you could make changes there and then? The new version of InDesign, recently launched as part of Adobe’s new Creative Suite, enables you to do exactly that. What’s more, its handling of spot colours has improved so that it’s now possible to combine inks such as a spot colour and a varnish, or a spot and a process colour, to broaden the range of colours available in a two-colour print design. InDesign also With InDesign’s ability to change what imports and prints duotone, tritone and the underlying paper colour is – by quadtone PSD files, as well as PSD and double-clicking the [Paper] swatch in the TIFF files containing spot channels. WOULDN’T IT Having saved the file as a PSD, it can be Swatches palette and using the CMYK imported into an InDesign frame on the sliders to approximate a cream paper, for BE GREAT TO BE page. The spot colour appears as it did in example – you have unbeatable visual ABLE TO CHECK Photoshop, but it’s now possible to check feedback on what the page will look like PLATES AND all the plates are present and correct and when it rolls off the press. PREVIEW overprinting as expected. It’s not perfect, there’s no easy way to Open up the new Separations preview trapping yet, and designers OVERPRINTS Preview palette (Window>Output wanting to check the halftone screen will FROM WITHIN Preview>Separations) and you should still have to use Acrobat, but compared to INDESIGN, SO see that in addition to the normal Cyan, the dark days before InDesign arrived, it YOU COULD Magenta, Yellow and Black plates, there is takes most of the guess-work out of While QuarkXPress increasingly feels like an additional plate called UV VARNISH. By working with spot colours. MAKE CHANGES an archaic and expensive option, InDesign clicking on the small View icons next to the INFO Expertise supplied by Jason Arber, is on course to take the lead as the layout THERE AND THEN? plate names, it’s possible to preview [email protected]

24 Computer Arts_January2004

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGICTORCH www.magictorch.com

26 Computer Arts_January2004 Illustration secrets

ILLUSTRATION SECRETS UNVEILED

The choice of style, colour, composition and technique is integral to a project’s success or failure. We talk to professional illustrators, agencies and designers to find out how they make those all-important decisions

As well as mastering the tools needed to spreads, bottle labels or billboards. As create striking and effective illustrations, well as persuading the people involved there are other considerations when it to spill the beans on the software and comes to good design: developing a techniques, we’ve dug even deeper into sense of great composition, an effective the hows and whys of the project. We colour scheme suitable for your target asked about the brief, the thought audience, and a professional finish – to processes, challenges and results. name a few. There’s also inspiration and We hope this feature whets your concept, of course; spending half an hour creative appetite, as there’s plenty more staring at your screen without touching in this issue to sharpen your knowledge the mouse could be seen as wasting time of composition and technique – not just by the onlooker (or more specifically, the for print, but Web, video and 3D, too. employer), but these thought marathons Read on over the next five pages before can save hours of alterations, keep an heading right back to pages 4 and 5 to image on track and generate some choose where to aim your newly inspired all-important ideas. creativity at next. We’ve found four very different INFO Thanks to Patrick Morgan, Jonas Bergstrand, Phil projects, all involving illustration in Marshall, Jon Hallowell and Rob Brearley. Words by Vicki various forms – large corporate editorial Atkinson and Jez Turner, [email protected]

EDITORIAL ADVERTISING PACKAGING POSTERS SELFRIDGES p28 EUROSTAR p30 ORB DRINKS p31 ATTIK p32

Computer Arts_January2004 27 CORPORATE EDITORIAL For Patrick Morgan, who recently created this Selfridges’ brochure, successful corporate design is about spontaneity – and understanding your art director

Name: Patrick Morgan atrick Morgan’s route to working on understands that spontaneity in illustration Website: www.debutart.com the Selfridges project wasn’t as is very important,” says Morgan. “She’s Client: Selfridges straightforward as you might think. aware that the illustrator should be Client Website: P www.selfridges.com “I was contacted by Selfridges through allowed to incorporate some of their own Project: Corporate brochure a design agency, and told that I was ideas and style, even if the idea has been Software: Photoshop shortlisted to illustrate the Selfridges fully approved.” and Illustrator Bio: Patrick Morgan began his annual report,” he explains. “After This was a project that allowed for some career as a freelance designer competing against over 80 other flexibility, so Morgan could really exercise after leaving Kingston University, illustrators, Selfridges chose to go with his talents without worrying too much London. He now lives in both my style and way of working.” about reaching a narrow target audience. London and New York, and has worked for clients such as Clients often have a reputation for “Selfridges is a brand that wants to look Gordon’s Gin, Levi’s, British not thinking on the same wavelength as cool, so they allowed me to broaden the Airways and The Body Shop. designers and illustrators, but this wasn’t project’s horizon and push the boundaries He is also currently working with the case with Selfridges. “After winning as far as possible.” Hewlett-Packard as a consultant on large-format printing. the job I had a brief with the designer, Cat Despite being given a month to work on Bailey. I have great respect for her, as she the project, he got straight to work. “The

Above: This striking illo advertises ‘Body Craze’, Selfridges body image promotion.

below left: Patrick Morgan’s graffiti fashion illustration is both cool and stylish.

Below: This illustration also featured in the annual report, and illustrated a spread on Birmingham’s new store – clad in 16,000 aluminium discs.

28 Computer Arts_January2004 Illustration secrets

PHOTOSHOP IN PROGRESS

Patrick Morgan reveals how to produce a screen-print effect

Take a photo of the texture that you want to 1use in your artwork with a digital camera. In Photoshop, expand it to the size of the area you wish to cover. Ensure your image is RGB, even if your final artwork has to be produced in CMYK.

Next, convert the image to greyscale by 2selecting it and using the Desaturate tool. After greyscaling the image, increase the contrast so you get an opaque finish to your selection; select Levels and increasing the amount of black while eliminating the midtones.

Above: Set against plenty of striking white space, these two illustrations began and ended the Selfridges 2003 report on its front and back covers.

Left: This shopper is about to enter the Once you’ve made the blacks black and the newly transformed whites white, you are imitating a film being Oxford branch of 3 Selfridges, and Patrick produced by a screen printer. You will need to Morgan used her to smooth off your selection so your print doesn’t illustrate this revamped become blurry after being resized. Ensure the store in the brochure. foreground colour is black and the background is white, then reduce blurring by selecting the first thing I did was sit in Selfridges and that this second point always has to be Clone Stamp tool. Increase your brightness/ write down how I felt about being a part addressed – after all, he is doing a job for contrast and don’t overdo the smoothness. of the buzz and what Selfridges was all a client. “I’ve learnt from experience how about. Then on my second visit I sat you have to understand your art director, around sketching and taking snapshots and realise they are the one running the with my camera.” This initial research job and paying the fee,” he explains. “The work acts as the grounding for Morgan’s shapes, styles and ways of portraying your unique style – his illustrations created subject are important. You need to get the with Photoshop and Illustrator on his balance right so the illustration doesn’t Dual Processor G4. give the wrong message, even though

Now simply open the CMYK document you “THE SHAPES, STYLES AND WAYS OF PORTRAYING YOUR SUBJECT 4wish to work with and select the black areas ARE IMPORTANT. YOU NEED TO GET THE BALANCE RIGHT SO THE from your texture with the Magic Wand. Once ILLUSTRATION DOESN’T GIVE THE WRONG MESSAGE, EVEN THOUGH the areas are masked, drag the mask across to YOU’VE PROVIDED THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS…” the CMYK image with a new layer created, then fill with a colour (here, white was used). This gives you a screen-print look with an opaque “My technique is a combination of you’ve provided the right ingredients – filling, unlike using the Multiply filter, which traditional drawing combined with screen- hard-edge shapes may create ridgelines gives a semi-translucent effect. printing and digital colouring/rendering. or solidarity, while circular or smooth First I draw my subject matter on location edges may give the feeling of calm and photograph it for back-up, then and tranquility.” scan the work in and clean it up. When At the end of the day though, none of deciphering my colour scheme it’s usually this matters unless the client is happy down to two things: the mood I’m in and with the final product – which Selfridges the type of mood I’m trying to convey.” was. “The client loved the job and the While Morgan was offered a lot of response has been great, with numerous creative freedom in the project, he agrees shortlistings for awards.” ■

Computer Arts_January2004 29 ILLUSTRATOR ADVERTISING IN MOTION Jonas Bergstrand takes us behind the scenes on the making Jonas Bergstrand uses Illustrator, of Eurostar’s recent billboard and bus campaign with his own touch of je ne sais quoi

Bergstrand plans his imagery by looking at photographs or sketching ideas on paper, then 1 Name: Jonas Bergstrand urostar is known for its use of The colour of the type was chosen draws the objects directly into Illustrator – not a Website: contemporary illustration in because blue tied the text and Eurostar scanner in sight. Here, in Illustrator he begins to www.jonasbergstrand.com advertising campaigns, and it logo together. “All this enabled us draw the moped by setting anchor points with the www.centralillustration.com E Pen tool and adjusting it until he‘s satisfied. “Even Client: Eurostar, TBWA recently called upon the talents of ad to have lots going on in the adverts though I’ve worked with Illustrator for several years, Client Website: agency TBWA and Swedish illustrator without being too crowded,” adds I only tend to use the Pen tool and my mouse.” www.eurostar.com Jonas Bergstrand. Bergstrand. The hierarchy of image, Project: Billboard advertisement “They described what they had text and logo is clear on the adverts – Software: Illustrator liked best about their past campaigns if a poster is going past on a double- Bio: Freelance illustrator so we could all start at the same spot,” decker bus, you don’t want your Jonas Bergstrand lives and recounts Bergstrand, who had worked customer to miss the message. works in Stockholm. After graduating he became with Eurostar once before, and been The ads were produced in Illustrator Assistant Designer to one contacted again due to his distinctive 9 on a Mac G4. “I’ve used the program of his teachers, gaining a style. “It’s a huge source of inspiration since version 5,” admits Bergstrand. solid understanding of the when your input is appreciated. “The good thing about Illustrator EPS industry. Since then he’s joined the Central Illustration Usually everything has been decided files, is that since the images are vector Agency, and attracted in advance when you’re brought in graphics they can be up or downscaled “Once I’ve drawn the shape, I choose some clients such as Time Warner, on an ad campaign.” without any resolution troubles. This colours and add a Gradient Fill.” The campaign’s 2 Wallpaper* magazine The billboard and bus campaign makes the files very flexible, and that’s colours feature an orange moped on a yellow and Polaroid. would have a French flavour, and important when the agency has to background, and the tones of the bike vary to avoid too much flat colour. “By double-clicking on the entice Brits to Paris with a series of produce a big number of adverts in lots colour square on the right, you can play around with special offers and Gallic imagery. of different sizes, all in no time at all.” colours until you’re happy. Using this method, you “Eurostar had some demands about For such a seemingly simple can sometimes get quite a rough, stripy effect, what objects should be included – composition there was a lot of work especially if the image has huge dimensions like a billboard.” To combat this, Bergstrand takes the “I SUGGESTED YELLOW BECAUSE I KNEW THE ADVERTS WOULD image into Photoshop. RUN ON LONDON BUSES, AND IT’S VERY EYE-CATCHING ON RED. IT MAY NOT BE VERY ‘FRENCH’, BUT IT’S CERTAINLY THE ULTIMATE SUMMER COLOUR…”

scooters, Eiffel tower, cafés and involved. As with most briefs, it’s up to boules.” The colour palette evolved the illustrator to bring all the ideas and through collaboration with TBWA. “I suggestions together and convey them suggested yellow because I knew the in a handful of images, something that adverts would run on London buses, Bergstrand has achieved with this and it’s very eye-catching on red. It campaign. For more on how he may not be very ‘French’, but it’s approaches a job, cast your eye left to “I don‘t like to work in too many layers, as certainly the ultimate summer colour.” the Illustrator in motion walkthrough. ■ 3sometimes you might waste time working on areas of an image that won‘t be seen,” says Bergstrand. While Notre Dame Cathedral is on a separate layer, he kept the woman and the moped on the same layer to get the positioning right, ensuring that he didn’t waste time on areas that would be hidden behind the bike.

30 Computer Arts_January2004 Illustration secrets

PACKAGING OLLIE IN ACTION oakwood dc excels in illustrative packaging – in this case The skater brand of drinks had a for a range of sports drinks for skater boys and girls clear target audience and identity

The main considerations for this job were to 1make the characters funky and cool to appeal to youngsters, but also to get a pose that would fit the unusual bottle shape. A sketch style suited this. “I also had to try to imagine what it would look like when wrapped around the bottle,” says oakwood dc illustrator Pete Smith.

“I decided the background wouldn’t have 2 keylines, in case it competed with the foreground character,” Smith explains. “It’s just flat colours to make it simple, and is created as a separate file in a strip so that it could be positioned as required by the designers.”

Company: oakwood dc akwood dc has been with distribution at sporting events. Ollie Website: Orb since the packaging is aimed at skateboarders, “Simply www.oakwood-dc.com Ocompany’s inception two years because no one has aimed a drink at Client: Orb packaging ago. Starting with a logo, Website these kids before,” explains Marshall, Client Website: www.orbpkg.com and sales brochure, more recently the who chose vector-style flat colours for Project: Bottle label design team has spearheaded label designs the highly youthful audience. “We had Software: Photoshop of some very original and highly the freedom to do something really and Illustrator challenging bottle shapes. illustrative and colourful to represent Bio: Starting up as a design “Once happy with the sketch, I scanned it Orb conceived and patented the the skating scene.” With the Big Ed agency in 1996, oakwood dc 3 and worked in Illustrator to create the line has now expanded into three shape and launched a range of soft range of kids’ drinks, oakwood dc work for the characters. I chose a dynamic thick divisions, offering 3D and drinks for distribution in Europe and used the round area for the kid’s and thin style, which takes careful work to get multimedia design, as well as the US. Once the brands had been head, with outer space or rally right and is worth spending time over.” Smith cutting-edge graphic design. It has offices in Bristol, London discussed, Co-founder and Creative racing backgrounds. “This one was also uses two different methods. “Either trace and The Midlands. Clients Director Phil Marshall, Project particularly hard, as the scenery had around the shape of your line or draw each line include Penguin, Warner Bros, Manager Sophie Blackman, the team to go all the way round the bottle.” as a single stroke, then convert it to an outline Williams F1, Wella, Dorling of designers and freelance illustrator But the design wasn’t the end of path, adjusting it to thick and thin afterwards.” Kindersley and Mattel. Pete Smith set to work. They’ve since the process. The unusual shape of tailored some fantastically illustrative the labels meant extra challenges. designs to suit a range of target “After we had designed flat artwork in markets. “They wanted youth- Photoshop and Illustrator came the orientated labels with a European feel, task of distorting it to fit the printing

“THEY WANTED YOUTH-ORIENTATED LABELS WITH A EUROPEAN FEEL, SO THIS IS WHAT WE WORKED TOWARDS… WE HAD THE FREEDOM TO DO SOMETHING REALLY ILLUSTRATIVE AND COLOURFUL TO REPRESENT THE SKATING SCENE”

so this is what we worked towards,” techniques. We had to stretch and Now the crucial lining was complete, says Marshall. shape the design as far as we could 4 colouring up was a matter of using a layer The ball shape at the top of the before the repro house made its behind the line layer to build up a stacking order, bottle (see the 3D renders above) was final changes.” using a combination of blends and darker a perfect springboard for ideas. Power Clever ideas and real knowledge of colours for the shadows. The result is a clean, Up, the sports drink range, features a the target market has led to the design simple design that is clearly orientated towards baseball, football or basketball in the of these funky new bottles. Look out the youth market. rounded neck, and was designed for for one in a fridge near you soon. ■

Computer Arts_January2004 31 FLOWER POWER POSTER Rob Brearley explains how to When French fashion magazine Étape commissioned Attik to create one corner of his poster create three posters, the theme was simply the word ‘tomorrow’ Take a high-resolution photograph of a flower, 1focusing on the petals. Draw a clean path around the flower and leave out any obstructing elements. Make an anti-aliased selection around the path with no feather, then copy and paste the contents onto a new layer and delete the background.

Duplicate the layer and add a mask. Start to cut 2into the flower using the Lasso, creating abstract shapes. Apply the selection as a mask. Repeat this a few times to varied parts of the flower, creating different shapes. Apply the masks to each of the layers once they are completed, retaining the layers.

(Left) Rob Brearley’s poster, with a hand-made feel. See the walkthrough for how to create the flowers.

(Above) Grant Dickson’s illustrative take on the theme, with the line: ”I no longer possess a cassette Create a new A3 300dpi canvas. Drag all the player. This can be seen as progress.” 3flower petals into the new canvas. Start to duplicate and transform the petals, creating a tree Name: Attik he French fashion magazine futuristic 3D models, the team created shape. When the tree begins to take shape, merge Website: www.attik.com “ Étape approached us to do a three unpolished, fashion-orientated Client: Étape magazine the layers and add more individual petals to the series of designs for its 100th designs. “What happens tomorrow is a Project: Self-promotional T branches, gradually scaling them down in size. poster design anniversary edition,” explains Attik’s consequence of what happened in the Software: Photoshop Creative Director Jon Hallowell. With past, so we decided to focus on this,” and FreeHand two days to complete the posters, explains Hallowell. Bio: Huddersfield-based Attik has been at the which would be printed as spreads in “We wanted to avoid the obvious. forefront of experimental the centenary issue, designers Rob Graphics seem to be associated with design for nearly 20 years. Brearley, Grant Dickson and Gary 3D at the moment – we think there’s a Commercially its portfolio Horton set to work on the brief, taking textile revolution,” adds Brearley. is extensive – featuring print, Web and broadcast work for a poster each. Brearley’s poster (shown above; clients such as Nike, Virgin Well known for its experimental top left) certainly reflects this. With a Mobile, Toyota and Fox. projects, such as Noise, Attik relishes composition of manipulated images the opportunity to constantly push its of petals, old drawings of cherubs, tea Merge the layers and duplicate. Apply Free boundaries. This project allowed the stains and type made from insulation 4Transform to the new layer, then scale to fit the original tree in shape and size as an extra branch. team to do this, and to merge the tape, it has a hand-made feel. The main Repeat this until the tree is of a reasonable size, then experimental and the commercial to element of the composition features in merge the layers. This can be repeated, depending great effect. The brief itself was focused one corner, and is the result of early on the desired complexity. on the theme Tomorrow, and there sketches. “An image doesn’t have to were no more restrictions. “It’s the kind shout from all over the canvas – this of brief every creative likes to get,” says time it worked when we focused on Brearley. However, a completely free one area,” Brearley explains. commission brings its own difficulties: Unusually, all three posters “You don’t tend to know when to stop. contained pink elements, despite being You’re beholden to your own whims,” very different compositions. “We didn’t says Hallowell. even realise we’d done this – it must They began with a meeting have been a subliminal effect of the This is Gary Horton’s discussing how to approach the theme, old themes,” Brearley admits. “Gary ‘Tomorrow’-themed poster and their decision was unconventional. Horton’s poster was inspired by his for Étape – inspired by his grandparents’ wallpaper. While many would go for shiny, grandparents’ wallpaper.” ■

32 Computer Arts_January2004

THE IN-DEPTH GUIDE FOR DIGITAL CREATIVES

PLUS EXCLUSIVE VIDEO TUTORIAL ON THE CD

CREATIVE SUITE IN DEPTH Master the new features in all the Adobe CS applications with our world-first 47-page step-by-step project

Learn how to: • Use the new tools in Photoshop CS and Illustrator CS • Output for print and interactive PDF using InDesign CS • Integrate your workflow, from design to layout to Web • Incorporate alternative ideas right into your files as layers Plus: • Top designers reveal how CS will transform their work • Why they’re switching from QuarkXPress to InDesign

ISSUE 53 ON SALE NOW! Q&A SHORTCUTS

basic lighting properties. It’s certainly out. You can offset the sweep to create not a raytracing engine, but it creates a rings or hoops, subject to the same ILLUSTRATOR CS reasonable illusion of three dimensions. lighting controls as the extruded objects. To rotate the object in space, simply click Again, rotating your objects is a breeze. Adobe has revamped Illustrator with the biggest and drag a proxy cube in the dialog box or The simplest 3D effect of all is Rotate, change in years. It’s now possible to create true change the numerical values for the X, Y which pivots the flat 2D artwork in space and Z axes. You can also change the as if were printed on an acetate sheet. three-dimensional objects in vector format. perspective from 0 degrees (no Adjusting the lighting and perspective are Discover how to make the most of this exciting perspective) to 160 degrees (maximum about as exciting as this option gets. new feature with our hands-on tutorial perspective, just like a wide-angle lens). Together with the ability to map artwork Revolving creates a 3D shape by (see the walkthrough below), this simple sweeping a 2D object created in Illustrator approach to 3D is a boon to product hose who remember Adobe in a circle around a central axis. A 360- designers who need to create quick mock- Dimensions, and found it an degree sweep joins the two ends to create ups, and to illustrators who literally want accessible way to create simple a lathed 3D shape, such as a bottle. A to add a new dimension to their work.

3D shapes that could be imported revolve with a smaller angle can create INFO Expertise supplied by Jason Arber, T [email protected] into Illustrator or FreeHand, will now be a shape like a cake with a slice taken leaping for joy – Adobe has included all the functionality of Dimensions in the latest version of Illustrator CS. Dimensions was not an application for MAPPING ARTWORK creating complex scenes or objects like Maya, Strata 3Dpro or LightWave. It focused on extruding, revolving and rotating vector shapes, mapping artwork, applying simple lighting and outputting the result as crisp, resolution-independent PostScript files. This is all now an Illustrator Effect and can be easily accessed from the menu (Effects>3D). Adobe has wisely refrained from tinkering too much with the old functionality and Create the shape for a tin ready Select the tin shape and then interface, but has tidied up some of the 1to revolve around the left edge. 2 choose Revolve from the menu rough edges and made a few subtle Mapped artwork has to be a symbol, (Effects>3D>Revolve…) This sweeps improvements to the mix. so design something – in this case, a the shape around the left edge to create There are three ways to apply a 3D logo, which includes a Scribbled effect a 3D representation of a tin. You can see effect to your artwork: Extrude, Revolve and some live text – and drag it straight how some simple shapes create the and Rotate. Extrude extends a 2D shape into the Symbols palette. impression of a lip. you have created along an imaginary Z axis, so that a square becomes a cube, for example. The depth of the extrusion is controlled by the Extrude Depth slider (or a value entered into the box, which can be in any unit supported by Illustrator, such as points or millimetres). The extrusion is ‘capped’ by default, but can be ‘uncapped’, THIS SIMPLE which removes the front and back APPROACH TO surfaces to create a hollow appearance. You can also apply a bevel to the front 3D IS A BOON surface of the extruded shape. Illustrator TO DESIGNERS Click the Map Art button and step After clicking OK for the mapped ships with almost a dozen preset bevels WHO NEED TO through the surfaces until you find art, fine-tune and adjust the lighting that cover most eventualities, but it’s 3 4 CREATE QUICK the outside edge, which is indicated and perspective. as shown. Click OK also possible to create your own. The MOCK-UPS, AND with a red wireframe. The preview for the 3D Revolve Options, then depth of the bevel can be adjusted with shows a flattened version of the surface complete the illusion of 3D with a a slider or a value, and you can specify TO ILLUSTRATORS and the darkened area indicates what’s graduated background, and a shadow whether the bevel extends out of or into WHO LITERALLY obscured. Select your symbol from the created by blending two ovals set to the shape. dropdown menu and position it. a transparency value of Multiply. It’s also possible to apply basic WANT TO ADD A illumination to the shape from one or NEW DIMENSION more light sources, each with its own TO THEIR WORK

Computer Arts_January2004 35 www.123klan.com

ILLUSTRATION BY 123KLAN www.123klan.com

36 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

INTERFACE DESIGN COMBINING PHOTOSHOP AND FLASH Discover how to create an animated, interactive interface using Photoshop CS and Flash MX 2004 – two mighty design applications that are even better when used together

Photoshop and Flash are rarely thought of as natural partners. One is the undisputed champion of bitmap editing, the other is best known for its vector animation capabilities. With new versions of both products in the shops now, it’s a very good time to rethink that relationship, and this tutorial will show you why. Flash does do vector animation, but it also handles sound, video and bitmaps. As for Photoshop, the new release supports the export of ImageReady animations and graphics in Shockwave Flash format. Because Macromedia Flash only supports Photoshop files produced in versions 2.5 and 3, this apparently minor revision could actually change your whole way of working. You can composite animations in Photoshop, with all the bitmap editing benefits of that package, then add interactivity and timeline control in Flash. Use Flash to animate bitmaps? It’s not against the law. In fact, with careful optimisation and the use of vector animation to complement the bitmap elements, it’s possible to create Flash movies that don’t break the cardinal rules of Web design. In this tutorial we show you how to create a series of standard interface elements using Flash and Photoshop, with a hybrid look and feel that you can only get by combining the two packages.

INFO Words and expertise provided by Flash expert Karl Hodge. Contact him on [email protected]

ON THE CD All the files you need can be found on the cover CD in the Tutorial\ Interface design folder. The finished file incorporates a royalty-free stock photograph by Michael Connors from www.morguefile.com. These are all for personal training purposes only, and are not to be reproduced elsewhere.

Computer Arts_January2004 37 ^ INSIGHT

PART 1 OPTIMISING VECTOR ANIMATION You can draw with vectors in both Photoshop AND PLACING and ImageReady. If you include vector YOUR IMAGES components in your animations, those will be rendered as vectors in the resulting SWF file. First, we’ll get the basics right Given ImageReady’s narrow range of animation capabilities when compared to Flash, creating vector-only animation in Photoshop and ImageReady isn’t really a great idea – but including vector elements where possible may help to keep the resulting file size down and increasing editability.

With the Move tool selected, drag the layer 6 containing the image in bluelight.psd to your new image, positioning it to the left. Rename the Although Flash is great with vector images, layer ‘Light Off’. Select the Text tool, then use a sans 1 Photoshop can’t be beaten on bitmaps – and serif font set to 36 px to add the words ‘Blue Light’. it’s wise to do optimisation of any bitmap images destined for Flash in Photoshop beforehand, where you can see the effect of file compression in advance. Open the file background800.psd from the cover CD in Photoshop CS. Go to Window>Library, then drag the newly 4 imported JPEG file to the stage. Hit Ctrl+K (or Command+K on the Mac) to launch the Align panel. Align the image centrally on the stage. Save the file to the same folder as the original background image.

Use the Move tool to position the text as shown PART 2 FLASH 7 above, then go to Window>Workspace and ANIMATION IN choose ‘Interactivity Palette Locations’ – making the Animation and Layers palettes visible. Next, IMAGEREADY click the Duplicate Current Frame icon at the bottom Photoshop’s Web companion of the Animation Palette.

Go to File>Save For Web to save the document 2 as a JPEG. Select JPEG from the File Format menu and choose ‘Very High’ from the compression options. Paying close attention to areas of flat colour, make adjustments to the Quality slider.

Select the newly created frame 2 in the Animation 8 palette, then go to the Layers palette. Select the Light Off layer and choose Duplicate Layer from the palette menu. Name the layer ‘Light On’. Next, launch ImageReady CS. If you’ve still got 5 Photoshop open you can do this by clicking the Edit in ImageReady icon at the bottom of the Tools palette. Open the file bluelight.psd in ImageReady, then go to File>New to create a new document of 280x60 pixels with a transparent background.

Now save the file to a new folder on your hard 3 drive, then launch Flash MX 2004. Choose File>New. Click the Size button in the Properties panel and set the document size to 800x600. Go to File>Import To Library and browse for the JPEG file you optimised in Photoshop. Click the Add Layer Style icon on the Layers 9 palette while the duplicated layer is selected, and choose Colour Overlay. Choose a lighter shade of blue than the original light and set opacity to 40 per cent. You can also add a blue Outer Glow to this layer.

38 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial ^ INSIGHT

EMBEDDED URLS PART 3 FLASH Photoshop’s support for Shockwave Flash falls short of including ActionScripting features ANIMATION IN within the program. It won’t directly support PHOTOSHOP your rollovers either. In the tutorial we show you how to get around that, but you can embed Back into Photoshop, then URLs into areas of an image that will survive ImageReady, then Flash the SWF conversion process. Simply enter them into the Slice palette.

Go back to the Animation palette and select 10 frame 1. With the first frame selected, go to the Frames palette and switch off the Layer Visibility icon next to the Light On layer.

You can take advantage of Photoshop’s more 16 sophisticated features, and create a document which can then be imported into ImageReady to Switch to Flash MX 2004 and open the file you render as an animation. To learn how, begin by 13 created at the beginning of the tutorial. Go to opening the file ovendial.psd in Photoshop. File>Import and choose Import To Library. Browse for the SWF file you exported from Photoshop. When you’ve finished, open the Library panel in Flash.

Back in the Animation palette, select the Frame 11 Delay Time arrow at the bottom of the first frame and select ‘1 second’. Set the frame delay time for frame 2 to 0.5 of second. Press Play and you’ll see an animation of a flashing light.

Hopefully, the Shockwave file should have In the Layers palette, select the layer ‘dial’ 14 been imported in full, along with a series of 17 then choose Duplicate Layer from the supporting files. To tidy things up, create a new folder Palette menu. With the new layer selected, go to in the library by clicking on the New Folder icon at the Edit>Transform>Rotate. Rotate the dial image bottom of the palette and naming it ‘Logo’. Drag all counter-clockwise so the dial is pointing to the next the new items to this folder. dot down. Hit Enter to apply the transformation.

Go to File>Export and choose Macromedia 12 Flash SWF. In the dialog that appears, choose Preserve Appearance – a setting that will faithfully render your animation using bitmaps. You can also choose to embed the font you used in your animation to retain editability in Flash.

To place the animation in your movie, find the With the transformed layer still selected, 15 SWF file you imported in the library, then drag 18 choose Duplicate Layer from the Palette menu. and drop an instance of it a new layer on the stage, Hit Ctrl+Shift+T (or Command+Shift+T on the Mac) to positioning it as illustrated. To edit the file, double- move the dial around to the next dot. Continue in this click on it. In Symbol Editing mode you can resize the way until you’ve created six layers, each with the dial elements, change the font and add ActionScript to pointing at a different dot. with a gold effect gradient. frames. Save the file before continuing. Why? Because club promoters love gold!

Computer Arts_January2004 39 ^ INSIGHT

ROLLOVERS It’s a pity that ImageReady’s Flash export option doesn’t support standard rollovers, but it’s fairly easy to overcome if you have a copy of Macromedia Flash to hand. Here’s the quick lowdown. Create a two or three-stage rollover in ImageReady, exactly as you would normally, then export the resulting file to SWF format. In Flash, import the SWF, then access the clips Properties in the library. Convert the movie clip to a button. You can now edit the button and add any rollover actions you’d like. With the square shape selected, go to 23 Modify>Convert To Symbol and convert the Rename the layers dial 1-6. Go to Image> shape to a button – naming it ‘hotspot_btn’. With 19 Image Size and resize the document to 100x83 the instance of the button selected on stage, type pixels. Click the Edit In ImageReady icon to open the in the instance name ‘hotspot1’ in the Properties file in ImageReady. Open the Animation palette and panel. Set the alpha value of the button to 0 per add five more frames using the Duplicates Current cent in the Properties panel. Frame icon on the toolbar.

Double-click on the file to begin editing it. 22 Go to Window>Actions to open the Actions Editor and type in a ‘stop();’ command on each frame. Return to the main stage and, using the Rectangle tool with the stroke switched off in the Properties panel, draw a small square over the first dot of the dial. Drag five further instances of the button to the 24 stage from the library. Position each hotspot Select frame 2, and in the Layers palette, hide over a dot around the dial, naming the Instances 20 all the ‘dial’ layers apart from ‘dial 2’. Now hotspot 2-6 respectively. Select hotspot1 and add the select frame 2 and hide all the dial layers apart from following code in the Actions Editor: ‘dial 3’. Continue until each frame contains a different on (rollOver) { consecutive position on the dial, then export the this.anim_dial.gotoAndStop(1); animation in Macromedia Flash SWF format. }

FINAL STEP dd the same code to the second button, A changing the frame number from 1 to 2. Continue with the remaining hotspots, changing the code to point to frames 3, 4, 5 and finally 6. When you test your movie, rolling over the hotspot should move the dial to its corresponding position.

In Flash, open the file already containing the 21background you optimised and the first animation you placed. Import the new SWF file into the library, again creating a new folder to keep all the elements tidy. Drag and drop an instance of the animation to the stage, positioning as above. Give it the instance name ‘anim_dial’ in the Properties panel.

^ INSIGHT TWEENING Yes, you can tween movement in ImageReady. Just create two animation frames, one with your layer elements in a start position and one with your layer elements in an end position. Select the first and click the Tween icon on the Animation palette; enter a number of frames of animation and Photoshop does the rest for you.

40 Computer Arts_January2004

42 Computer Arts_January2004 Profile

SUBLIMINAL ASSOCIATES

Subliminal Associate’s 32-page booklet for Sony – produced in Photoshop – showed the PlayStation “I want to do the next BMW brochure,” 2’s journey from Japan to the UK, says Jonathan Taylor-Horne. “I don’t and highlighted forthcoming games. want to do a record sleeve where you spend six months on it, have 20 meetings, and get paid three grand.” We talk to one mouthy design agency…

onathan Taylor-Horne – more commonly known as Jonny – isn’t a man to mince his words, particularly when it comes to discussing clients who perhaps fail to grasp the J company’s unique approach. His succinct summation of certain people in the music industry is refreshingly direct – and entirely unprintable. Taylor-Horne is at least speaking from experience. Before it gained its Associates, Subliminal cut its teeth in the music business, designing sleeves, logos and other promo art for a huge range of acts, most notably James. But times have changed and the company has diversified massively. Along with the videogame work, Subliminal Another interactive PS2 project for Associates has designed for the likes of Channel 4, Blue Marlin, the official magazine: “The idea was to create an environment akin to the English National Opera, Future Publishing and Tesco. No the original PS2 ‘Third Place’ ads,” longer content with mere print design, the company has also says Subliminal Associate’s snowploughed its way into Web and new media, and shows Jonathon Taylor-Horne. “The aim was to navigate the user around a few signs of stopping. monolithic, ever-changing 3D environment that felt enormous, aided by clever sound design and PRIMAL BEGINNINGS animation.” It was created using Subliminal was born back in July 1998, mere months before it form•Z, After Effects, Photoshop, made its first feature debut in Computer Arts. “I was working for Illustrator. “We shot the intro footage in London and Bristol, then another company in Bath,” explains Taylor-Horne. “I got sacked mixed it down to a 5.1 soundtrack from them, then a month later they said, ‘Why don’t you come in a professional edit suite.”

Computer Arts_January2004 43 gamble for SA. From achingly trendy muso design to, well, pictures of food? For Taylor- Horne, it’s logical: “When we worked for the music industry, it was fun and had a certain kudos: you could meet the band and hang out and it was exciting. But when you’ve done that once, the whole glamour thing soon wears off and you just think,’This is really dull and they’re all wankers.’ Whereas companies like Sony and Tesco; they’re just professional people.” Did you ever think you’d be saying this five Subliminal Associates was asked to design a range of back and start your own company and we’ll years ago? “No, no, I didn’t. I always said – and I T-shirts for the company Bench. Four were chosen to go bankroll it?’ So I did. Having spent two years hope it remains true now – that I never wanted into production: “We’re still waiting for the royalties!” with them, I decided to buy myself out of their to sell out, and I hope by doing something like control, and now we’ve been here, totally this [the Tesco catalogue] that we’re not. We got independent, for four years.” approached by Tesco and just said yes.” The record sleeve design work occupied SA Following a mini restructuring, there are now almost exclusively for a few months, until “it five people at SA, with two or three freelancers was suggested to me by someone at Future as needed. Two of those deal mainly with new [Publishing] that we get into videogames, business rather than design. “It’s quite key,” because a lot of the work wasn’t that great back says Creative Director Matt Seaman. “Even then. So we went and saw Sony and just said, when we’re busy, when we get to the end of a ‘Look, we’ve never done video game work in project it’s always a case of where’s the next our life but we’d like to give it a go.’ We got one. Projects can take from three days to five given the Cool Boarders job off of that – and, of months, as in the case of Primal, so you can course, built a relationship with Sony.” imagine you get so wrapped up in it you can And the partnership has paid off well; one of lose track of new stuff.” SA’s major jobs last year was the marketing “Sometimes it can take six months to get an campaign for high-profile PlayStation 2 title actual meeting, and six months to be given a

“BACK THEN, IT WAS FUN AND HAD A CERTAIN KUDOS… BUT WHEN YOU’VE DONE THAT ONCE, THE GLAMOUR THING WEARS OFF AND YOU JUST THINK: THIS IS DULL AND THEY’RE ALL WANKERS.” JONATHON TAYLOR-HORNE, CO-FOUNDER, SUBLIMINAL ASSOCIATES

Primal, which involved point-of-sale materials, brief, two months to win the pitch, and so on,” ad design, temporary tattoos and a heat- adds Taylor-Horne. “So you’re already a year or reactive cover for MCV, the game industry’s 18 months from the initial phone call.” retail trade journal. “That’s definitely true with videogames,” That was swiftly followed by the design for reckons Seaman. “New media is a hell of a lot the Tesco Christmas food catalogue, which, like quicker in actual turnaround, because there are the original Sony job, was something of a no out-costs. Also, a lot of the stuff we’ve done we’ve not actually been in competition with many other people; we give six or seven ideas and within two to three weeks we’re actually starting on the project.” So does that mean they never have to ring new clients for prospective work? “Oh no, we have to do that all the time,” Taylor-Horne says. “We’re getting more and more repeat business, though, from people like Sony. You’ve got to keep on banging away.” To that end, SA is taking on more of a partnering approach – hence the name change. “With Primal, as you can imagine, we got paid a nice fee,” says Taylor-Horne. “But at least half or maybe three-quarters of that goes straight to the printer. Because the good thing with Sony is

The point-of-sale artwork for Wipeout Fusion included giant boxes, shelf wobblers, A2 posters, banners and 3D trade press adverts that could be assembled in-store.

44 Computer Arts_January2004 Profile

SA designed this mini-mag and fold-out ‘snakes & ladders’-like boardgame, complete with figures and dice, to help promote Sony’s classic PS2 title Ico. This blend of the traditional and the modern gives a fun and unique ‘off-screen’ introduction to the game.

never really planned. “I have to be honest: I have no interest in the Web at all. I’m purely ink and paper,” says Taylor-Horne. “Whereas Seaman is all Websites and new media.” “Yeah, I’m more interested in the theory of making things move on-screen,” he chips in enthusiastically. “But I’ve always been a firm believer from day one, since I first grabbed a pencil, that if the idea is good enough it should be able to transcend every media. So it should be able to go from print to TV to new media to touch-screen displays and whatever. It’s all about the ideas.” SA has been working with comedian Reginald D Hunter Along with standard Websites, those ideas for over a year, and produced this campaign for the include a complete interface and DVD creation Edinburgh Festival, where he was nominated for the Perrier Award. The top image, originally shot in for PSM2 magazine, an interface for major Bath, almost caused as much controversy at the Fringe packaging design company Blue Marlin, as Hunter himself did (www.reginalddhunter.co.uk). and the titles for Channel 4’s Viva La Divas documentary. Subliminal Associates, though, isn’t always happy about the sort of briefs it that they let us handle the print side as well, gets for such projects. so it’s a complete solution. That’s something “The annoying thing about that is what we’re now offering; we can do as much or as people do, and what people want to do, is little as the client wants.” mimic print, which really does annoy the shit Seaman adds, “Out of core base of four or out of me,” Seaman says. “They want to put five companies which get things done, we’ve the same amount of text in, and it’s just not that

“WHAT PEOPLE DO, AND WHAT PEOPLE WANT TO DO, IS MIMIC PRINT, WHICH REALLY DOES ANNOY THE SHIT OUT OF ME… PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THE SAME SORT OF ATTENTION SPAN ON SCREEN.” MATT SEAMAN, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, SUBLIMINAL ASSOCIATES worked with them for four or five years. There’s sort of medium. People don’t have the same one printer we’ve used for four years now, so sort of attention span on screen.” it’s quite rewarding for the clients to know “I think there are still clients who think we’ve actually forged these relationships.” Websites are kind of woooooo,” says Taylor- Horne, making the internationally recognised ANNOYING BRIEFS sound for ‘spooky and mystical’. “They can’t Now SA is widening its network of associates, give you a brief because they don’t know, so partnering with the Scot-Baker Agency in they say, ‘Just do this magical thing that you London, which in turn is linked with Essential do because I don’t understand how it works.’ Events. “We can put on events, exhibitions, The Web is still this big magical pot where shows, roadshows… so we can pretty much you cast a spell…” This Flash micro site aimed to mirror the mini-magazine’s handle anything now: logo, stationery, Website, But then SA isn’t particularly bothered with content and style, with a touch of animation and interactivity. brochure, ad campaign, marketing pack, briefs anyway, as Taylor-Horne explains. “It’s always interesting working with magazine designers that the lot.” “Sometimes people will write a proper brief, want like-for-like content on-screen in a site that appears in the mag… Luckily, this was not one of those times and the As with the move away from record design, which goes into the brand equity, the target project went smoothly thanks to the print team’s the company’s involvement with the Web was audience, the USP, the tone of voice… which understanding of different media.”

Computer Arts_January2003 45 The cover design for James’ album Millionaires – Subliminal Associates presented (and re-presented) 300 ideas and concepts before this idea – a pig wearing a pearl necklace – was selected.

to be quite honest we bin without reading. For particularly now with technology and games instance, the game’s called Big Mutha Truckers and the Internet. – there you go. You’ve got a whole world of fun “There are corporations still treating their ahead of you. You don’t need to know what consumer like it was back in the 40s or 50s. tone of voice that is.” There’s the typical family of two kids and two Do you have a mission statement, then? adults and they’re beaming away because He ponders. “What did we used to have – their fish fingers are jolly and lovely… Bollocks, that corny line? Relocate… innovate? bollocks! It’s just plain wrong. I’d like to see a Single sleeve design by SA for the Something else...” fish finger ad that doesn’t involve Captain re-release of James’ Sit Down. “No is the answer,” concludes Seaman, Birdseye running around with a bunch of kids helpfully. “We’re not into all those buzzwords in the jungle.” and doing glossy brochures with all manner of Maybe one day Subliminal Associates will bullshit which really means nothing. We’re get to do that ad. In the meantime, there’s talk trying to be as ballsy as possible, basically. 99 of setting up a satellite office in London early per cent of the work that goes out this door is next year, for those clients still unwilling to visit nothing like 99 per cent of the ideas we’ve done its home in Bath. “The only people who frown

“WHAT DOES WIND ME UP IS THAT THERE’S STILL A MYTH THAT THE END CONSUMER IS THICK, THAT THEY WON’T GET IT. AND I DON’T BELIEVE THE CONSUMER IS THIS STUPID.” JONATHON TAYLOR-HORNE, CO-FOUNDER, SUBLIMINAL ASSOCIATES SA worked closely with Van Morrison’s team to create a previously, because we try to push the client on it are film companies,” says Taylor-Horne. cover idea based around a classic second-hand record – and often we try to push them in a very, very “It makes no odds to anyone else. Again, why shop for his album Down outrageous way. It’s not scare, it’s not shock, it’s should you have to be in London? I think that’s The Road. “We enjoyed the subliminal recognition, in a sense.” definitely changing, the idea that if you’re not in book and film High Fidelity – and we wanted to portray Empire Interactive, publishers of the Wardour Street or Soho then you must be shit. the feeling of another aforementioned Big Mutha Truckers, certainly If I had my ideal dream, I’d like us to work on a generation discovering classic records from the appreciate that approach, reckons Taylor- boat. A massive 60ft ocean-going yacht. Sail past. The first single from Horne. “The viral campaign for that was just from port to port, getting work in…” the album, Hey Mr. DJ, has totally disgusting – but we got away with it. If another of SA’s plans comes through, a contemporary photograph of a discarded box of ’45s It was just really… no, I can’t even talk about it, that could well become a reality, too. Seaman on the sleeve.” it’s that bad.” explains that the company is currently pitching Ah… so you like being seen as the bad boys for a Saudi Arabian company: “It’s a huge of design. “Yeah, a little bit, because that gets construction company which is building you noticed, that gets things sold, that gets palm resorts on the waterfront. And maybe remembered,” admits Seaman. if that happens we will have a satellite office over there, too.” FISH FINGERS “I can see that happening in quite a short Taylor-Horne is equally unequivocal about the time, maybe in the next year,” adds Taylor- state of current design. “I think there’s still a lot Horne, with his usual wry semi-grin. “So of mediocre, average design, whether it’s print London, Dubai, and then on to the big boat.” ■ or Web,” he says. “I think people aren’t pushing INFO When on dry land, Subliminal Associates can be contacted To mark James’ last ever performance, the end user, the punters or the customer. What at 01225 401333, by e-mail on [email protected], and on the SA’s work for the band’s live DVD and does wind me up is that there’s still a myth that Web at www.subliminal.co.uk. album sleeves relied on mere outlines Words by Ed Ricketts, [email protected] and silhouettes. Both sleeves were the end consumer is thick, that they won’t get it. printed in a silver metallic ink. And I don’t believe the consumer is this stupid,

46 Computer Arts_January2004 Profile

PRIMAL DIVAS From Channel Four to Sony

Two of Subliminal Associate’s biggest challenges to date have been the Viva La Divas title sequence for Channel 4, and the Primal campaign. With the former, it was the usual case of having no time, little budget, and a constantly changing cast of directors and producers at the client end. While the Primal job was extremely rewarding thanks to Sony’s willingness to go with pretty much any idea SA suggested, Jonny Taylor-Horne reckons the special heat-reactive cover and poster proved a massive test. The idea is that the ink, and therefore the image, only becomes visible at a certain temperature, transforming an otherwise black cover into a semi- psychedelic show. “There were times when we were thinking, ‘Shit, I don’t think this is going to work…’ and we’d been commissioned to produce 100,000 or whatever it might be,” he laughs in retrospect. “We winged it a little bit, just a little bit… We changed printers midway through the job. The printers we were using said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we can do this’, but it looked nothing even remotely like we wanted, and we only had two or three weeks to get it done.” Fortunately, the company’s regular printer came to the rescue, as Seaman explains. “The hardest thing was the temperature relationship; if it’s going through the post, it needs to react at a much lower temperature than if it’s in a shop, under lamps. The printer sorted that job out perfectly, and because he has an involvement with us, he pushed the boat out. And to be honest he got his rocks off as well, because it was a new thing for him, too.”

Heroine Jen can transform into four demons, so these The thermochromic inks used on the booklet and MCV cover were applied in such a way that the operational aspects of her alter ego had to feature in the promo design. temperature suited each unique environment (a heat reveal page is no fun if it’s revealed at room temperature!).

"SUBLIMINAL CONSISTENTLY COMES UP WITH NEW CREATIVE IDEAS AND ALWAYS PRODUCES WORK OF A HIGH STANDARD.” PETER CLARE, PRODUCT MANAGER, SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT UK

SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) approached Subliminal Associates in October 2002 to create and print all the promotional, point-of-sale and point-of-purchase materials for the launch of the much awaited Sony PlayStation2 fantasy action adventure game Primal. The campaign includes a unique 12-page booklet with heat- reactive cover, posters, counter standees, fake tattoos; glow-in-the-dark window stickers and limited edition postcards. When the game’s heroine, Jen, is in danger, the Primal symbol tattooed on her back glows green; it’s this Primal symbol, accompanied by fluorescent and heat-reactive inks, that forms the cornerstone of the campaign.

Computer Arts_January2004 47 Quick Tutorial SHORTCUTS

around the face. Close the mask, and the create a bulging 3D effect as though the screen image is only projected onto the image really is being projected over a AFTER EFFECTS skin. Although you can project onto hair, curved surface. This is the most time- the effect is less striking. consuming part of the process, but you We show you the best and quickest way to wrap Adjust the Mask Feathering to about don’t need to be overly accurate. You projected images onto faces in After Effects, 20 pixels, so that the edges will fade out should be able to do the whole face in without any need for a third party plug-in gradually. If there is any movement at a couple of minutes. all from the camera or the subject, you Unless the face moves a great deal – should use Motion Tracking (as covered if the character is moving her head, for hen you stand somebody in in the manual), to lock the Screen.mov instance – you won’t need to keyframe front of a movie projector to the Face.mov. It’s a simple matter mesh changes during the shot. If there and run some film, the of picking a tracking point on the face, are huge changes of expression or head W projected image wraps tracking forward, clicking Apply, and then position, you can click the keyframe around the contours of their face. This adjusting the Screen.mov Anchor Points clock for the Distortion Mesh, and make popular effect is used when characters until the layer is back in the correct place. changes to the mesh points over time. are studying computer monitors in films, For most shots, however, the basic it’s used a lot in advertising, and it’s great approach is good enough. for adding extra realism to car shots. Some people will choose to hire a projector and do the work on-set, but sometimes that isn’t viable. By creating the effect in post-production you have more control, because you can change the projected footage at any time to see what looks best. You also have control over levels of brightness, which may not be possible if a real-world projector is used. Here, we show you how to create the Again, select Screen.mov and go to appearance of wrapping light using After Effects>Distortion>Mesh Warp. The Effects’ Warp Mesh filter to shape the layer default gives you a grid of seven by seven to any 3D object, whether it be a face, car lines. Seven lines is enough to create a You should note that tracking the or building. It takes some manual jiggling quick shot of a face, but working with projection onto the face is not completely to begin with, but creates stunning results. ten or more lines gives a better level of realistic, but saves masses of time. A real Import the files Face.mov and accuracy, so adjust the setting to provide projection would slide over the face as it Screen.mov from the After Effects ten rows and ten columns. moves. You can achieve that result by Shortcut folder on the cover CD, and place Wherever two lines cross, you can tracking motion from a background them in the timeline. Set the Screen.mov click and drag that cross-point to create a object, and adjusting the mesh over the Blending mode to Add, and reduce distortion. If you want the light to sink into moving contours of the face, but it is very opacity to 50 per cent. Make the Screen the eye socket, click a cross-point just time-consuming. The shortcut approach, layer 3D, and rotate around the Y axis so below the eye and drag it towards the where you attach the projection to the that the layer appears to be at roughly the pupil. Whenever you select a cross-point, face via Tracking, looks realistic enough same angle as the face. In this example, handles appear. Drag these shorter, and for most shots, and saves you hours. we’ve used a short lens on the camera you will shrink the image around the area. To see the finished results, watch to exaggerate distortion in the face. The By dragging the cross-point into the eye FaceFinal.mov on the CD. more obvious the curves are in the image, and shortening its handles, you sink the INFO Expertise supplied by Chris Kenworthy, the easier it is to adjust your 3D mesh. light into the eye socket realistically. [email protected]. Look in the After Effects Shortcut folder on your coverdisc for the files to CREATE THE accompany this page APPEARANCE OF WRAPPING LIGHT USING AFTER EFFECTS’ WARP MESH FILTER TO SHAPE THE LAYER TO ANY 3D OBJECT, WHETHER Select the Screen.mov layer, and use the IT BE A FACE, CAR By contrast, if you drag a point across the Pen tool to click a basic mask outline OR BUILDING cheek and lengthen the handles, you will

48 Computer Arts_January2004 Leader in External Hard Drives and CD / DVD - RW Drives www.lacie.com/uk External Firewire / USB 2.0 Drives offer: Easy ‘plug & play’ connection - Portable storage and data exchange Convenient and fast backup (bundled with Silver Keeper back up utility) - Easy hard disk expansion

LaCieLaCie ExternalExternal LaCieLaCie PocketDrives PocketDrives HardHard DrivesDrives & MobileDrives

d2 MODEL DVD+/-RW HDD & CD-RW - Sleek, robust case, portable and stackable - Ultra portable and bus-powered via - 7200rpm ideal for DV Video without dropping frames Firewire or USB (HDD) - no need for separate power cable - Fast Firewire up to 55MB/s, USB2 34MB/s sustained - Firewire and USB2 (U&I) or FireWire or USB2 only versions - Firewire, USB2, or new FireWire 800 versions (cables incl.) - cables included, plus recording software with CD/DVD

Available from: Available from: 40GB srp £69 (£81.08 inc VAT), 80GB srp £89 (£104.58 inc VAT), 20GB srp £84 (£98.70 inc VAT), 40GB srp £114 (£133.95 inc VAT), 120GB srp £109 (£128.08 inc VAT),160GB srp £114 (£133.95 inc VAT), 60GB srp £199 (£233.83 inc VAT), 80GB srp £214 (£251.45 inc VAT)), 200GB srp £159 (£186.83 inc VAT), 250GB srp £179 (£210.33 inc VAT), 24x24x24x CD-RW/8x DVD Combo srp £97.86 (£114.99 inc VAT), 320GB srp £234 (£274.95 inc VAT), 400GB srp £359 (£421.83 inc VAT), Mobile DVD+/-RW + CDRW multidrive srp £219 (£257.33 inc VAT) 500GB srp £459 (£539.33 inc VAT)

LaCie External CD LaCieLaCie Ethernet Ethernet DiskDisk & DVD+/-RW’s (Network(Network Storage) Storage) ‘D2’ model

‘P5’ model - Share data among as many as 25 users - Sleek, robust case, portable and stackable LACIE - Backup function with integrated scheduling feature PCI FIREWIRE - Easily administered via any web browser and accessible - CD-RW super fast write and rewrite speeds OR USB2 - Dual format DVD+/- RW high 4.7GB capacity CARDS through any computer on the network or remotely via http/ftp - Bundle includes CD/DVD recording software (srp £19) - Increase the capacity through the USB & FireWire interfaces - Firewire or USB2 versions (cables included) - Quick and simple installation - up and running in 10 minutes

Available from: Available from: CD-RW 52x32x52x srp £55.31 (£64.99 inc VAT), 80GB srp £329 (£386.58 inc VAT),160GB srp £474 (£556.95 inc VAT) DVD+/-RW4x2x12x +CDRW multidrive srp £139 (£163.33 inc VAT) 250GB srp £649 (£762.58 inc VAT), 500GB srp £999 (£1173.83 inc VAT)

LaCie products available from leading resellers: E&O E, Jan 2003

www.dabs.com/lacie www.macwarehouse.co.uk www.technomatic.co.uk www.microanvika.co.uk www.microdirect.co.uk

www.simply.co.uk www.pcwb.com www.cwonline.co.uk www.cancomuk.com www.ghc.co.uk

www.jigsaw24.com www.microwarehouse.co.uk www.inmac.co.uk www.savastore.com www.insight.com/uk ILLUSTRATION BY STUDIO OUTPUT www.studio-output.com

50 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

FREEHAND & PHOTOSHOP FLYER DESIGN Many top designers start their careers creating stylish flyers for events and club nights. Design agency Studio Output provides an in-depth guide to producing print-ready artwork while creating a mini masterpiece

So you think you know print design? You’ve created a flyer, found a printer, sent the files off, and are just settling down to reward yourself with a cup of tea and chocolate biscuit when the phone rings. It’s the repro man and he isn’t happy. His RIP is grinding to a halt because your files contain embedded RGB JPEGs. You’re overprinting white text (which, by the way, is reverting to Courier), and you haven’t given him anything like the 5mm bleed he needs. Panic hits you like a tin of hot magenta ink – you don’t understand a word this man is saying. You might be able to manipulate photos, illustrate with vectors, and knock together good-looking Websites with your eyes closed, but that doesn’t mean graphic design is easy. If someone asks you to design and send to print 1000 stylish and successful flyers, do you really know what you’re doing? Nottingham-based Output lives and breathes print design. Its packed portfolio includes flyers for Radio 1, CD covers for BMG and innovative press packs for film PR agency, Shine Communications. To help you avoid the common mistakes and the ugly scenario presented above, the team has demonstrated preparations for successful printing, as well as particular design techniques crucial to creating a great flyer. Learn how to set up your documents properly, select colour palettes and lay out graphical text. Know how to save files for print and avoid the disaster of missing graphics, and let Output open your eyes to the secret visual language of flyer design.

INFO Words and pictures by Output, www.studio-output.com

ON THE CD Look in the Tutorial\Flyer design design folder for the layered FreeHand files, illustrations and more that you need to follow this tutorial. These files are for your own personal use, and are not to be reproduced elsewhere. All imagery ©Studio Output.

Computer Arts_January2004 51 ^ INSIGHT

PART 1 SETTING UP SELECTING COLOUR There are two basic methods of lithographic Set up your document in FreeHand printing. Spot-colour printing uses specific mixed inks identified by the PANTONE Matching System (PMS). This is especially useful when a specific colour must be used (on stationery when a corporate colour is required, for example). To reproduce full colour images, the only affordable way is to use four- colour process printing. This technique uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink to approximate accurate colour via different frequencies of dots. The process is exactly the opposite of how red, green and blue combine on screen to create white light. All colours must therefore be selected from the CMYK picker, Clone the front layer of the buildings and flip it to and all colour images imported must be CMYK 6 create the reflection in the water. Fill the sky and TIFF files and not RGB JPEGs. Why? Well, an lake with gradient fills to suggest depth, and paste RGB image contains no CMYK information everything inside a box the size of your finished flyer. and will only print in greyscale.

Select the size of your flyer in the Document 1 palette. Most printing is done on A1 or A2 sheets, so choose a size that uses this space best. The template on your CD is a ‘DL’, or a third of an A4.

For the sunset effect, we’re going to use a lazy 7 FreeHand trace of some clouds. Don’t worry about the ugly autotrace shapes, the outline isn’t going to be clear. With all the clouds selected, Union the shape to ensure it’s one object. Add any other guides you need, then duplicate Add bleed in the Document palette. Most printers 4 this page to use for the back of the flyer. This 2 need about 3mm bleed around the outside of saves you having to re-draw the guides, and also the flyer. This gives the guillotine operator a margin ensures your flyer is consistent on both sides. for error. Otherwise, he’d have to trim every sheet exactly right, which is impossible when he’s bulk cutting around 1000 sheets at a time.

To create the fill, you want to make a radial 8 sunburst effect. First, draw a vertical line and use FreeHand’s Mirror function. The settings you need are Multiple and Rotate, and the maximum steps you can make is 50, so you might want to clone the whole shape and rotate it.

Start drawing in the background image using the 5 Bezigon tool. For a skyline like this, holding Shift while drawing makes the lines perpendicular. It may Find out if the printer requires you to add crop help you to import a photo to work from. Build the 3 marks, which show where to cut the page. skyline in layers and fill with solid colours. If so, they should be 0.3pt wide and drawn in registration, not black. Although it looks black, registration is a mixture of all the printed inks.

When you have the radial effect you want, paste it 9 inside the clouds outline and select a background colour of ‘none’ for the shape. You’re now ready to start work on the foreground.

52 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial ^ INSIGHT

PART 2 COLOUR THE SEMIOTICS PART 3 OF FLYERS Next, drawing and adding colour Semiotics is the study into the meaning of ADDING TEXT symbols. In the world of club promotions, a Time to bring in type, logos and secret graphic language has developed that’s invaluable for the lazy designer. For example, prepare to output to print everyone knows that a picture of a girl on a flyer simply means ‘girls like this place’. A picture of a building means ‘this is urban and hip’. But these symbols can be developed to give greater meaning (eg, girl in bikini = sexy house music; girl’s booty = R’n’B; modern, glass building = techno; grainy, high-rise = drum ‘n’ bass).

Everyone uses pictures of girls on flyers these 10 days – it’s part of the language of flyer design (see Insight, The semiotics of flyers). Why should you be the one to rock the boat? Get scanning and import If you’re inexperienced with type, always keep a picture of your favourite girl. It’s time to dig out 16 your text simple. Univers, the house typeface those vector trace tools again! for Computer Arts, is suitable for this kind of work because it’s a versatile sans serif. You can help to keep the typography tight by adjusting the tracking. A rule of thumb is that the bigger the type gets, the tighter the tracking can be. Now to add colour. Unless you’re printing a 13 spot-colour job, select your palettes using the CMYK colour picker (see Insight, Selecting colour). The book you should be using for reference is the PANTONE Process Colour System.

We’ve already seen that the Autotrace tool can 11 make some pretty arbitrary decisions with ugly results. If you want to achieve decent results then trace around the picture using the Pen tool. A lot of typographic skill is about balance and 17 common sense. If you’re using type on an angle, keep to one global angle. On this flyer, all the type is at a 45-degree angle or perpendicular to it. This secondary piece of text has been ‘ranged right’, Ensure you can see overprinting objects. so you can tuck it neatly into the remaining space 14 Under FreeHand’s Preferences>Redraw, without it looking out of place. the box for Display Overprinting Objects should be checked. FreeHand now shows any overprinting fills with a repeated pattern of ‘O’s.

Once you’ve traced the basic outlines, vary 12 some of the line weights to give depth to your illustration, and emphasise certain areas. To make life easier, try using FreeHand’s Paste Inside function.

Once you’ve selected text and clicked Convert 18 To Paths, you can edit it as an object. Remove the dot from the ‘i’ and move the exclamation mark This shows the unwanted effects of an so it doesn’t overlap. Now Union the entire block 15 overprinting colour – the skin tone of the girl is of text and colour-fill it as one object, using a ‘gold’ set to overprint but isn’t displayed in the Preferences. effect gradient. Why? Club promoters love gold! The green block is overprinted by the skin tone and the result is a muddy slab of colour.

Computer Arts_January2004 53 ^ INSIGHT

WHY CAN’T I IMPORT JPEGS? When a print job is processed, the information has to be gathered as PostScript data before the films can be played out. It’s a much larger scale version of the PostScript RIP on your desktop printer. JPEGs have so much compression, this information takes much longer to unravel itself in the image setter. Result? The print queue grinds to a halt. The less compression is saved in a file, the less time it will take to uncompress, so always use TIFFs or EPS files where possible.

Copy the basic skyline from the front of the Ensure you don’t forget to collect the imported 19 flyer and use it for the rear. You can now import 24 images by embedding them under FreeHand’s the text and make certain adjustments to it. All the Links menu. Embedding images increases the file body text is set in Univers 55 with -3 tracking, so set size of your final document but ensures that the repro this and make any other changes you require. house can extract the files if they need checking.

Most flyers use logos supplied by a third party. 22 For this flyer, use ‘The Full English’ logo as an RGB JPEG. You won’t be able to print from this, so convert it to greyscale in Photoshop, then output it as a bitmap image at the highest resolution you can. Try to keep the text to as few different sizes 20 and weights as possible. The greater the contrast between different types of information, All that’s required now is a final proofread and the quicker the recognition will be for the reader. 25 check-up. Ensure all your fonts are converted What you’re looking for is an effective ‘hierarchy of to paths, your colours are CMYK and nothing is information’. Avoid force-justified text. overprinting that shouldn’t be. Then save the front and back as an EPS (you can’t save multiple page EPS files). This means that all the printer has to do is import the saved image into a picture box in QuarkXPress or InDesign.

FINAL STEP Import this bitmap image into FreeHand. o this is it – the final flyer. You’ve learned how to 23 It contains only bitmap information, so you S save perfect, print-ready artwork and avoid the can now give it a transparent background and colour many pitfalls along the way. But don’t stop there. it white, so it looks as crisp as all the other vector Now you’ve mastered the art, why not explore the logos you have already. exciting world of postcards, invites and posters? Similarly, try to limit the palette of colours 21you use for text. The more important the information, the more contrast it should have with the background colour. White is invariably the greatest highlight colour for text, but never use it on a yellow background because the two are too tonally close.

^ INSIGHT

HOW MANY DPI? Your on-screen resolution is 72dpi (dots per inch). Most lithographic printing is between 133 and 175lpi (lines per inch, where a line is a row of dots). This discrepancy in measuring systems often leads to confusion. To avoid pixellating images, all images must be 300dpi at their actual physical size. This means that for an A6 flyer, a full-bleed image needs to be 300dpi at 154x111mm (A6 + 3mm bleed).

54 Computer Arts_January2004

SHORTCUTS

using the Edit Mesh modifier on the egg. A creating lighting effects like this. To focus vertex next to the sperm’s head is selected, the glow solely on the egg, we gave the and with Soft Selection turned on, the egg egg a unique Object Channel number (by is deformed inwards. This ‘dent’ gives the right-clicking and choosing Properties), impression that the sperm is struggling and then set the glow to only affect that against the egg’s surface. A spherical object channel. We then fine-tuned the particle cloud places a few bubbles inside glow in the Video Post Lens Effects the ovum to give it more body. Glow set-up window. This enabled us to The first image strived for depth, but preview the effect interactively, without here we’re aiming for the opposite. Only having to re-render the scene each time the vaguest of backgrounds is provided we altered something. with a simple block colour and a Creating our cells, sperm and transparent material covered in blotches. surroundings required a rather unusual Finally, Video Post is used to give the approach to materials and lighting. We 3DS MAX egg a blue glow, and the nucleus in the didn’t want shine or shadows, and all our centre a feeling of energy with a fire effect. objects were semi-transparent. What we Life through a microscope looks entirely different to This is artistic licence, of course. Ova did want was plenty of light, and irregular the universe we already see around us – discover don’t glow, and they aren’t filled with fiery bumps over all our objects – follow the how to illustrate it vividly using 3ds max smoke, but with the creation of life as our quick walkthrough below to see how this theme, we can afford to play a little. part of the job was done.

Video Post is an area of 3ds max that’s INFO Expertise supplied by Christian Darkin, he brief for these two scientific often overlooked, but it’s very useful for [email protected] illustrations (above) was that they should be believable yet slightly T stylised. The challenge? To create CELLING THE SHOT the look of an image taken through a microscope, but with the clarity, focus and aesthetics of a 3D render. Two images were required: one of sperm swimming freely, the other of an egg being fertilised. For the first image, we created a large tube and placed the camera inside. We then applied a bend modifier to the tube, so that it twisted away into the distance, creating a closed environment with depth and perspective. Afterwards, we added a Create a self-illuminating material by pinky-red fog, to suggest depth and give Next, set Transparency. We used a setting Self Illumination to bright falloff opacity map with the falloff the impression of a liquid environment. 1 2 white. Reduce the specular level of type set to fresnel and the direction set The original sperm was a subdivision your material to zero, for a matte effect. to viewing direction. This makes the creation made by extruding a tail from the Highlights only make objects appear to edges of the object less transparent back of a simple box, and softening the be made of transparent plastic. than the centre – and ‘glow’. edges. We then bent its tail at the Edit Mesh level to give it the appearance of motion. Instead of just bending it in the X direction, though, we also introduced movement in the Y direction. By doing this, we make the sperm look as if its tail is WE THEN USED positioned differently, depending on the angle you view it from. THIS SPERM AS We then used this sperm as a particle in A PARTICLE IN a particle cloud, adding a random spin to A PARTICLE help us generate a swarm of wriggling CLOUD, ADDING spermatozoa. This trick wouldn’t work in To give the objects texture, use a The microscope slide uses a similar an animation; in this case, we’d have to A RANDOM SPIN 3 bump map rather than a diffuse 4 noise map, but applies it as a sub- animate the wriggling over several TO HELP US map. The exact nature of the bump map of a ‘splat’ map. To colour your frames, and then use the particle cloud’s GENERATE A differs for different materials in our objects, apply colour to the Diffuse Animation Offset keying tool to SWARM OF shot. The cell uses a simple noise channel (for subtle results) or Self- differentiate the motion for each sperm. map to create subtle ridges. Illumination (for more striking results). In the other image, there’s only one WRIGGLING sperm, but the motion is accentuated by SPERMATOZOA

56 Computer Arts_January2004

ILLUSTRATION BY BENNY LUK www.sixstation.com

58 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

PHOTOSHOP BLENDING MODES Do you know your Soft Light from your Luminosity in Photoshop? Your Hard Mix from your Linear Burn? Here, we uncover the best Blending modes in the pack and show you how to use them

Digital artists are always getting excited about Photoshop, for a multitude of reasons. Take, for example, when layers turned up in version 3 (1994) – suddenly there was a way of stacking images one on top the other, with the safety of removing, altering or adding layers as the work progressed. In addition, you could change the way one layer affected those beneath it, simply by changing the Blending mode. Things have come a long way since then. Not only have we seen an increase in the number of Blending modes (in Photoshop CS, there are now 23) available, but these modes have become an integral part of the Photoshop design process. And, don’t forget, these modes don’t just apply to layers – they can also be applied to some tools, such as the Brush tool. Somewhere along the way, though, we seem to have lost touch with exactly how each mode functions and the best ways to use them. So if you’re tired of aimlessly scrolling through the Blending modes list until you find something that works, read on – we’ll outline nine of the best over the following three pages, then show you one in action in our tutorial on page 63. A quick word on terminology. When we talk about the base colour, we’re referring to the colour already present in your image; you’ll use a Blending mode to paint onto, over, or add a layer on top of this. The Blend (or Blending) colour is what you’re going to add, or what’s already on the layer for which you’re selecting a Blending mode.

INFO Words by multimedia designer and writer Jerome Turner, [email protected]

ON THE CD Locate the Tutorial\Blending folder on your CD before you follow the nine-step guide to using Blending modes on page 63.

Computer Arts_January2004 59 In a Multiply layer, we can paint in with a skin- By duplicating the Background Layer several times as By duplicating this design and setting it to Overlay, coloured brush to add shadow where objects Screen Layers (right-hand side), you can see how to we see how the contrast is increased by making the might otherwise appear too flat. reveal more details in dark, night photography. dark tones darker and the light tones lighter.

On the right-hand side of this image, we’ve Here we’ve used a Screen layer filled with a Gradient This stonework photo was very grey. In a new duplicated the base layer, then blended it in using to subtly lighten the bottom of the image where the Overlay layer, we drew two squares, one black, one Multiply. The contrast has increased as a result. reeds were originally hidden in shadow. white – note that black gives us the better result.

BLENDING MODE 1 BLENDING MODE 2 BLENDING MODE 3 MULTIPLY SCREEN OVERLAY Darken your base colour with ease Retrieve details in dark photographs Generate high-contrast imagery

If you apply this Blending mode to a Layer or This mode has the opposite effect to Multiply. Overlay combines both Multiply and Screen to Brush mode, dark pixels in the blending layer While Multiply darkens the base colour, Screen produce a Blending mode that is very effective in (on top) will darken light pixels in the base layer lightens it – or, more specifically, light pixels in the creating high-contrast effects from otherwise (on the bottom). If the Blending layer contains blending layer lighten dark pixels in the base layer, quite grey images. The mode darkens your lighter pixels, they darken the base colour less. In and dark pixels in the blending layer will lighten image’s dark pixels (multiplies) if the Blending other words, dark colours darken significantly, the base less. In using Multiply, colours are layer is dark, and lightens up light base pixels lighter ones less so. generally drawn towards black, so it stands that (screens) when it is light. Note that black and When we talk about dark and light values, this using Screen bleaches them out, towards white. white will not be affected, so details and contrast only refers to the luminosity of the pixels; the hue Typically, digital camera images can turn out a are always retained. (red, green, blue, etc) and saturation (intensity little darker than we’d expect, so that details are This mode take a bit of experimentation, so the of colour) are also relevant, because they affect lost to shady areas. This is where Screen can best idea is to take an image with little contrast how the Multiply layer tints the base. An example: become very useful – simply Duplicate the and try painting a dark area, then a light area into if you’re adding shadow to a face, as shown, use Background Layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) and a new Overlay layer, as shown. In fact, this is a the Eyedropper to sample a light skin tone, make change the mode to Screen. The effect may be a great method for discovering and experimenting it lighter (using the HSB sliders in the Color palette little too strong, blasting the image with light, so with layers in general, and could be applied to any if necessary) and then paint into a new Multiply feel free to adjust the Opacity of the Screen layer. of the Blending modes. As far as using this mode layer – it will darken the light skin slightly, yet These two Blending modes (Multiply and in your work, we all know how frustrating it can be using the proper ‘skin colour’ hue. Screen) are typically very useful in making to spend ages on a piece and then decide it’s too adjustments to photographs, so you’ll find overworked and has become muddied as a result. yourself turning to them time and time again. Duplicating the base layer and then changing the

^ top layer to Overlay will increase the contrast, and INSIGHT can then be adjusted using the Opacity control. TOOL OPTIONS While painting on new layers, remember that you can change the layer Blending mode as you go by using the dropdown menu in the Tool Options bar. This often proves far quicker than changing it in the normal way from the Layers palette when you’re using brushes.

60 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

Here we’ve darkened the bottom-half of this Duplicating the base layer of this image and then Applying a flat colour layer to this photograph only illustration, using a blue Darken layer. Note how changing the mode to Soft Light makes for a very affects the Hue value of the base layer. Now change the colour tints as a result of the blend. subtle contrast improvement. the Blending mode to Colour…

Obviously, a Lighten Blending mode works in the You can use the mode for targeted lighting With both Saturation and Hue imposed on the image, opposite way to Darken, by lightening pixels that adjustments – paint less than 50 per cent grey to the pigeons look more tinted. You can use this effect are darker than the Blend pixels. lighten and more than 50 per cent grey to darken. to really bring out detail in your photographs.

BLENDING MODE 4 BLENDING MODE 5 BLENDING MODE 6 DARKEN SOFT LIGHT HUE Darken the base pixels of your image Subtly adjust contrast and lighting Hue offers subtle tinting effects

By using Darken, base pixels that are lighter than This Blending mode lightens the base pixels if the This is one of four modes we can use to impose the Blending layer pixels are modified. If the base blending pixels are light (more than 50 per cent particular values from the Blending colour straight colour is darker, then it’s left untouched. This is luminosity), and darkens pixels if they are dark on the base. Setting a layer to Hue means that the useful because the base colours react specifically (less than 50 per cent luminosity). It therefore hue value of the pixel is transferred on the base, to the colour in the Blending layer, so you can use stands that a 50 per cent grey Blending colour will so it’s great for subtle tinting. If you want to apply a dark brush to affect lighter shades in an image. not affect the base image at all. The base pixels a particular hue of colour onto your base layer, Also keep in mind that the Hue and Saturation respond to the shade of the blending pixel but pick the colour first using the HSB Slider in the levels of the Blending colour are impressed on aren’t forced all the way to white or black. The Color palette. Now paint where you want to alter the base layer, too. process is far subtler than that, so you’ll find this the base layer beneath. Try taking any standard image and creating a mode great for adjusting lighting in parts of Note that the Saturation and Luminosity values new layer that is filled with a 50 per cent photography or other imagery. are not altered, but make sure that Saturation in Brightness (set one using the HSB sliders of the Unless you want to make these adjustments your Blending colour isn’t set to less than 4 per Color palette) shade of a colour (make it rich and with a slightly coloured tint in mind, make sure cent - for some reason, it will then apply the saturated). Then set the mode to Darken and see that the Blending pixel colour used is desaturated Saturation value and desaturate your base. On how this affects the base image. First, only pixels (if painting, use a colour with 0 per cent Saturation the other hand, if you do want to apply Saturation that are darker than 50 per cent are affected, on the HSB Slider). You can also use this as a and Hue values from the Blending layer to the and all shades of the image are tinted with the more subtle version of Overlay – if you duplicate base, use the Colour Blending mode. This colouring that was chosen. It collects all lighter an image and change the top layer to Soft Light it imposes a much more powerful tinting effect, shades and makes them into a flatter colour will make light colours lighter and dark colours and with a very saturated blend colour images or area based on the Blending colour, often darker, but not so much as to look forced. can be made more vibrant. producing interesting posterised images. You’ve probably guessed by now that Lighten is the opposite of Darken – it lightens base pixels that are darker than the Blending colour.

Computer Arts_January2004 61 If you apply a flat Luminosity layer to a photo, it can We’ve darkened this illustration in the background by A duplicated photo layer with the Hard Mix mode be difficult to pick out any details, because there are painting a medium orange into a Linear Burn layer. applied shows just how easy it is to produce no bright or dark contrasting areas. You can use this to create some striking colour effects. instant posterised imagery at the flick of a switch!

This image of a rusted container has been converted The lower half of this image shows the effects of a You can also re-render illustrations as striking, flat into one Luminosity value (right). You can create ideal Linear Burn. The dark green has darkened nearly to images like this. Even if you don’t end up using it, flat backdrops for text-filled Websites in this way. black, while the yellow has tinted into orange. the layer can act as a useful creative springboard.

BLENDING MODE 7 BLENDING MODE 8 BLENDING MODE 9 LUMINOSITY LINEAR BURN HARD MIX Achieve the Hue/Saturation of the Darken the base colour to reflect the Photoshop CS’s latest addition to the base colour and the luminance of Blend colour by decreasing brightness ever-expanding Blending mode fold the Blend colour Along with Linear Dodge, this is one of the Photoshop CS comes with one staggering new This is also grouped with Hue in the Blending Blending modes introduced in Photoshop 7. A Blending mode, and it’s called Hard Mix. In many modes list, because it applies a value from the dark colour in the Blending layer darkens the base respects, Blending modes often seem to double Blending layer pixels onto the base layer – in this layer by decreasing the luminosity values. If the up functions that could be achieved another case, the Luminosity value (brightness). This is blend layer is light, then it darkens the image less, way. Dissolve, for instance, is basically a useful, because you can use it to set an area to a and tints according to the Hue and Saturation Texture>Grain Filter, or Linear Dodge, achieved particular darkness – again by picking a colour’s values. Note that even if you apply a 100 per cent using the Dodge Tool. The Hard Mix is also guilty Brightness value in the HSB Slider and then black in the Linear Dodge layer, some highlights of this, because it creates a posterising effect, painting it into your Luminosity layer. You can also may still show through. Note also the difference when we already have something similar in achieve some quite chilling effects by applying a between this and the Luminosity mode – Image>Adjustments>Posterise. flat layer of one colour as a Luminosity layer. Luminosity imposes a particular luminosity value However, the key difference here is that Hard As the Luminosity is made constant across the from the Blending colour (eg 23 per cent), but Mix specifically posterises using a mix of red, whole image, there are no light or dark areas, no Linear Dodge increases the darkness. green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, black and highlights and shadows, so you rely on reading white. To see how different colours affect the Hue and Saturation to make out the image. The Blending mode’s behaviour, add a solid colour Hue and Saturation values aren’t affected, but you ^ INSIGHT adjustment layer and set a colour. Change that could add (by stacking on top) Hue or Saturation layer’s mode to Hard Mix. Now double-click the layers if these are the kind of changes you want. layer thumbnail (the coloured bit) of your OTHER CHOICE BLENDS adjustment layer and you can change the colour We may have only selected nine of the best in the pop-up, previewing the effect on the base Photoshop blending modes – but there are more, including Dissolve, in which the result layer as you do so. Try changing the Saturation, colour is a random replacement of the pixels Hue and Brightness values of the solid colour to with the base colour or the blend colour, see how this changes which areas are posterised. depending on the opacity at any pixel location; and Difference, which looks at the colour information in each channel and subtracts either the blend colour from the base colour or the base colour from the blend colour, depending on which is brighter.

62 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

TUTORIAL USING BLENDING MODES Locate the Tutorial\Blending folder on the CD, then follow this quick introduction

Pick another colour until you find one that Hard 4 Mixes a pattern you like – a medium Brightness and Saturation will provide you with the biggest range, then pick your Hue (as shown). Change this layer to Overlay, noting how it 7 pushes dark shades darker and light (the blue) shades lighter, increasing contrast. Now add the word ‘taxi’ using the Type tool, select Layer>Rasterise>Type and apply Filter>Stylise>Find Edges.

Open the taxi.jpg file. Note that the background 1layer can’t change Blending mode from Normal, because it has nothing beneath it to blend. Drag the layer thumbnail over the Create a New Layer button and the layer will duplicate.

In many cases, you can merge layers of different 5 Blending modes into one without affecting the way they work together. Select the Multiply layer and Change the Blending mode to Difference – the then Layer>Merge Down. Now Duplicate this layer as 8 white in the text now creates a negative of the before and place it at the top of the stack. base colours. As a final touch, add a huge yellow exclamation mark and change the mode to Hue, Change the Blending mode to Multiply. Now do then Duplicate the layer. 2 Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal. Note that the image is perfectly symmetrical, because the light pixels in the base are darkened by the dark Blend pixels, by the same amount that the dark pixels in the base are unaffected by light Blend pixels. FINAL STEP pply a slight Gaussian Blur (around five pixels) to Athe duplicate, change the mode to Overlay and then make three duplicates of this so the shape picks out some of the street detail. Adjust the Opacity of the last duplicate if necessary.

Change this top layer to Hard Light – note how it 6 puts some detail back in and retains contrast. Create a layer above this, then pick an 80 per cent grey (desaturated) and use it to Edit>Fill the layer.

In the Layers palette, add an adjustment layer – 3 a solid colour layer. Hit OK when you see the pop-up and change the Blending mode to Hard Mix (Photoshop CS only). Then double-click the layer thumbnail icon in that layer so the pop-up returns.

Computer Arts_January2004 63 SUBSCRIPTION FORM 3 EASY WAYS TO ORDER: STUCK FOR

1. Phone : 0870 444 8455 ✁

2. Post: UK readers – Christmas Orders, Future Publishing Ltd, Freepost BS4900, IDEAS THIS Somerton, Somerset, TA11 6BR Overseas readers – Christmas Orders, Future Publishing Ltd, Cary Court, Somerton, Somerset, TA11 6TB, UK CHRISTMAS? 3. Fax this completed form to: +44 (0)1458 271 146 Buy a gift that lasts all year ■ I would like to subscribe/renew to Computer Arts using this special Christmas offer (delete as appropriate): COMPUTER ARTS SUBSCRIBERS GET: ■ UK (Cheque/credit card) £46.80 (save £31.20!) ■ Europe £73.53 ● New and exclusive reviews, demos, interviews and news ■ Rest of the world £86.53 – keep your skills and creative knowledge up to date For residents in N.America see ● A special subscriber-only cover, free of coverlines page 68 for our special subscriptions offer ● Expert techniques and insight for image-manipulation, illustration, Web and graphic design, 3D and digital video ■ I would like to send a Gift subscription of Computer Arts ● Dual-format CD-ROM with new content every issue: full *Gift subscription copies will not arrive until the first issue after 25 December 2003 programs, stock images, video tutorials and demos ● Full products – previous issues have included Cinema 4D, YOUR DETAILS FreeHand, Poser, FireWorks, trueSpace, AXEL and more

Title ______Initials ______Surname ______

Address ______

Postcode ______Country ______

Daytime telephone number ______

Email address______

GIFT RECIPIENT’S DETAILS

Title ______Initials ______Surname ______

Address ______

Postcode ______Country ______

Daytime telephone number ______

Email address______

PAYMENT METHODS I understand I will receive 13 Issues over 12 months Please choose your method of payment

1. Cheque Payable to Computer Arts. Sterling cheques drawn on a UK account 2. Visa MasterCard AMEX

3. Switch Issue no

Card no ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■

Expires______

Signature ______Date ______

Your subscription will start with the next available issue Offer code: COAXP92 Offer ends 31 January 2004

Please tick here if you do not wish to receive mail from carefully selected companies

Please tick here if you do not wish to receive mail from Future Publishing Subscribe SPECIAL CHRISTMAS OFFER SAVE 40% ON THE PERFECT

CHRISTMAS GIFT CHRISTMAS GIFT!

A Subscription That’s a saving of over £31 on the cover price to Computer Arts makes the perfect Christmas gift for • FREE delivery direct to your door a friend, relative, • Cover CD, packed with software or even yourself • Never miss an issue • Save 40%* on the price you’d pay in the shops

*40% Saving is based on 13 issues bought on the UK newsstand. This offer is only available to delivery addresses within the UK.

GIVING A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION IS EASY! SIMPLY CALL OVERSEAS +44 870 444 8455 (PLEASE QUOTE CODE COAXP90) *40% Saving is based on 13 issues bought on the UK newsstand. This offer is only available to delivery 0870444 8455 addresses within the UK.

Computer Arts_January2004 65 PROFILE HYDRO 74 NAME Joshua Smith EMAIL [email protected] WEBSITE www.hydro74.com

How did a budding school teacher end up working for Endeavor Snowboards, K2, Billabong, Airwalk and Jump Start Records – all leading sport and music brands? Joshua Smith, Art Director of US agency Axis Media and the talent behind Hydro74.com, may have started college with the intention of becoming a primary school teacher, but ended up discovering a talent for new media design and illustration. I“ switched from Elementary Education to Liberal Arts. I wasn’t planning on working in graphic design or illustration, but I built a Website with some friends which was well received by companies that we really liked. It enticed me to continue with design.” Smith started off working with small freelance projects for the music industry, using Illustrator, Streamline, FreeHand and Fontographer. His freelance Website, Hydro74, is a great reflection of the standard of work he’s now capable of. What“ I like most about being a designer is the variety: every project has a different demand, so you refine your skills to avoid doing the same thing over again. I’m still in shock at what I’ve done and who I’ve worked with, and excited about where things are going.”

What are you obsessed by? My biggest obsessions are probably the same curses that most other designers struggle with. It’s seeing my faults, or mistakes; knowing I could have done better with a project, or the fact that I know what limits me.

What are you working on now? 1 I’m currently working with Mike Morton over at Split to develop a new line of shirts for this upcoming season. I’m also developing lines of shirts for Billabong and Burton Snowboards.

What is your strangest client experience? When I was doing work for a clothing company called Dirtbag, they sent me a cheque and some condoms. Thought that was pretty funny.

What do you read in bed? Design magazines – Computer Arts (seriously!), How, Print, Juxtapose, and some snowboarding magazines.

What is your ultimate ambition? I have two. I want to become an established designer so I can support my family, and with my wife Leta and daughter Caitlyn I strive to be the best father and husband I can possibly be.

Favourite city? Chicago. 2

How do you celebrate completing a project? I either start a new illustration, or start the next project. I’m a geek…

Best album to work to? Here is what my iPod is giving me lately: Front 242, The Smiths, Bob Mould, Sven Vath and Judge Jules. I want to visit either Ministry of Sound, Gatecrasher or God’s Kitchen sometime in my lifetime.

If you weren’t busy being a designer, what would you be doing now? I would be a school teacher. 3

What keeps you awake at night? Desire, deadlines, Red Bull, strong Coffee and the Discovery Channel.

66 Computer Arts_January2004 Profile

1. These doves were created for Vancouver-based Endeavor Snowboards to adorn one of its board ranges.

2. “I’m really into tattoo art,” says Smith. “It’s such a interesting form. Inspired by tattoo magazines, I decided to sketch up my own tattoos if I wanted to get any, and these two 4 are part of a set. After showing a couple clients, I was encouraged to vector them up and see how they would come out.”

3. Robosnake, according to Smith, “Is one of those projects where you just wanted to illustrate a snake…”

4. Wasp was produced for Eastern Bikes. “This is part of an illustration line for bike stickers that went off 7 pretty well. This illustration has always been my favourite.”

5. Mechamantis – part of a set of five snowboards.

6. This turtle is also part of a set of five snowboards. “The ape is just one of those illustrations that never got used for anything. But to me, it’s still a powerful piece.”

7. Like image 1, this illustration, entitled Lion-Owl, was produced for Endeavor Snowboards as part of a set of illustrations for the company’s board lines.

5

6

6

Computer Arts_January2004 67 ILLUSTRATION BY THS www.ths.nu

68 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

CSS TYPOGRAPHY & LAYOUT DREAMWEAVER MX 2004 Using CSS in Dreamweaver MX 2004 is even easier than before. If you’re serious about designing and building professional Websites, this is a tool that will give you an advantage over your competitors, while also making your job more enjoyable

Dreamweaver MX 2004 has many powerful features that you’ll be able to create a Web page, using CSS make building Websites easier, while also giving you and JavaScript to control the entire page. If you’re more control over the site layout. We’re going to focus on accustomed to using tables and HTML font tags to lay the new set of CSS tools and capabilities: the CSS Rule out your site, we’ll teach you new skills that will help Inspector, improved CSS layout visualisation, improved you win new and better clients. CSS rendering, improved CSS Panel, CSS-based Text INFO Tutorial by BD4D’s Ryan Carson, [email protected], www.bd4d.com Property Inspector, CSS-based page properties and CSS code hint pop-ups. These tools give you an amazing amount of control ON THE CD over the text and layout of Websites. If you’re curious In the Tutorial\Dreamweaver folder on your disc, about whether or not to move from MX to MX 2004, you’ll find an assets folder. The file myCSS.css is the the improved CSS rendering alone will make it worth CSS document used in cssTest.html; cssTest.html the upgrade cash. is the main HTML document used in this tutorial, adapted from a template that is shipped with Dreamweaver In this tutorial we’re going to adapt a template that MX 2004; and the JPEGs and GIFs are all the graphics needed ships with Dreamweaver. By the time we’ve finished for the HTML page.

Computer Arts_January2004 69 PART 1 SETTING UP THE FILES Start by creating a new HTML file

At first, the sheer number of options can be 7 overwhelming, but don’t worry, we’ll take it In this tutorial we’re adapting a template that easy at first and then tackle the more complex CSS 4 ships with Dreamweaver, as it’s a great example capabilities a bit later. Select the Box Category and of how to use CSS, HTML and JavaScript together enter 16 for Padding>Top and 8 for Padding>Bottom. In Dreamweaver MX 2004 (we’ll refer to it as just to create a quality Web page. The page is going to Tick Same‘ for all’ on Margin and enter zero. 1Dreamweaver from now on), select File>New> have a Global Nav, Global Subnav, Section Links, Basic page>HTML. Make sure that Make‘ document and a Feature article. Start out by typing these into XHTML compliant’ is checked. cssTest.html as simple text.

Next up is creating CSS Styles using code 8 pop-up hints. We’ve inserted a Content Block into myCSS.css using the CSS Styles Panel. Now let’s try doing it in Code View. We’re going to need Now we need to create the CSS file that a Content Block to hold the Site Name, Global Nav 2 accompanies this HTML file. In Dreamweaver, The amazing thing about using CSS to lay and Subnav – we’ll call it masthead. It will have the click File>New>Basic Page>CSS. As you can see, it 5 out your Web page, is that the code is much following values: position: absolute; top: 0px; left: gives you an empty CSS file with a comment stating more clear and simple compared to using tables. 19px; right: 2 per cent; width: 96 per cent. that it’s a CSS Document. Now go ahead and save If you preview the text you’ve just typed in, it looks these two files as cssTest.html and myCSS.css. ridiculous. Don’t worry! We’ll be using CSS to put those elements in their proper place.

Now we’ll create CSS Styles using the CSS Styles Now create a third CSS element called pageCell. 6 Panel. In the CSS Styles Panel (Shift+F11), add a 9 This will be the area where most of the page new style by clicking New CSS Style. For Selector, content is placed. It will have the following values: Now we’re going to attach the CSS document to type #siteName’.‘ This is the name of the CSS style. position: absolute; top: 112px; left: 2 per cent; right: 2 3 the HTML document. It’s always best to attach, Tick Advanced‘ (IDs, contextual selectors, etc)’ and per cent; width: 96 per cent; background-color: #ffffff. instead of embed CSS documents. This enables you leave Define‘ in: This document only’ ticked. to use the same CSS document on multiple HTML files. Hit Shift+F11 to bring up the CSS Styles Panel. Click the Attach Style Sheet button on the bottom- right and browse for myCSS.css.

70 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial

PART 2 COMBINING CSS AND HTML Now on to the fun part

If you view the page in Design View you’ll see 12 the affects of the CSS Content Blocks. We know it’s no work of art at this stage, but it gives you a notion of the usefulness of CSS – creating page layouts without building complex tables.

In addition to globalLink, we’re also going to 15 add globalLink‘ a’, globalLink‘ a:visited’ and We’ve done lots of work setting up these files, globalLink‘ a:hover’. By adding link elements to the 10 so let’s start laying out the page. We’re going globalLink Content Block, we’re able to control its to place

tags around our text, which will link styles uniquely from the rest of the page. position it on the page. In the Code View Window, place a

tag around the Site‘ Name’ text. Dreamweaver’s helpful code pop-up hints suggest styles from myCSS.css to choose from. Go ahead Go ahead and experiment with the ease at and choose siteName’.‘ 13 which you can modify the size and location of these Content Blocks. In Design View, select the pageCell Content Block and drag or resize it. You’ll notice that Dreamweaver auto updates myCSS.css for you. Make sure to save before you do this, as Dreamweaver crashed on us when we tried to undo Now it’s time to add the globalNav and the changes – it pays to save regularly! 16 globalLink

tags to our page. We’ll be nesting the tags inside the masthead

tag, just below the siteName

. There is some JavaScript in the global links which we’ll address later.

To get the masthead looking right, there are a 14 few more CSS elements to take care of. Let’s add a globalNav and globalLink elements. The values for globalNav are: position: relative; width: 100 per cent; min-width: 640px; height: 32px; color: #cccccc; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; background-image: url(“glbnav_background.gif”). Note the usage of a background image. Now place the two Global links and the five 11 Sub-Global links into a masthead

tag. After you’ve done this, nest the siteName

inside the masthead

tag. This is one of the

most powerful features of CSS – the ability to nest ^ Content Blocks. And finally, place the rest of the INSIGHT text in a pageCell

tag. CONTENT BLOCKS VS CLASS STYLES When creating a CSS document, you can usually divide it into two areas: Content Blocks and Class Styles. Content Blocks are used for placing content on the page and are prefixed by the hash character. Class Styles are used for controlling typography and are prefixed by a period. Class Styles are the only CSS Style If you open the Design View you’ll notice that can be applied to any text in a document, 17 that the page is looking better, but it’s still a regardless of which tag it resides in. bit messy. Let’s add a body, link and h1 styles that will tidy things up for us.

Computer Arts_January2004 71 PART 3 JAVASCRIPT Next, we’ll add JavaScript into the mix – combining it with CSS and HTML

You’ll have noticed by now that we’ve set 21 onmouseover to call JavaScript functions. Next up is Page Name. Let’s create a These two functions simply change the CSS property 24 pageName content block and a h2 class to go of something on the page to hidden”“ or visible”“ . with it. By now, you’re hopefully more comfortable with the padding, margin, border and font CSS Now we’re going to tackle the global subnav. properties we’ll use for this Content Block. 18 We want this to only appear when you place the mouse over a global link, then disappear when you move away.

Now that we’ve built a function to show the 22 global subnavs, we need to hide them when you move your mouse away. Thankfully, there is a browser event called onmousemove which we can place in the tag. This executes every time you move the mouse. We’re going to use it to call a JavaScript function called closeSubnav.

Let’s start by adding a subglobalNav class. 19 We’ll also need an a:link, a:visited and a:hover for this class, as we want the links in the global subnav to look unique from other links.

Let’s address the feature section of the page. Last but not least is the section links area. 23 You guessed it – we’ll need a feature Content 25 We’ll need four CSS elements: the sectionLink Block. We’ll be using padding and margins to place Content Block and the h3, a:link, a:visited, a:hover the feature on the page, while also defining a feature classes. Using the power of CSS, we can even change h3 class for the feature title. the background image when the mouse passes over a link, all without tables or JavaScript.

Now let’s combine the CSS with the HTML. 20 Add two

tags, with id=”subMenuItem1” and id=”subMenuItem2”, giving them both subglobalNav for their class attribute. Place these ^ inside the masthead

, below the globalnav INSIGHT The sectionLinks content block really

. A tremendously useful CSS property we’re 26 demonstrates the power of CSS. By placing using is visibility:“ hidden” – this makes the global a simple

tag around a group of links, you can subnav invisible until we tell it to appear. JAVASCRIPT AND CSS achieve very complex rollover effects, while keeping How can you decide between making a CSS the HTML clean and simple. class or a CSS Content Block? The difference is very subtle. If you’re using JavaScript to control something on the page, for example an tag, you should use a class (.styleName). This is because you’ll need to give the id attribute of the tag a unique name so the JavaScript can manipulate it.

72 Computer Arts_January2004 Tutorial ^ ^ INSIGHT INSIGHT

LAYOUT VIEW CONTENT BLOCKS Dreamweaver MX has an amazing tool called In addition to being able to visually lay out Layout View. You can simply draw your tables, tables in Dreamweaver, you can also create and Dreamweaver codes the table for you. Content Blocks in the same manner. To switch Not only is it quick, it generates clean code. to Layout View, Click View>Table Mode> To switch to Layout View, Click View>Table Layout Mode (or Ctrl+F6). Open up the Insert Mode>Layout Mode (or Ctrl+F6). Now open bar (Ctrl+F2) and select the Draw Layer button. up the improved Insert bar (Ctrl+F2) and select You can resize, drag and nest these content the Layout Table button. blocks however you like, and Dreamweaver takes care of writing the CSS for you. BROWSER COMPATIBILITY Dreamweaver MX 2004 offers even more PART 4 THE TAG capabilities for checking your code for browser INSPECTOR PANEL compatibility. It automatically underlines offending code pieces as you write them, A feature not to be missed with helpful tool tips to explain what the problem is. If you would like to specify exactly There are two views of CSS elements that are which browsers are checked against, select 29 assigned to the current tag that is selected (the Settings from the Target Browser Check globalLink

tag for our example): Category View menu in the Document toolbar. and List View. We generally find List View more helpful, as it puts the elements that have been assigned a value right at the top.

Lastly, make sure to use Dreamweaver MX 31 2004’s new capability to check your CSS for browser compatibility. If you see any red underlines in your CSS or HTML document, mouse over them and Dreamweaver will give you an explanation of the problem – convenient is an understatement!

Now the final touches. Before we close up 30 shop, one last small note. If you’ve used CSS before and are accustomed to tags instead of Now that we’ve laid out all of the CSS and

tags, it’s best to use

tags, as browsers placed it into the HTML, we can explore the 27 which don’t support layers will handle them slightly FINAL STEP usefulness of the Tag Inspector Panel. Trust us when better. Make sure you check out Dreamweaver’s Help ll that’s left now is to hit F12 to preview your we say that this is something you’ll want to make use files – they’re pretty good. A page in a Web browser. By now you should of. Open it up by hitting F9 or Window>Tag Inspector, have gained insight into the powerful layout and and once it’s open choose the Relevant CSS tab. typography features that CSS and Dreamweaver can offer to the serious Web designer.

The reason why the Relevant CSS tab on the 28 Tag Inspector is so important, is because it helps us sort out complex CSS dependencies. Click your mouse on the globalLink

tag and the Relevant CSS tab tells you that it is being influenced by body, #masthead and #globalNav

tags.

Computer Arts_January2004 73 The Expert’s Voice® – Is Louder! THE AUTHOR’S PRESS®

Building Database Driven Flash Applications Learn Programming with Flash MX Noel Jerke and Darin Beard Kristian Besley and Ben Renow-Clark

• Includes hands-on examples that integrate Flash • Acquire foundational programming skills in the interfaces with database data interactive setting of a virtual classroom • Provides techniques to build better, richer Web • Create your own dynamic application using Flash MX applications and ActionScript • Covers a wide range of Microsoft Web and database • Learn a fundamental programming skill set that you technologies including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft can apply to any programming language Access, ASP, and ASP.NET Geared towards absolute beginners, this book covers the Building Database Driven Flash Applications demonstrates how fundamental programming principles and skills that every the capabilities of Flash programming can be combined with programmer needs to master in order to create well-structured Web back-end databases directly, without an intermediate layer and efficient code that lives up to professional standards. It of programming. Techniques for utilizing Flash presentation employs a truly unique classroom-based approach to learning, capabilities with the power of back-end databases are covered in with the goal of establishing core, practical programming skills. step-by-step detailed techniques as well as complete “out-of- In each “class”, theory and practice are smoothly blended the-box” solutions that are ready to be utilized together with plenty of practical examples. The class project immediately. that runs through the book reinforces the learning in an integrated, real-world context, using Flash MX as the illustrative vehicle. FREE SAMPLE Oct-03 504 pp Softcover ISBN: 1-59059-110-0 RRP: £35.50 Kristian Besley is a freelance author and he is also a regular CHAPTER ON COVER CD SPECIAL PRICE FOR COMPUTER ARTS READERS FREE ‘SETTING UP THE WEB SERVER SAMPLE CHAPTER contributor to Computer Arts magazine. £28.40 plus p&p AND DATABASE ENVIRONMENT’ ON COVER CD PLUS ‘CREATING ‘PROGRAMMING Oct-03 448 pp Softcover ISBN: 1-59059-241-7 RRP: £21.50 YOUR FIRST FLASH CONCEPTS’ SPECIAL PRICE FOR COMPUTER ARTS READERS APPLICATION’ £17.20 plus p&p

Dreamweaver Developer’s Instant Troubleshooter Design Concepts with Code: A Developer Approach Rachel Andrew, Gareth Downes-Powell, Nancy Gill, Kelly Carey & Stanko Blatnik Kevin Marshall, and Drew McLellan • First book to bring design to code and code to design “The best book for professional Dreamweaver users who need to • Simple, clear, strong ideas and illustrations of basic know how to integrate other web technologies but don’t need yet design principles another tour around the menus. Real solutions to real problems that will save you lots of time...not to mention hair!” Design Concepts with Code: A Developer Approach is the first George Petrov, founder, MMXzone.com book to tackle basic graphic design issues like line, colour, symmetry, and balance for an audience of sophisticated • Master Dreamweaver development from connection to programmers. The authors cover design concepts including completion interface design, design principles, design elements, layout, • Learn from Dreamweaver professionals how to install content and typography, and colour which are presented with code and troubleshoot dynamic technologies including XML, XHTML/CSS, SVG, XSLT, XSL-FO, and scripting • Identify best practices for how to develop with CSS, languages. This text offers design concepts, examples, projects, ASP, ASP.NET. MySQL, ColdFusion, and PHP and code (no apps) to quickly enhance client and user • Discover the importance of web standards and interpretation and appreciation of web-based products. understand how to use them with Dreamweaver

Rather than focus on the basics of the interface, this book deals Nov-03 361 pp Softcover ISBN: 1-59059-111-9 RRP: £28.50 with the problems frequently encountered with the more complex SPECIAL PRICE FOR COMPUTER ARTS READERS areas of web development with Dreamweaver and serves as a FREE £22.80 plus p&p solid grounding and installation reference to a number of other FREE SAMPLE CHAPTERS key technologies, like PHP, ASP, MySQL, and CSS. SAMPLE CHAPTER ON COVER CD ON COVER CD ‘INTRODUCING ‘CSS’ Dreamweaver MX is a complex tool. With its new features for INTERFACE PLUS building web sites with server-side scripting, standards- DESIGN’ ‘TOP PHP QUESTIONS’ compliant code, advanced template features, and Cascading Style Sheets, it can hold many traps for the unwary. Whatever your quandary, this book has all the answers!

Oct-03 299 pp Softcover ISBN: 1-59059-233-6 RRP: £28.50

SPECIAL PRICE FOR COMPUTER ARTS READERS £22.80 plus p&p All Computer Arts readers can claim 20% discount on Apress books MAKE OUR BOOKS YOUR FIRST CHOICE Distributed by ® To order, please email [email protected] The Expert’s Voice Alternatively, you can choose a book from the FREE catalogue Offer ends February 1st 2004 available on the cover CD and email: [email protected] to order. More books available at springeronline.com Q&A SHORTCUTS

midtones in the highlight or shadow areas. Positive values increases the contrast and PHOTOSHOP CS negative values decreases the contrast. Finally, there are Black Clip and White Photoshop CS offers a selection of new tools for Clip percentages, which specify the degree tidying up and correcting images. One of the most that the new shadow and highlight values clip the original highlight and shadow powerful is the Shadow/Highlight command, which values. Setting high percentages can brings out difficult-to-discern detail in dark shadows lead to contrasty images with a lack of and blown-out highlights. We show you how to use it detail, as shadows get pushed to black and highlights blown out to white.

icture the scene: you’re on holiday and you see the perfect setting, perhaps a sunset or P mountain vista, to position your beloved in front of for the digital scrapbook. After snapping away with your new-fangled digital camera, you come home, only to discover that image doesn’t look as good as you remembered… Digital cameras, and modern scanners for that matter, are fantastic tools, but The Shadow/Highlight filter can help often the images they produce can be a you correct two common mistakes: a little too contrasty, resulting in dark subject silhouetted by a strong backlight, midtones and a lack of detail. Usually, or a subject washed out because it’s been Fortunately, you can save (and then there’s detail lurking in the images, shot too close to the camera flash. re-use) all the adjustments you make and a professional Photoshop retoucher With the Shadow/Highlight dialog box at any time using the Save and Load will be able to coax it out. open, click the Show More Options check buttons. This way you can create libraries box to toggle the advanced features. The of solutions for difficult images that you Shadows and Highlights both have their can easily recall in Photoshop with just a own set of sliders that control the Amount, few mouse-clicks. Tonal Width and Radius. Amount is simply The Shadow/Highlight command can the amount of overall correction you want work miracles on images which would in the highlight and shadow areas. Tonal have previously taken a lot of hard work Width and Radius are more complex. and effort to correct. And thanks to Tonal Width controls the range of tones Adobe’s decision to include the full set that are changed. A small percentage of adjustment variables, the tool should value restricts modification to only very be welcomed with open arms by dark areas for the Shadow slider, and very professional retouchers, as well as the light areas for the Highlight slider. Be casual hobbyist looking for a quick and careful not to apply too much – it can easy solution. It’s an easily overlooked The problem is, not all Photoshop users create haloes around areas of contrast. feature, but once you witness the results know what to do to correct the image. The Radius slider determines whether a and appreciate the power it provides, Photoshop offers so many options, some given pixel is in the shadows or the you’ll be using it on a daily basis. of which are not really suitable at all, that highlights by looking at other pixels in the INFO Expertise supplied by Jason Arber, it’s not surprising that many people throw THE SHADOW/ vicinity. The bigger the radius, the more [email protected] their hands up in despair. But the white- pixels are examined. The best radius value Photograph of Guitar Vader by ©Akiko Konno coated boffins at Adobe have been HIGHLIGHT depends very much on the size and type of listening, and have come to the rescue COMMAND CAN image, so experiment to find the optimum with a miraculous feature in the recently WORK MIRACLES number of pixels. If the radius is too large, released Photoshop CS upgrade, called ON IMAGES you may find the whole image lightening the Shadow/Highlight command or darkening. (Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlight). WHICH WOULD There are also an additional pair of Although it’s possible to treat this HAVE PREVIOUSLY adjustment sliders: Colour Correction and command as one-click instant fix for the TAKEN A LOT Midtone Contrast. Colour Correction acts amateur photographer, in order to get the OF HARD WORK like a saturation filter, enabling you to most out of Photoshop’s handiest new boost or tone down colours in the feature it’s best to take a closer look at the AND EFFORT adjusted areas. The Midtone Contrast potentially baffling array of options. TO CORRECT enables you to adjust the contrast of the

Computer Arts_January2004 75 ON

SALE NOW!

Over 4GB of free software!

FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT US ONLINE • www.3dworldmag.com COMPLETE 3D COLLECTION 2 A special book-length collection of tips and tutorials to help you master the world’s leading 3D software

FROM THE MAKERS OF

222 PAGES OF EXPERT ADVICE

Expert tuition in every aspect of 3D >> Modelling >> Digital texturing >> Lighting >> Animation >> Character design >> Effects >> Compositing >> Choosing 3D software REVIEWS

A few months ago, we previewed the Adobe Creative Suite Premium, and since then we’ve had a chance to really test it out. Turn the page to see exactly what we think of it now… Of course, we’ve also been testing out other great software and hardware. Check out our exclusive on Modelshop, for instance. This Photoshop plug-in enables you to import native ★★★★★ SOFTWARE 3D models and composite OUR FIVE-STAR Adobe Creative Suite Premium p78 them using lighting and RATING Modelshop p82 shadow planes. See what EXPLAINED you think on page 82. The Tab 2.0 p83 Carrara Studio is a tool For a piece of software Toon Boom Studio Express p83 that once left us a little or hardware to make it confused; we were never into Computer Arts’ 3ds max 6 p84 sure whether it would reviews section, it has to Carrara Studio 3 p86 flourish into an unmissable reach a certain standard. Truly dire products bargain 3D tool, or prove too quirky for many users. will be ignored, which HARDWARE is why you’ll rarely We cleared it up in the end, see one-star ratings. Our Apple PowerBook 17-inch p88 though – check out page 86 reviewers are experts Plextor PX-708UF p89 for an in-depth review. in their own fields. We also review two new p89 We assess tools from G-Celerator G4 2D animation tools: The Tab the viewpoint of the Creative Stuff p90 and Toon Boom Studio professional designer. Express. See which one Does the product do came out on top on page 83. what it’s meant to do? GROUP TEST Hardware this month Is the interface clean? AFFORDABLE DV CAMS p94 comes in the form of the big Is it quick, reliable and Sony TRV19E and beautiful PowerBook useful? And is it good 17-inch from Apple, a brand value? Computer Canon MV600i new multi-DVD drive from Arts Recommended Canon MVX150i Plextor, a powerful G4 awards are only given upgrade card and five to products that are Panasonic NV-GS50B affordable DV camcorders. particularly good JVC GR-DV700EK value, or truly excel Have a great Christmas – in what they do. and see you in 2004!

Robert Carney Deputy Editor [email protected]

Computer Arts_January 2004 77 CREATIVE SUITE PREMIUM PC AND MAC £1115 DESIGN Adobe’s bundle of brand new tools proves to be fantastic value for money

CONTACT s if you didn’t know by now, the Creative Suite or layers, although results will invariably have to be Adobe Premium edition features new versions of tweaked before final output. Shadow/Highlight is, for Buy online Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and GoLive, as want of a better word, awesome… www.adobe.co.uk A well as Acrobat 6 Professional and Version Cue The Shadow/Highlight tool, found in the – the latter being Adobe’s new file management and Image>Adjustments menu, is a seminal addition, giving SYSTEM versioning tool. We brought you the full, world-exclusive novices as well as experts short of time an incredibly PC Pentium III or 4 • 1.55GB HD previews of each individual application in issue 89 of quick way of correcting under or overexposed images • 192MB RAM • Win XP/2000 Computer Arts, so if you want all the details on all the new by means of simple sliders. The live preview gives you MAC G3, G4 or G5 • 1.775GB features, check out our back issues on page 100. immediate feedback on your changes. Again, results HD • 192MB RAM • OS X 10.2.4 But back to the matter in hand: our in-depth test of this may need to be tweaked before output, but as a start, this FOR much-hyped release. Everyone in the industry is talking tool makes one of the most laborious tasks in Photoshop • Illustrator 3D Effects tools about it – so is it worth the hype? almost a one-click task. • Great-value bundle The only new tool to be found in the Photoshop CS • The Photoshop CS upgrade is PHOTOSHOP CS toolbox is the Colour Replacement tool, which provides an superb, and you can upgrade to We’ll start with the suite’s star, Photoshop CS, a decent alternative to making a selection and using Hue/Saturation the full Creative Suite from any enough upgrade that’s largely aimed at the digital and Colour Balance. It enables you to paint colours into version of Photoshop for £663 photographer. Graphic and Web designers get a few neat areas – edges defined by options in the tool options bar. tools, but it’s photographers who’ll benefit the most. Again, it’s relatively useful for a quick fix or variation. AGAINST And this fact is borne out with such tools as Match The update to the File Browser is one that digital • You can only upgrade Colour, Shadow/Highlight, Photo Filter, Lens Blur filter, the photographers working with many images will adore. New from Photoshop Colour Replacement brush, and a massive overhaul of the to the feature, introduced in v7, is the ability to run batch VERDICT File Browser. The Match Colour feature is one of the operations directly from the File Browser, preview ★★★★★ strongest additions; using the tool is a quick process, the thumbnails at bigger sizes, flag up images for review and parameters giving you control over Luminance, Colour search for images (by means of metadata, keywords, flags, The Creative Suite Premium Intensity and Fade, and setting up the dialog to transfer the names and so on). We’ve said it before, but the File Browser is a set of tools that no designer colour scheme of one image or layer to another is simply a now feels like more of an asset management tool than a or photographer can afford to matter of using a dropdown menu. Results are immediately bolt-on image searcher. miss. If you have a version of pleasing, and the feature is efficient. As a quick fix (many of Rounding off the numerous photographic additions Photoshop, take advantage of Photoshop’s new tools fall into this bracket), Match Colour are Photomerge, a tool for creating panoramic images the incredible upgrade deal. If is a great way of gaining consistency across multiple shots from a series of stills, and Crop and Straighten, a fairly you don’t, fork out now – you won’t regret it.

The Match Colour tool enables you to maintain consistency across differently lit images – a great boon for digital photographers.

78 Computer Arts_January2004 Review

Photoshop’s excellent Layer Comps feature enables you to store Illustrator CS’s 3D Effects engine is superb, too. As well as rotate, different iterations of an image or design within a single document. extrude and bevel 2D shapes, you can map artwork to surfaces. FEATURES self-explanatory tool for cropping and straightening up • Photoshop CS many images scanned in a single pass. • ImageReady CS • Illustrator CS LAYER COMPS • InDesign CS However, Photoshop CS isn’t just about photography. Layer • GoLive CS Comps, text on a path and the new Filter Gallery add up to • Acrobat 6 Professional some good tools for graphic designers – Layer Comps • Version Cue being the addition to Photoshop most will upgrade for. • Image editing This intuitive new feature takes the hassle out of showing • Vector illustration and hiding layers in order to preview different iterations of • Layout and design an image. The Layer Comps palette effectively enables you • Web graphics/authoring to save out ‘states’ of an image; you may hide a text layer (or layers), for example, or want to see a different version of a graphic. Using the Layer Comps palette is simplicity itself – you hide or show the relative layers and save out the iterations of the document. Then, using the palette, you can The new Separations preview and palette in InDesign CS enables jump back to iterations without worrying about searching you to preview separate plates before you go to press. through layers and switching their visibility. Nice. Text on a path is a long overdue addition, and one that photographers will jump to because of the quick fix we think has only surfaced because of the excellent deal on features Adobe has employed. Graphic designers will the Creative Suite. Still, the addition is a useful one and will love the new Layer Comps feature, but we suspect that the Layer Comps are an innovative help designers creating text in Photoshop and porting it features here will not be enough to entice them to upgrade and highly intuitive addition to over to Illustrator (Photoshop, Illustrator and, indeed, to Photoshop alone. Upgrading to the Creative Suite is Photoshop CS, enabling you to InDesign now share the same text engine). The new Filter another story, however. switch between document iterations (hidden and visible Gallery provides a dialog (with Live preview) for stacking layers) at the click of a button. filters on top of each other – combine this with actions for a ILLUSTRATOR CS quick way to apply multiple filters. Illustrator is the second major tool in the Creative Suite, And that’s about it for Photoshop, bar a few nips and and although Adobe’s vector app receives a conservative tucks and a Fibers filter for creating random, edgy texture update in terms of features, it remains an important one. effects. It’s not a huge upgrade, but one that pro A definite focus for Adobe on this release has been speeding Illustrator up. Version 10 wasn’t the speediest, but the CS release goes a long way to right this. In addition, the new 3D Effects engine brings vector 3D tools superior to those found in FreeHand MX, and ones that echo traditional VERSION CUE methods of creating 3D objects. Naturally you can rotate Bringing out dark areas of an Simple file management and versioning and extrude a 2D object, but Illustrator also enables you to image without affecting the revolve a curve, change bevels, lighting effects, shading overall image is now a cinch, Version Cue is the only Version Cue is accessed and so on. With a fast machine, it’s easy to knock up realistic thanks to Photoshop CS’s excellent Shadow/Highlight tool. Adobe app you may not be from the File menu of 3D graphics that remain live at all times. familiar with. Not available Photoshop, Illustrator and But it’s in the Symbol mapping tools that Illustrator’s 3D on its own, this tool is, in InDesign and, by using engine excels. Taking tools one step further than FreeHand, effect, an easy-to-use either Mac System Prefs or it enables you to map symbols to surfaces and easily cycle graphics server. It enables Windows Control Panel, through them in the Map Artwork dialog. you to save out versions of you can quickly set up a your images (mainly used project, add users and Illustrator CS introduces a new template file format – within collaborations), change access privileges. handy for frequently repeated document setups – and adding comments as you No networking knowledge therefore it makes sense that Adobe has bundled hundreds go. It also ensures that no is needed. We can’t of templates with the app. And, yes, these are well worth two people work on the understand why this having – even if just for the dimensions of a CD case or Nested Styles in InDesign make it same file at the same time hasn’t been implemented CD body. OpenType support is here, as are new Character possible to ‘nest’ character styles within paragraph styles – adding – thus preventing mix-ups before in a suite of tools; and Paragraph palettes (think InDesign or XPress) – the these to the beginning of every in the creative process. it’s a superb idea. latter enabling you to easily format reams of text. Optical paragraph is now simplicity itself.

Computer Arts_January2004 79 kerning rears its head, and Illustrator has pinched frequently created documents. Not exciting by any means, InDesign’s multi-line composer. Illustrator finally includes a but a real time-saver. Then you get Nested Styles. These WYSIWYG font menu. PDF Styles and a new Print dialog combine character and paragraph styles, enabling you to (merging the Page Setup and Separations dialogs into link character styles to the beginning of each paragraph. one) round off an appealing and somewhat entertaining You won’t use Nested Styles all the time, but when you upgrade. No multipage support, though, but, then again, need a certain paragraph to start with a certain character, we expect anyone wanting to design documents longer they’ll prove a massive time-saver. than a page will buy the Creative Suite and move their A new Info palette gives you instant feedback on word files into InDesign. counts, graphics info (DPI and so on), depending on what you have selected, and similarly a new context-sensitive The File Browser has received a INDESIGN CS Control palette gives instant access to options related to makeover, too; it now gives you You’ve heard it all before – the benefits of native the tool selected (think XPress Measurements). The the ability to run batch operations and flag up files for review at a transparency, live dropshadows, feathering and so forth. Pathfinder palette (think Illustrator) enables you to create later date. Think of it more as an However, this isn’t enough for print professionals, and complex text and picture boxes, while the new Stroke asset management tool. with InDesign CS, Adobe has introduced some handy Styles editor gives you the ability to create custom strokes. workflow additions. Adobe has catered for those using InDesign as an editorial Both the Separations palette and preview and the production tool, with the inclusion of the Story Editor (think Flattener palette and preview (along with the overprint PageMaker). Finally, InDesign now integrates with GoLive preview) are prime examples of a company thinking along CS in a much more logical way. See the boxout on this the same lines as money-conscious designers. These tools page for more details. effectively enable you to preview document plates and transparency on-screen (and make amendments as MUST-BUY necessary) before sending them off to the printers. If you’ve Along with Acrobat 6 Professional (see issue 84 of CA for ever had an important document come back from the the review) and Version Cue (see boxout on page 79 for File management and versioning printers with minor mistakes, due to flattening problems or more), Creative Suite Premium is a bundle of tools that presented in a simple manner; a mix-up with separations, you’ll appreciate how cost- simply cannot be ignored. If you’re serious about design that’s the thinking behind Version effective these tools can be. and need a solution that caters for all mediums and all team Cue. This solution enables you to easily keep track of files and Another workflow enhancement comes in the form of members, this is certainly it. By themselves, the tools are manage projects more efficiently. Document Presets, which give you the ability to repeat good; brought together, they’re utterly fantastic.

IMAGEREADY CS AND GOLIVE CS Adobe’s Web authoring tools also get an upgrade

ImageReady and GoLive have not been left out of the Illustrator CS’s 3D Effects tools CS mix – so don’t worry, are simply superb. Not only can you rotate, revolve and bevel 2D Webheads. ImageReady, objects with ease, but you can Photoshop’s Web companion also map symbols onto surfaces since v5.5 has received what to create interesting textures. can only be said to be a minor upgrade; although the new features on offer are fantastic, there’s just not that many of them. As well as a new, centralised Web Content palette, ImageReady CS features a Flash export option. Yes, that’s right; you can now export your Bringing out dark areas of an animations to SWF format image without affecting the overall image is now a cinch, – with ImageReady layers thanks to Photoshop CS’s becoming Photoshop layers. excellent Shadow/Highlight tool. Smart Guides (think Illustrator) are also here, making it easy to align interface elements. GoLive CS looks to be a much smarter tool than its ImageReady CS receives minor enhancements to its interface, while dedicated Web authoring tool GoLive predecessor; integration CS gets a massive overhaul, with a new interface, excellent CSS tools and superb InDesign integration. with InDesign is obviously a priority. The new Package for repurpose elements from Add some enhanced CSS extremely easy to use. The GoLive command in InDesign your print layout. It’s not an functionality, better Smart Web aspect of Adobe’s Illustrator now features a enables you to export a automated solution, but it Object integration and a Creative Suite may not be as WYSIWYG Font menu, giving preview layout (or package) you the ability to check out which does provides Web designers smarter interface and you dominant as the print aspect, font you need before you select it. to GoLive, and from this you with easy access to graphics have a competent Web but it’s certainly present and can drag and drop and and text used in print layouts. authoring tool that is certainly extremely useful.

80 Computer Arts_January2004 Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, FreeHand, Cinema 4D, After Effects

Creative Collection3 On sale 6 November, £12.99

An exclusive collection of Computer Arts’ best FROM THE MAKERS OF tutorials. Get to grips with image manipulation, illustration, Web and graphic design, typography, digital video and 3D techniques

OVER 200 PAGES OF TUTORIALS PLUS DVD MODELSHOPPC AND MAC $249 (£147) PHOTOSHOP PLUG-IN Composite 3D models accurately into your 2D images

CONTACT ompositing 3D elements into 2D scenes is not the within the image. There are no tools for manipulating Digital Element easiest of disciplines. The art of blending models individual surfaces or polygons, although you can turn on Buy online naturally, getting the light right, and generally and off faces in the model structure dialog. www.digi-element.com C making everything look convincing takes years of However, neat lighting tools do enable you to match practice and some pretty specialist (and often expensive) the lighting of your model to that in your 2D image or SYSTEM tools. Now, however, Digital Element claims to have a photograph. You can also add extra lights and adjust their PC/MAC Photoshop 6, 7 solution for non-specialists – in the form of Modelshop direction using a standard directional sphere interface. or CS and a system capable (formerly known as Pro-spec, then daVinci), an app which Adding Shadows and Shadow Planes is one of the of running it enables you to integrate native 3ds max and LightWave plug-in’s most interesting features. By checking the FOR models with Photoshop images. Shadows box, Modelshop places an accurate shadow on • Easy to use Modelshop isn’t for users familiar with 3D – it’s geared your 2D image, depending on where your model sits, • Neat interface more towards those wanting a hassle-free way to add 3D where the light source originates from, and where you’ve • Shadows add to the elements to their images. Thousands of free models are placed your shadow plane (which acts as a ground plane). realism of composites available online, although Digital Element kindly bundles You can even tweak the colour and intensity of your lights. 50 samples with this particular plug-in, split into such Modelshop is a great plug-in, but not perfect. Different AGAINST categories as Vehicles, Architecture and Anatomy. rendering options for, say, wireframe, cel – and possibly • Lacks rendering options Modelshop’s pretty simplistic interface will be familiar to some radiosity options – would’ve been handy, as would • Only supports three formats anyone who’s used the company’s other Photoshop plug- support for a few more formats. Hopefully, these omissions VERDICT ins: Verdant and Aurora. To the left-hand side of the dialog will be cleared up in the second release. Still, for a version lies a relatively large preview; to the right, a model structure one tool, Modelshop offers heaps of potential. ■ ★★★★ or tree, depicting all the models and their surfaces that Modelshop has plenty of you’ve imported. Running along the top are all the tools for potential as a tool for artists manipulating and positioning your model within your 2D who want to composite 3D Photoshop image. I’M SO DIZZY elements in 2D scenes directly Once you’ve imported a model, it immediately appears in Photoshop. It could do in the preview window. By default, rendering is set to Another plug-in that enables you to with more rendering options, Preview – giving you a rough idea what the model will look import 3D models into Photoshop admittedly, but overall this like right from the start. Naturally, you can change the is an exciting first release. Modelshop isn’t the comprehensive rendering quality: Wireframe for dense models and quick only plug-in available as Modelshop, it’s comps; Production for a final rendered view (the preview for Photoshop that a lot cheaper. Indeed, takes a few seconds to update in this mode). imports 3D models at just $49 (£29), it’s 3D artists will be familiar with the tools so it won’t take directly into a 2D quite a bargain – even you long to wand rotate, scale and position your model scene. Released a few if you do need to hunt years ago, Vertigo 3D’s around for old 3DMF Dizzy does pretty models or a conversion much the same thing, utility (at least you although it isn’t quite get 500 free models as powerful: it only to play with, which works with 3DMF isn’t bad). models and it doesn’t For more work in Mac OS X (and information on this therefore Photoshop and other Vertigo CS). But while it’s 3D plug-ins, visit nowhere near as www.vertigo3d.com.

Modelshop features a relatively simple interface that will be familiar to users of other Digital Element Photoshop plug-ins. Control lighting within the plug-in for more accurate compositions.

82 Computer Arts_January2004 Review

TOON BOOM EXPRESS PC AND MAC $144 (£85) 2D ANIMATION Toon Boom Studio has been cut down into a more affordable package

CONTACT his cut-down version of Toon Boom Studio 2 Toon Boom Technologies (reviewed back in issue 72 of Computer Arts) Buy online aims to hit a gap in the market for professional- www.toonboomstudio.com T quality 2D animations at an affordable price – very affordable as it happens. So what does it have to offer? SYSTEM Open up Toon Boom Studio Express and at first sight PC Pentium II 233MHz • Win there seems to be little difference between this and the 2000/98/ME/XP higher-end TBS 2. There are two modes: Drawing and MAC G3 or G4 • OS X 10.1+ Scene Planning. In the former, a variety of tools (although VERDICT not as extensive and useful as The Tab – reviewed below) ★★★★ enable you to create individual frames, while an Exposure sheet helps facilitate the animation. You can import all A great introduction to manner of formats, including AI, SWF and most bitmap It lacks lip-synching functionality and can only handle 1000 frames, but TBS Express is still a superb introduction to 2D Flash animation. the world of 2D animation. formats, as well as add MP3, AIFF or WAV files. Unlike TBS Some good drawing tools, 2, however, there are no automated lip-synching features. Planning mode – it’s as good as it ever was, enabling you coupled with excellent Scene Another limitation: TBS Express can only handle up to to arrange your 2D elements in 3D space. Unfortunately, Planning tools, make for a 1000 frames of animation (TBS 2 will generate an Express only enables you to work with two pegs (unlike bargain program that’s capable unlimited number). In addition, you can’t export to TBS), one camera and one scene – which rather limits of some fantastic results. QuickTime – only SWF. But the Exposure sheet, into which your animations. you import all your files, is a definite boon. Neat features For $144 (£85), Toon Boom Studio Express provides an here include cycling and advanced cycling, which excellent and cheap route into the world of 2D animation. significantly speed up the animation process. You can All the tools you need to create great Flash animations also edit sounds according to drawings and waveforms – are here, and at a great price. If you can’t afford The Tab to help match up phonetic shapes more effectively. (superior in terms of features) or Toon Boom Studio 2, TBS Express is great value for money; it’s obvious from then TBS Express is the ideal candidate. The free Flash the moment you start using it. Just check out the Scene importer makes it easy to add interaction in Flash, too.

THE TAB 2.0 PC $495 (£292) 2D ANIMATION Web animation made easy by a high-end animation company

CONTACT edicated 2D animation apps that don’t cost an Digital Video arm and a leg are hard to come by. The second Buy online of our tools on test this month is The Tab. This www.the-tab.com D recently released tool comes from Digital Video, the company behind the high-end animation application SYSTEM Toonz and is aimed squarely at those wanting to create PC Pentium 500 • 128MB RAM Flash animations for distribution on the Web or CD-ROM. • 100MB HD • Win In keeping with animation software protocol, the app is ME/NT4/2000/XP divided into four key areas: a drawing room, animation VERDICT room, compositing room and browser room. The drawing ★★★★ room is pretty self-explanatory, offering you standard and non-standard vector drawing and editing tools for creating A decent Web animation base images to animate later on. Tools enable you to easily tool for anyone interested in vary line thickness for a hand-drawn feel, rotate the entire traditional animation workflow. workspace, distort strokes, fill – and create styles for use The drawing tools are excellent, at a later date. You can also use these styles to change You’re not just limited to the four ‘rooms’ provided – visit www.the- the animation tools are colours throughout an entire animation sequence (in tab.com to download extra ones with added interface functionality. standard yet easy to use, each frame), which is handy. and workflow is simple. The Tab is undoubtedly capable The editing tools are uniformly excellent, particularly for previewing frames before and after the current one in of stunning results, but is a Magnet and Bender – they’re impeccably easy to use and your animation. Using the Exposure sheet is tricky at first, little pricey at nearly $500. extremely effective when making subtle tweaks to a frame. but workflow is soon picked up. There’s also a 3D Scene And while you can’t import Illustrator files directly, you can Planning mode, which enables you to position your 2D import SWF files – which is a workaround of sorts. You can elements in relation to one another and the camera – also import a variety of bitmap formats, audio files and creating the illusion of perspective and scale. movie files for rotoscoping. The Tab really is an exciting tool, and one with drawing Animating is generally done on a frame-by-frame basis, tools that surpass TBS and TBS Express. It just lacks but tweening tools are available, as well as Onion Skinning import options and is a little pricey for what it is.

Computer Arts_January2004 83 3DS MAX 6 PC £2814 3D Version 6 of 3ds max brings a host of improvements, and mental ray as standard

CONTACT wo issues ago we ran an exclusive preview of 3ds The Schematic view has also been upgraded. It’s been a Discreet max 6. Since then our 3D experts have been testing bit of a minority tool until now, with many users finding it Buy online the full version of the final release, and we can now unfamiliar, but it’s now a lot clearer and easier to navigate. www.discreet.com T give definitive answers to your questions – namely The schematic view presents each object in your scene as what’s new, what’s impressive, and what’s our verdict? a box, and uses connecting wires to indicate how objects SYSTEM Delving straight into the app, the first thing to tell you is relate to each other. You can arrange the schematic as a PC 300MHz Pentium • 256MB that scene management is a simpler business in version 6. projection of one of the viewports; in other words, if you’ve RAM • Win 2000/XP Scenes are getting bigger – there’s no doubt about it. With got a character with arms, legs, hands and fingers, the FOR PCs getting faster, viewers demand more going on on- schematic can be arranged to look like that character – ● Excellent rendering screen, and more detail in animations and models; scenes it’s much easier to see what goes where, and how your with mental ray can easily get out of control, with dozens of models, and hierarchy works. ● Strong new particle system With architects and other users of Autodesk Viz ● Improved scene management THE LAYERS MANAGER OFFERS A LIST OF being identified as an expanding market for 3ds max, Discreet has also added extra compatibility AGAINST EVERYTHING IN YOUR SCENE, AND LETS between the two products in the form of the new ● Little improvement in YOU SHOW, HIDE, OR RENDER EACH OBJECT Architectural Material. This is effectively a material the basic tools type which lets you import scenes complete ● Plug-ins not always objects to deal with. Scene management is vital, and with surface textures directly from Viz into max. The completely integrated Discreet’s response to this is the new Layers Manager. Architectural Material is also useful for max users – it’s a with other tools This window offers you a list of everything in your scene, quick and easy material type to use, and there’s a massive ● Expensive and lets you show, hide, or render each object, or group of library of exterior and interior materials supplied with it. VERDICT objects as you wish. This is incredibly useful on a large ★★★★ scene. You don’t want to waste time rendering background BUILT-IN PLUG-INS objects when you’re refining a single model, or suffer the 3ds max’s particle system has always been okay. It started With little time between impact on viewport updating that your complex main as a simple spray, and as the versions progressed more this update and the last, the models cause, when all you want to do is tweak the options have been added, culminating in six particle main functions of the package position of a prop or the keyframes of an animation. system types covering a wide range of useful, but basically haven’t changed much. mental ray and Particle Flow are major additions, and there are also new features aimed at games designers and architects. The video industry has less in the way of new headline features to cheer about, but the general improvements in scene management, schematics and rendering will quietly improve the workflow of the increasingly complex scenes demanded by production.

3ds max 6’s main layout is pretty much unchanged. It’s just a little more configurable than it was in version 5.

84 Computer Arts_January2004 Review

dumb particles. Well version 6 adds another, far more FEATURES flexible particle type to the stable: Particle Flow. • Full suite of 3D modelling Particle Flow was introduced as a plug-in to max 5, and animation tools but it’s now free with max 6. It’s a completely new departure MENTAL RAY • Character animation tools for max particles, which uses a flowchart view to construct What are this plug-in’s strengths? • Real-time environment complex relationships and behaviours. What you can do development features for with particles has been greatly expanded by this addition, So why is mental ray standard renderer, and Shockwave and games but it would have been nice to have been able to load and better than the bog- used properly it’s fast • Rendering with scanline save setups from within the Particle Flow window, and a standard max renderer? and powerful. While renderer, or mental ray few presets would have been handy, too. Well, to be honest, for the standard renderer • Soft and rigid-body In the last release, max introduced a couple of very many renders it isn’t. Most generally applies a series dynamics here of the time you’ll end up of cheats to achieve the • New event-driven useful new rendering options. Light tracing and radiosity using the regular max desired result, mental ray particle system completely revolutionised the kind of rendering that max scanline renderer for its works with analogues of • Scripting for all aspects users were able to produce. With max 6, Discreet has done speed, ease of use, and real physical effects. of package it again – this time by bringing mental ray into the product. for the fact that it can now Where mental ray most mental ray has always been one of the top rendering handle radiosity; and light obviously excels is in its engines on the market, offering unsurpassed control tracing to produce some ability to handle caustics. over the way your image is produced. high-quality results. If It can accurately create Dynamics are now a strong theme in max, and compare you’re rendering video, underwater lighting, or well with its competitors. With Reactor thoroughly you probably won’t want the focused light effects established within the package, soft and rigid-body to wait four hours for a created by a glass of wine dynamics are both well represented. The improvements in single frame, even if it standing on a table. The version 6 offer a real-time window in which you can does come with dazzling plug-in also has its own preview your dynamics world, picking up objects and refracted light and set of lights, with shadows throwing them around to see how they react to the rest of perfect shadows. and effects that are even the scene. As a way of testing things out before you start However, mental ray more accurate than max’s the complex process of animation, it’s both useful and fun. is generally a lot more Area lights (you can use Reactor also improves virtual stunt-work, supplying configurable than max’s max’s lights as well). automatic suspension for vehicles, and a script which helps out dynamics on bones systems. This last feature means that if you create an animated human, then hit it with a solid block, it will fly through the air and collapse in a (relatively) The Ragdoll script enables you realistic pile of jointed limbs. to simulate the behaviour of a lifeless body – useful for those to it – which is why 3ds max users will be glad to hear that virtual stunts. VERTEX PAINTING the app’s skinning tools have been enhanced. This time, So onto the last bunch of improvements in the box. there’s a new tool to simplify the attachment of similar (but Dynamics will probably be used by game designers for not identical) models. For example, say you’ve got three intro sequences or to test out ideas, but for real-time 3D characters, each with two arms and two legs, but with gaming (and Internet 3D for that matter) the improvements different features, proportions, clothes and details, and you to vertex painting will be useful. You can now paint more want to animate them all. Now you can skin one of them, specifically and with more control using an improved then as long as you have the same-shaped skeleton for the set of refining tools like symmetrical painting, pressure other two, you can copy the skinning data across to the sensitivity, soft selection, and painting modes like those in others – even though the models themselves are different. Architectural materials help Photoshop. But you can also create an unlimited number Our verdict on this release of max? mental ray integrate Autodesk Viz files into of layers, so you could have one for shadow, one for and Particle Flow really are major additions, and the max, but you’ll find a good library of them supplied. transparency, one for flickering light, or even use vertex improvements in rendering, schematics and scene painting to define areas for other elements of the game. management will aid workflow. This upgrade may not Getting a character model to move realistically when its be bursting to the seams with new functionality, but it bones are animated has always been a problem, and there offers two things that most users hope for with each isn’t a package on the market that has an effective solution release: an improved toolset and more value for money.

The Layers Manager sets the visibility and rendering of different elements of your scene separately – excellent for when scene management is vital.

Particle Flow offers a high degree of particle control. Here, an asteroid impact triggers multiple The shell modifier gives open-edged objects a thickness. Here it’s mental ray is good at realistic lighting, radiosity, reflections, and types, some of which create being used to give fragments of the model a more solid look. refracted light – see the rippling lens effects on the walls and floors. particles of their own as trails.

Computer Arts_January2004 85 CARRARA STUDIO 3 PC AND MAC $399 (£234) 3D Prepare to swear – or whoop with joy. Like Marmite, you’ll either love this or loathe it

CONTACT ook up the definition of ‘polarisation’ in a dictionary Eovia and you may well see a picture of Carrara Studio. +33 (0) 556 13 40 06 The fledgling 3D package continues to be loved www.eovia.com Land hated in equal measure by its users; some are entranced by its MetaCreations-style interface and oodles FOR of features; others swear in frustration at its decidedly ● Non-photorealistic rendering non-standard approach to just about everything. ● HDRI lighting Version 3 probably won’t change that situation much, ● Raytraced soft shadows although it’s good to see that some specific annoyances ● Scene wizard from version 2 have been rectified. The Properties box, for ● Improved interface instance, is much more sensibly laid out, and at least now ● Subdivision modelling it’s possible to rename a new shader directly from inside it. ● UV editor ● Shading domains Other amendments? X, Y and Z replace Pitch, Roll and Yaw, ● Plant editor the icons are smaller, and navigating is a little easier. Unfortunately, it’s still not easy enough. Carrara 3 sticks SYSTEM with the infuriating and frequently baffling ‘working box’ PC 300MHz Pentium II method for both scene assembly and spline modelling, There are some much-needed efficiency improvements to the main • 128MB RAM • 300MB HD as well as retaining the concept of separate ‘rooms’ for interface, but modelling and assembly are as frustrating as before. space • Win 98/2000/ME/NT 4/XP modelling, assembling, texturing and so on. MAC 266MHz G3 • 128MB Whether this is from positive feedback by users new to vegetation, but the results just don’t live up to the effort RAM • 300MB HD space 3D, or simply a result of entrenched product development, you’re asked to put in. The same applies to the hundreds • OS 9 or OS X 10.1 is unclear. Either way, even vaguely experienced 3D of textures and objects supplied; they’re far too basic to FOR users will likely find this arbitrary compartmentalisation be any good in a production situation. cumbersome, inefficient and confusing. Which is a shame, Meanwhile, the so-called Scene Wizard, which is ● Plenty of new features ● Excellent rendering support because version 3 adds some pretty powerful new features, supposed to speed up the building of a new scene, is ● Interface has been improved and improves on existing ones. basically just a collection of common light, camera and HDRI lighting is now available and works with the object positions – hardly a ‘wizard’ at all. AGAINST minimum of fuss. The developers have also given Global In short, Carrara continues to be frustratingly close to a ● Still fundamentally Illumination a thorough going-over. Also looking good are great 3D package. The slew of new and improved features awkward to use the previously weak depth of field and motion blur effects, are extremely welcome, and some are unprecedented at ● Rather limited character which now stand up to the closest scrutiny. The new this price. Yet we would gladly see the next version put a animation tools Non-photorealistic rendering mode, which produces toon hold on new features to make the basic package itself ● No native NURBS support renders, pencil sketches and the like, is equally welcome. simpler and more logical to use – especially in the areas VERDICT Carrara has also added a form of subdivision modelling, of modelling and assembly. As a whole, Carrara is still with dynamic extrusion, which enables you to quickly far too obstreperous and wilfully unfamiliar to attract ★★★ create prototype models by progressively extruding facets. experienced 3D users – and all the shiny new gadgets Compared to version 2, There’s a dedicated UV editor, too, but only for vertex in the world can’t alter that. ■ Carrara Studio 3 is a veritable modelling, and like many of Carrara’s sub-editors, it’s fiddly masterpiece of interface design to use. NURBS, meanwhile, continue to be handled by the – but it’s still nowhere near bundled Amapi 3D – another complex app to learn. intuitive enough to use as a Sadly, not all the new additions are necessarily good production tool. The batch ones. The Plant Editor seems like a good idea, for instance, RENDERING POWER of new, and generally very and certainly gives exacting control over the resultant good features would be For $399 (around £234), Carrara Studio 3 much better served by a new offers a good range of rendering features approach to workflow – which One area in which Carrara excels is rendering. The you just don’t get here. previous wodge of various renderers have here been consolidated into just three main settings: Photorealistic, Non-photorealistic and Draft. For software at this price, Photorealistic rendering offer a huge number of features. Global Illumination and Skylights were introduced with version 2, and Carrara has considerably cleaned up its output in this latest iteration. You can also use Skylights without GI, to save on rendering times. HDRI lighting is surprisingly simple to use, too; just load a file as the background image and all lighting is taken from the map. There’s no visual preview, though – and you can’t map the image’s dynamic range (as you can in 3ds max 6). However, Non-photorealistic rendering gives you access to a slew of controls for producing toon and You want control? You’ve got control – in the Plant Editor, at least. natural media-style effects, so with a bit of effort you Sadly, the results rarely match the effort you have to put in. can simulate just about any media.

86 Computer Arts_January2004

POWERBOOK G4 17-INCH MAC £2399 LAPTOP Can Apple’s largest PowerBook pass itself off as a portable computer?

CONTACT o call Apple’s flagship PowerBook a laptop is a bit calibre of machine. Still, it’s quiet and doesn’t produce too Apple like calling a lion a pussycat. As laptops go, this is a much heat. Buy online bit of a beast. And yet, despite the massive 17-inch Communicating with the outside world is vital with a www.apple.com/ukstore T cinema aspect screen, at 3.1kg it’s something of a portable, and in some of the places that you use it you’ll lightweight machine, superbly slim at an inch thick. be lucky enough to have access to a high-speed wireless FEATURES Even so, there’s really no way that anyone could pretend network or even a corporate gigabit Ethernet connection. • 1.33GHz G4 processor this is a laptop in the truest sense of the word. Place it on On the other hand, from time to time you’ll find that a • 17-inch TFT screen your knees and it looks a bit awkward, and the screen phone line is your only link. Fortunately, the PowerBook • 1440x900-res display droops with every movement. No, this isn’t a laptop… it’s can cope with all these options, and even throws in a few • Radeon 9600 graphics card a desktop replacement. more – such as a high-speed FireWire 800 port standard • Backlit keyboard For graphic artists and other power users, the 17-inch as well as a couple of USB 2.0 ports. It’s good to have a full • FireWire 400 and 800 ports • Built-in 802.11g wireless PowerBook offers the tantalising prospect of being able to range of options and you’re sure to use them all at some • Bluetooth enabled cart work around from location to location with a minimum time or another. • Gigabit Ethernet of fuss. You won’t want to use it on the bus, but it will do Perhaps the PowerBook’s biggest draw is it’s ability to • DVI and S-Video fine for making a pitch at the office of a potential client, or power external monitors via the on-board ATI Radeon working between home and office. Mobility 9600 graphics chipset. With 64MB of RAM, the ATI FOR Beneath the sleek, brushed-aluminium casing beats a chip can drive a second monitor or mirror the LCD screen • It really can replace a 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processor, backed up with 512MB at resolutions of up to 2048x1536. The native resolution desktop machine of RAM that can be expanded to a full 1GB if you are of the bright LCD screen is 1440x900, and it provides • Great video options running memory-hungry apps like Photoshop. As befits the plenty of space for laying out the palettes of sprawling • Superb aspect ratio Rolls-Royce of the range, everything comes as standard, graphics applications. AGAINST including Apple’s high-speed wireless networking and As far a raw performance goes, this PowerBook holds Bluetooth for wireless printing or syncing with a PDA. up fairly well, but the limitations of its hard drive and the • Limited battery life • It’s very big To the front is a slot-loading SuperDrive, which burns slightly antiquated SuperDrive let it down somewhat. It’s • Sluggish SuperDrive DVD-Rs at a leisurely 1x speed and will toast CDs at a an area that needs attention and a bit of a refresh. That pedestrian 16x speed. Fortunately, the hard drive at 80GB said, there’s no doubt that the processing power is there in VERDICT provides a decent amount of storage, although some may spades in this machine, and it will ably handle applications ★★★★ find its 4200RPM performance hardly up to scratch for this such as Final Cut Pro or Photoshop. The PowerBook G4 17-inch is admittedly a very expensive piece of kit. However, it does offer desktop performance in a package that’s not too unwieldy or heavy. If you need portability then this is about as powerful and compact as it gets. It beats the pants off competing 17-inch PC laptops.

Desktop performance and stylish design with a £2399 price tag to match. Laptop or desktop replacement? The debate goes on…

88 Computer Arts_January2004 Review

PLEXTOR PX-708UF PC AND MAC £257 DVD-BURNER This DVD-writer offers faster speeds and dual modes

CONTACT ecordable DVDs have really taken off now that drives. Better still, because both FireWire and USB 2.0 Plextor the price of the media and the drives has reached interfaces are included, it will work with both PCs and +32 2 725 5522 sensible levels. More of us are using the format to Macs, although the supplied software is for PCs only. www.plextor.com Rmake movie and photo discs that we can share Highlights of the bundled applications include Pinnacle SYSTEM with both our clients and friends. Studio and Nero. Sadly, the device won’t work with PC Windows 98 SE/Me/ 2000/XP Despite its increased popularity, there have been a Apple’s iDVD, but it will function quite happily with MAC OS X couple of issues that have hindered the more widespread DVD Studio Pro and Toast. acceptance of DVD, namely speed and compatibility. DVDs One major drawback, however, is the noise of the VERDICT can hold up to 4.7GB of data, which naturally takes some case fan in the drive. It’s obtrusive and you certainly ★★★★ time to write to disc, effectively locking up your Mac or PC wouldn’t want to have it switched on all the time. Plextor during recording. Second, there are three DVD formats needs to fix this problem before the PX-708UF can score The Plextor PX-708UF doing the rounds at the moment – DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD maximum marks. can rightly claim to be the RAM. The two most popular are DVD-R and DVD+RW, but fastest dual-format DVD they aren’t compatible and so the flexibility to burn in either writer on the market. The Plextor PX-708UF is Disappointingly, it’s noisy format would help. extremely fast, and comes and incompatible with iDVD. The Plextor PX-708UF offers a solution to the twin with an amazing two-year problems of speed and compatibility. First, it’s an 8x DVD+R warranty with free on-site collection and return. drive, which means that it can slice through a full DVD in less than ten minutes. Second, it can also write to DVD- R/RW, albeit at only 4x speeds. It also doubles as a 40x CD writer, which probably makes it the fastest multi-format drive of its kind on the market. The PX-708UF is particularly versatile around the office, because it’s a highly luggable external unit. This means you can cart it between computers as and when you need to write a project to disc. This makes it ideal for sharing with work colleagues on the fly, and generally backing up hard

G-CELERATOR G4 CPU MAC £379 G4 UPGRADE Add power to your ageing G4 for as little cost as possible

CONTACT hat speed demon of a Mac you bought a few years that plug directly into the daughter-card socket on a G4 AM Micro back is beginning to feel a bit tired. It puffs when desktop – from the Sawtooth all the way up to the MDD 01392 426 473 presented with Photoshop filters and you’re model. Installation is simple and takes just five minutes. www.gigadesigns.com T increasingly spending time staring at progress There are decent enough instructions, and you don’t SYSTEM bars. So what’s the answer? You could buy a brand new need to worry about cooling because the card comes MAC G4 desktops from Mac, but you don’t fancy the hassle of reinstalling with its own heatsink and fan. Sawtooth to Quicksilver everything to get it just the way you like it. Thankfully, there We tested the 1.25GHz G-Celerator on a 400MHz G4 is an alternative: a processor upgrade. desktop. Fitting it was a breeze and soon we were booted VERDICT Giga Designs is a new name in the processor upgrade up in OS X, enjoying speed increases that users of older ★★★★ market, and the G-Celerator range is a series of upgrades Macs will really notice. Photoshop filters zipped through jobs in anything from half to a third of the time taken when For anyone who owns a the machine was wheezing along with its old processor. Mac that’s over two years old, The Giga the Giga Designs upgrade is a Designs Although Giga Designs is careful to say that it doesn’t G-Celerator viable and economic way recommend overclocking, it also makes it quite clear card has its that the processor has been tested up to 1.4GHz. The of extending its life and own copper enhancing its performance. heatsink and overclocking speeds of the processor care are set via integral fan five jumper pins on the daughter card. There’s a fully for optimum cooling. illustrated guide, showing all the settings, included in the box with the processor. We did have one or two problems getting our G4 to boot under OS 9, so if you do want to run OS 9 natively we recommend that you check with the dealer if they are willing to refund you in the event that the card doesn’t work satisfactorily on your computer. For Mac lovers who don’t want to splash out on a new machine, the Giga Designs G-Celerator is a cost-effective way of squeezing a few more years out of your desktop.

Computer Arts_January2004 89 CREATIVECHRISTMAS STUFF ESSENTIAL KIT FOR THE MODERN DESIGNER

1 2

4 5 3

6

90 Computer Arts_January2004 Review

BOSE HEADPHONES SKY + SIEMENS MC60 PRICE £120 PRICE £199 PRICE Subject to Orange contract COMPANY Company Bose COMPANY Sky COMPANY LG WEBSITE www.bose.com WEBSITE www.sky.com WEBSITE www.orange.co.uk

Television could either be the biggest Mobile phones are definitely evolving, and Music seems to be a concurrent theme in distraction or the biggest inspiration there is – this latest offering from LG is a case in point. Creative Stuff, probably because it’s something 2 either way, you may as well have as many 3 Featuring the now almost mandatory colour 1we all love to listen to when working on any channels and as much control as possible. Sky + screen and built-in camera, the 7100 also features kind of brief or project. And what better way to screams Tivo, and works on the same principle, a built-in flash for those shots in the dark over the listen than with these TriPort Bose headphones: enabling you to pause, resume and record live festive period, as well as a 270-degree swivel head sound quality to blow your socks off, neat design, television via its nifty hard drive. for capturing shots at almost any angle and a and not particularly expensive. These have to be We’re not going to bore you with the channel glowing outer OLED display. top of any audiophile’s Christmas list. listings, but Christmas is the ideal time to forget The phone also features JAVA and MMS, as Available in both blue and black, the TriPort about that client and that big deadline on 3 January, well as 1.6MB of storage for all of those cheesy headphones are lightweight and ergonomic – and kick back and watch as much festive TV as Christmas polyphonic ringtones. Weighing in at ideal for sitting at your desk, in front of the telly possible. And this’ll certainly help… You do need a 93.5g and having a standby time of up to 200 hours, or when you’re on the move. Sky dish fitted, though. the 7100 is a performer as well as a looker. CRUMPLER BAGS CREATIVE MUVO NX LAKS MEMORY WATCH PRICE From £35 PRICE £120 PRICE £35 COMPANY Company Crumpler COMPANY Company Creative COMPANY LAKS WEBSITE www.cancomuk.com WEBSITE www.creative.com WEBSITE www.amazon.co.uk

What better way (excluding the iPod of course) to listen to those Christmas classics? Well, we suppose it was only a matter of time With the announcement of the new 5 The Creative MuVo NX is the latest generation before someone came up with this. The PowerBooks and G4 iBooks from Apple, of the company’s super-slim MP3 players. With just 6 LAKS Memory Watch is exactly what it says 4 designers all over the world are desperate 128MB storage capacity, you’re not going to fit your on the box – a watch with a USB memory stick to get their hands on a decent bag that doesn’t look entire CD collection on the MuVo, but you’ll be able built in. Coming in 32MB, 64MB and 128MB too corporate. The latest range of bags includes to fit around 30 songs in MP3 format. incarnations, this gadget is compatible with the ‘Very Busy Man’, the ‘Sheep Scarer’, the ‘Crippy A blue backlit LCD display, built-in scroller wheel Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and Mac OS 8.6 and Duck’ and more. for navigating between tracks, built-in USB storage above, and it’s shock-proof and water resistant. All are made of high-quality materials, and are and a microphone means it’s pretty easy to use and Unfortunately, it could do with a style make-over. guaranteed to keep your laptop safe from harm. For extremely versatile. It’s not that expensive either, at The idea is great and that’s why it’s featured here, the full range, check out www.crumplerusa.com. £120. Perfect for Cliff Richard, Wizard, and of but it needs to be prettier. So come on, TAG or There’s bound to be a bag that suits your style, course, Slade. Altogether now: “Ittttttt’ssssssss… Rolex – hell, even Seiko or Nike – bring out a nicer- pocket and laptop. Chhrrrrrrrrrisssssssmasssssssssssss…” looking model. Then we’d be tempted.

Computer Arts_January2004 91 PHOTOSHOP CHALLENGE The step-by-step nature of this book will be familiar to BOOKS AUTHOR: Colin Smith and Al Ward PUBLISHER: Friends of ED readers of Computer Arts. Each tutorial is written in a friendly, down-to-earth manner that’s easy to follow. Friends ISBN: 159059262X of ED excels at making this type of book, and beginners are PRICE: £36.50 likely to adore it because it offers so many Photoshop techniques that are reasonably easy to master. Intermediate hotoshop Most Wanted 2 brings together a wealth ‘shoppers’ and advanced users will also find some of the of Photoshop tips and tricks and presents them in chapters of interest. layman’s terms. Its authors, Colin Smith and Al Interesting isn’t always useful, however, and it must be P Ward, are masters of the Photoshop snippet, and said that some of the tutorials are a bit pointless. The final can clearly crack virtually any effects challenge you throw at results tutorial (in the Magic and Monsters chapter) that them. And challenging effects is what this book is all about. shows you how to create a fairy is hardly inspiring, The first chapter, Metalworking, is a perfect illustration although the tutorial does illustrate some decent Liquify of this. It provides a step-by-step solution to the age-old techniques. problem of creating realistic metal objects from scratch in Overall, Photoshop Most Wanted is a decent read that Photoshop. The second chapter deals, in similar fashion, serves up some neat ideas and inspiration for a reasonable with glass, plastic and transparent objects. The book then price. It also seems to be a sign that Friends of ED is back on goes on to cover a diverse range of effects, from electronic track with its titles. The books, with a definite slant towards circuitry to magic and monsters. There are also chapters the beginner and intermediate, may not be aimed at every that are devoted to text effects, actions, layer styles and designer, but they are a great source of inspiration and manipulating photos. detailed technique.

SETTING UP A DIGITAL STUDIO STOCKING FILLER AUTHOR: Tim Daly PUBLISHER: Rotovision EDITOR: Robert Klanten PUBLISHER: Die Gestalten Verlag ISBN: 2880467535 PRICE: $25 (£14) ISBN: 3899550315 PRICE: £23

im Daly’s Special Effects, for bunging in a bag with your ie Gestalten Verlag seems to be This showcase of contemporary TRetouching and Restoration is a digital camera. Dpublishing fashionable books like illustration, graphic design and complete guide to setting up a digital The content includes a mixture of they’re going out of fashion… This photography – some of the most studio – from shooting and scanning, general buying advice and step-by- latest title, Romantik, evangelises fashionable in the industry – wouldn’t to retouching and adding special step walkthroughs, and it’s great for the fact that romance is back in the be out of place in any digital creative’s effects to digital images. It’s an beginners. Pros will barely bother hot-seat in the creative industry. And so Christmas stocking. ambitious goal for a 112-page title. looking at this book – despite there the design world is awash with hand- It looks and feels lovely, with great being a few valuable snippets of drawn elements and softer themes – design and a beautiful spot metallic advice – but anyone looking for easy- flowers, butterflies, hearts, candles and running all the way through. Its neat access tutorials and advice on printing, so on. We’re touched. landscape size is also handy – perfect scanning and general studio and The title is the usual Die Gestalten equipment set-up should find it Verlag offering – gathering together an appealing read. It offers some literally hundreds of images without interesting techniques, quick ideas any real insight. It’s what coffee tables and advice. were made for. Don’t be put off by the However, this book doesn’t really lack of practicality, though. This title excite us, and that’s because of the lack oozes beautiful and fantastic images of depth in the majority of the tutorials. from a diverse and contemporary artist But then, at only 14 quid and only base that includes Dirk Rudolph, Jane 112 pages in a small format, perhaps Bark, Big Active, Sleepatwork and that’s to be expected. At least it’s Atomic Design. Some of the work in within reach of every Photoshop this title is truly amazing – take Adam artist’s budget, and is small enough Pointer’s sublime vector illustration to be tucked away for reference. and IO Design’s etchings, for example.

92 Computer Arts_January 2004 Adobe Photoshop FocusGuide From the makers of Computer Arts 132 INFORMATION-PACKED PAGES PLUS FREEFREE CD-ROMCD-ROM

ON SALE 18 DECEMBER ON SALE 15 JANUARY TheThe world’sworld’s bestbest imageimage editingediting programprogram isn’tisn’t justjust forfor thethe pros!pros! We’llWe’ll helphelp youyou mastermaster Photoshop’sPhotoshop’s essential tools and features GETGET YOURYOUR COPYCOPY NOWNOW Available from and other retailers

CONTENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE ILLUSTRATION: CIRCUS BY ACRYLICK www.acrylick.com

94 Computer Arts_January2004 Group Test

AFFORDABLE DV CAMS With the prices of DV cams coming down all the time, it’s now possible to set up your own video workshop for under £1000. We rate five camcorders in the £450-£700 price bracket to see what you get for your money

Over the last year or so, the features on low-cost DV camcorders have improved tremendously. DV input (which makes it possible to store a full quality master of your finished edit on a mini-DV tape) and analog input (which enables you to link the camera between analog equipment – such as a VCR – and your computer) now come pretty much as standard. As does the ability to store still images on memory cards; indeed, some camcorders offer pretty respectable resolutions – 1600x1200 being the best in our Group Test. Such data storage also enables automatic tape logging and the recording of high-compression videos for the Internet. The latter is useful for the quick emailing of clips, although most serious videographers will want to work with a high- quality master, only compressing edited material for online delivery at the last minute. If all you’re after is low-bandwidth, high-compression video, it might be worth considering whether you need a camcorder at all. Many digital stills cameras offer limited video facilities, enabling you to record short sequences (up to a couple of minutes) and transfer them via USB. Mobile phones are already developing such functionality. Even memory-card camcorders are being made available – Mustek’s DV3000, for instance, can record up to eight minutes of MPEG video with sound, yet it fits on a keyring and costs just £100. If you’re really cunning, you can spend £30 on a Webcam, rig it up to your laptop, and record live video and sound at whatever quality you like directly to your hard drive. It’s not a solution for professional filmmaking or fly- on-the-wall documentary work, of course, but ideal if you just want to record the odd interview for your Website. Still convinced a DV camcorder is the right option? Then read on – we’ve got five top-flight devices vying for that CA Recommended badge…

Computer Arts_January 2004 95 SONY TRV19E PC AND MAC £550 Sony’s touch-screen technology delivers great creative control – but at a price

o say that Sony’s TRV19E is compact is an understatement. It’s a seductive block only slightly larger than the average point-and- shoot stills camera, and packs its basic functions into just four T buttons. A refreshing change when you consider most camcorders are bursting at the seams with controls – that said, the TRV19E’s are slightly fiddly and feel cheap. Even the proportional zoom control (the harder you push, the faster the zoom) is small and loose, so achieving steady results is virtually impossible. So how exactly does the TRV19E keep its controls to a minimum? By relying on an excellent touch-screen viewfinder, which provides you with easy control over all the camcorder’s functions. Everything from VCR playback to exposure and focus settings is accessible from here, and it works brilliantly, enabling Sony to squeeze in the kind of extra features you just wouldn’t normally find on a camcorder at this price. Traditionally, adding extra controls would’ve meant the designing and building of extra buttons, mechanics and electronics. But with a touch-screen, all Sony has to worry about is the software. Take the manual focus, for example. Turn it on and you can focus on CANON MV600I any object in the viewscreen simply by touching it. You can also do the PC AND MAC £400 same with exposure levels. This is a great system, giving you control over images that exceeds anything Abundant in features – but the absence offered by any of the other cameras of a USB port is a serious omission CONTACT in our Group Test. Sony Once the shock of the new has nother block-shaped palmcorder – the largest in our Group 0207 365 2934 worn off, however, the camcorder’s Test, in fact – the MV600i is a grey and silver slab of metal www.sony.co.uk limitations become readily apparent. hardly geared to impress the punters. But while the viewfinder VERDICT Still image capture is weak, with a A display is a tad grainy and the fold-out screen average, the maximum resolution of just 640x480, so controls are well placed and the zoom button pleasingly smooth. Also, ★★★★ you might as well take your snapshots at 18x, the optical zoom boasts the greatest magnification of all the This camera has limitations from video. The eyepiece viewfinder is camcorders we looked at, and that doesn’t come at the expense of a – its black-and-white also disappointing – it’s monochrome, wide-angle. To manually adjust focus, exposure and white balance, you viewfinder and low- small and uncomfortable. You’ll only simply use the spring-loaded menu wheel. It’s a quick and intuitive resolution still image ever use it to conserve battery power system that’s easy to get to grips with. capture to name but two. on the viewfinder. The MV600i is the only camcorder lacking a memory card and USB That said, the viewscreen’s Infra-red night vision (with limited port. This means you can’t take high-resolution still images or record touchscreen technology range) is included, as is Image Mixer MPEG-compressed video clips. However, you can take video resolution offers the possibility of software for USB control and the stills (most of the camcorders we’ve looked at can’t go above 640x480 some creative shooting. downloading of still images. The TRV19E resolution, anyway, even though they have memory cards). The MV600i can also double up as a Webcam. records these straight to DV tape, so you’re not limited in the number you can take. You can also use the supplied DV Messenger software to make the camcorder into a Webcam when you connect it to your IEEE1394 (FireWire) port. Additionally, a photo-search function CONTACT enables you to fast-forward straight Canon to any image on a tape. This means that 08705 143 723 if you start each video recording by www.canon.co.uk taking a still, you can find the beginning VERDICT of each shot very quickly – it’s a simple form of tape logging. ★★★ Several modes are offered to cater The lack of a USB port is for different shooting environments. a serious limitation, but Basically, these alter the shutter speed to the MV600i compensates provide sharp stills for sporting events with direct-to-tape still or low depth-of-field for portrait shots. recording and Webcam For low light, a variable shutter speed software. Low-light mode is also available. This dynamically shooting is limited, but alters shutter speed in changing the optical zoom boasts conditions, but it doesn’t offer any a high magnification. additional lighting. You’ll have to provide that yourself.

96 Computer Arts_January 2004 Group Test

CANON MVX150I PC AND MAC £680 USB and neat features ensure Canon’s souped up camera makes the grade he MVX150i is the stretch-limo version of the MV600i. It has the same grey and silver styling, and the same basic controls, although with some changes in positioning and layout. But at T least this time a built-in USB port is provided, so you can make full use of the bundled software and transfer data. The fact that the MVX150i is longer and squatter than its cheaper stablemate gives it two important advantages over the other camcorders in our roundup. First, it can accommodate a massive 3.5-inch viewscreen, which delivers a clear and bright image, so you can tell easily if your subject is focused and exposed correctly. Second, there’s room for a manual focus ring – a huge boon for the serious user. The MVX150i has the same shooting modes as the MV600i, automatically optimising the shutter speed and exposure response settings for portraits, action, bright sunlight and lowlight conditions. In addition, it sports a Super Night mode. This reduces the shutter speed, PANASONIC but turns on a white LED at the front of the camcorder to provide some illumination. This point of light doesn’t drain the battery as badly as most camera lights, but it’s not as bright, illuminating objects up to about two NV-GS50B metres away. Not as innovative as the PC AND MAC £500 CONTACT Panasonic NV-GS50B’s solution, admittedly, but it does the job. Innovative features put this diminutive Canon You can captures reasonably quality 08705 143 723 camcorder among our top contenders www.canon.co.uk stills up to 1280x960 on the memory card, as well as 30-second MPEG videos. he smallest camcorder in our Group Test, the NV-GS50B bolsters VERDICT Software included with the camera also its typical palmcorder design with a black ribbed exterior on the ★★★★ enables you to stitch together still shots palm side (to improve grip) and touch-sensitive buttons on the to create a panoramic view. viewscreen (to control playback). This device may be small, but it’s A big viewscreen and a T Advanced editing features enable you also one of the most powerful in our Group Test, innovatively kitted out manual focus ring mark to drop shots into a sequence, or add with a host of great features. out this camcorder, along audio, effects or graphics. You can also The 500x digital zoom is pointless, sure, but at least its optical with a decent resolution for still image capture, upload stills or animations to the camera counterpart is smoother and more robust than the Sony TRV19E’s. It also but it shows in the price. from your computer. However, it’s hard boasts a colour viewfinder (unlike the Sony), although given the shape of The editing and effects to see why you’d want to do this when the camera, this is no easier to use. At least the front-mounted microphone functions are less useful. you can do post-production much more has a built-in wind reduction function and is of reasonable quality. effectively on your PC or Mac. To manually adjust focus, exposure and white balance, you simply use the control wheel, which also doubles as a volume controller and a jog shuttle for locating exact frames on a tape. A standard approach. But there’s a novel solution to night filming. Most camcorders with this function rely on an infra-red LED and provide black-and-white imaging. Not so here… The NV-GS50B provides full colour night vision, reducing the frame-rate to capture images more clearly. Additionally, you can flip the fold-out screen around and make it glow pure white, so it acts as a light, CONTACT illuminating your scene up to a few feet Panasonic ahead. Another neat innovation is the 08705 357357 remote control unit, which also functions www.panasonic.co.uk as a hand-held microphone. VERDICT You can use the memory card to record stills at low resolution – either via ★★★★ the camera or from tape. You can also Despite low stills capture short MPEG movies at either quality and rather 320x240 or 176x144, or record up to 25 fiddly manual minutes of sound on an 8MB card. functions, this is a neat And let’s not forget that vital USB little machine, and connection. Aside from enabling the packed with superb transfer of data to and from the memory features – the viewscreen card, it enables the camcorder to act as a doubles as a nightlight and Webcam. Very handy. the remote-control unit Panasonic really has thought of as a microphone. everything with this one.

Computer Arts_January 2004 97 WINNER JVC GR-DV700EK PC AND MAC £550 The JVC generates a super-sharp picture of stunning clarity, thanks to its great controls and a bevy of useful features – catering for video and filmmakers working on and offline

t last, a camcorder that looks like a camcorder. You can also create video emails in-camera. Just press CONTACT Strange, then, that JVC hasn’t supplied a manual the email button to record 160x120 video clips directly to JVC focus ring, despite the fact there’s plenty of room the memory card. You can do this live or from previously 0870 330 5000 A for one on the lens. Instead, the barrel contains shot footage on your DV tape, and clips can last up to three www.jvc.co.uk just an upward-facing microphone, with a built-in wind minutes. The camera is equipped with the ability to record reduction feature. While this does improve sound quality to in widescreen, too: either by placing black bands at the top VERDICT some extent, the mic would’ve been better positioned on and bottom of the screen or by stretching. ★★★★★ the front of the chassis. There’s also a D.Wide mode, which is equivalent to Shot-logging is a useful Still, the controls are good. The zoom lever is robust adding a wide-angle lens to the device, enabling you to tool if you’re organised enough to ensure smooth control, while intelligent design shoot in confined places. It doesn’t widen the shot enough to take advantage means the camcorder is as easy to operate with one hand massively, but is very useful if you’re shooting in, say, a of it, and widescreen as two, so you can steady it as you record. small room or the inside of a car. With it on, you can get a modes will appeal to the You can take still images up to 1600x1200 in size – as mid shot from about four feet away. Without it, you’d just filmmaker. The D.wide good as an average stills camera, and better than any of the get a medium close-up. function is a nice trick, too, other devices in our Group Test. The memory card even Other modes include the standard repertoire (sports, but a better designed barrel comes pre-loaded with a selection of images that you can spotlight, low-light, etc.), but also some more unusual could’ve included a front- easily incorporate into your movies – superimposing them offerings (sepia and classic film). mounted microphone and “in-camera” over your shot material. This is fun if you’re With a horizontal resolution of 540 lines, the excellent a manual focus ring. capturing compressed email footage, but on the whole it’s picture generated by the JVC is as sharp as that provided by usually best to save any post-production work for your some 3CCD cameras. The thumb wheel gives you manual desktop/laptop’s hard drive. control over focus, white balance and exposure, which isn’t One unique and rather neat feature is the camera’s ability ideal but does the job. Automatic settings are available. to log tapes as you shoot. The Navigation button enables Editing and effects work is also possible in-camera, the camcorder to grab a still image to the memory card to although these are of little use to anyone without a PC or represent every shot you take. You can then find your way Mac. Dubbing is more useful, enabling you to plug in an to any shot ready for capture to your computer, and save analog source (say, a VCR or older camcorder) and transfer yourself some serious edit time. analog footage to DV ready for editing.

98 Computer Arts_January 2004 Group Test

CONCLUSION Why the JVC proves to be the most flexible and dynamicË camcorder of them all

Camcorders in this price range have improved radically over Choosing a winner has been a close-run thing. The Sony the last few years; what’s particularly interesting now is the level TRV19E is certainly worth a look, providing genuine innovation at which they’re integrating with computers… All but one of the and high-quality video in a palm-sized machine that doesn’t leave camcorders we tested deliver USB and IEEE1394 (FireWire) you searching for the right button. It’s keenly priced, too. Another connectivity; all come with software; and all double up as top contender is Canon’s MVx150i. Although nestling at the top Webcams. Most also offer analog and digital inputs. of our price range, this feature-packed device will appeal to Innovation is rife, and each camcorder we looked at has its frequent camcorder enthusiasts. own set of new and surprising features. The Sony TRV19E has So what gives the JVC GR-DV700EK its edge? Basically, it’s a its touch-sensitive screen, with the ability to focus or set the high-performance device with features tailor-made for casual exposure for any object in shot just by touching it on-screen. The DV artists wanting good value for money. Whether you’re cutting JVC GR-DV700EK, on the other hand, has its automatic tape together video for the Internet, creating office presentations, logging, which captures stills of every video taken to the memory shooting background footage for your 3D animation work or card so you can find them again later, as well as widescreen bringing in the odd piece of specially shot video to a composite, options for 16:9 shooting. Then there’s the MV600i’s high- the GR-DV700EK provides tools that can help. The ability to powered zoom and its ability to record stills on tape, the more log shots automatically saves time, high-resolution stills capture expensive MVX150i with its large screen and editing features, and helps scenes where video just isn’t detailed enough, and the diminutive Panasonic NV-GS50B, with its novel doubling up widescreen and D.Wide modes will appeal to both filmmakers of the viewscreen as a light and remote control as a mic. and videographers shooting at close quarters. ■

MODEL SONY TRV19E CANON MV600I CANON MVX150I PANASONIC NV-GS50B JVC GR-DV700EK

PRICE £550 £400 £680 £500 £550

ANALOGUE IN No No Yes Yes Yes

DIGITAL IN Yes No Yes Yes Yes

WEIGHT 520g 520g 625g 230g 575g

SIZE 90x71x112mm 103x58x147mm 75x186x92mm 76x52x101mm 75.5x91x185mm

STILL 640x480 720x576 1280x960 640x480 1600x1200

USB Yes No Yes Yes Yes

ZOOM 10x 18x 16x 10x 10x

NIGHT VISION Infra-red None LED Viewscreen None

LCD SCREEN (INCHES) 2.5 2.5 3.5 2.5 2.5

VIEWFINDER B/W Colour Colour Colour Colour

VERDICT ★★★★ ★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★★

Computer Arts_January 2004 99 Did you know you can get Computer Arts in electronic format? See www.zinio.com

*CD contents not included BACK ISSUES

IF YOU SPOT A BACK ISSUE YOU WANT, CALL THE HOTLINE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE Issue 91 – Code C0A91 Issue 90 – Code C0A90 Issue 89 – Code C0A89 ALL BACK ISSUES ARE Adobe Creative Suite and After Giant Photoshop feature, DW 3D figures special! Full version Effects 6 tutorials, 600 Photoshop and Flash MX 2004 tutorials, of Maya PLE 5, two DAZ models, SELLING OUT QUICKLY brushes, plus free plug-ins! plus £2410-worth of images! plus superb Photoshop tutorial. HOW TO ORDER BACK ISSUES

CALL THE HOTLINE ON 0870 444 8455 OR VIA EMAIL [email protected] Please quote relevant code ADD OUR WEBSITE TO YOUR BOOKMARKS OR FAVOURITES: www.computerarts.co.uk Issue 88 – SOLD OUT Issue 87 – Code C0A87 Issue 86 – SOLD OUT Full version of Cinema 4D CD 6, Massive Photoshop special FX Full version of Realsoft 3D Special SUBSCRIBE TO COMPUTER ARTS: plus tutorials on Flash cartoons, tutorial, graphic novel design, plus Edition, plus combustion, cleaner www.computerarts.co.uk/magazine typography and InDesign 2. XPress 6 demo and tutorial. XL and Canon’s 3D SOM demos.

FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPUTER ARTS SPECIAL, EACH ISSUE TAKES YOU THROUGH A FULL PROJECT, WITH TIPS, TRICKS, TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES…

CREATIVE SUITE Special – COSB0053 PAINTING Special – COSB0052 OTHER WORLDS Special – COSB0051 Produce a stunning A5 booklet Create convincing natural media How to create fantasy worlds and using Adobe’s premier design apps. effects with help from the experts. amazing scenes using Photoshop.

100 Computer Arts_January 2004 Links

MAKE THE LINKS CONNECTION Check out the links section on the covermounted CD a online exposure special offers Directory competitions freeware Community articles Products reviews tools s & more! In association with computer arts www.ablestable.comCreative

Xmas cards 350gsm Silk/Gloss Print /Crease/Fold x50 x100 x200 SWITCH A6 4pp Cards full colour front, black inside £90 £105 £135 A5 4pp Cards full colour front, black inside £95 £125 £175

The above prices are subject to sight of copy or file. Carriage charged extra. VAT will be charge where applicable. WP reserve the right to amend prices at anytime. www.wpdigital.co.uk

Be noticed this Christmas. Send your customers, clients and friends personalised Christmas greetings. Christmas cards printed to your own design, incorporating your own photographs, images, logos and message. We can design your cards for you or print directly from your mac or PC files. We also have a selection of Christmas images and illustrations you can use. Please see our website for further details. 0800 783 3241 • [email protected] Isdn: 020 8558 8315 • Fax: 020 8558 3722 OUR NEW MULTIMEDIA CITY & GUILDS QUALIFICATION IS AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE (FREE TO THE UNEMPLOYED). ANIMATION IMAGE EDITING VIDEO PRODUCTION WEB SITE & CD/DVD AUTHORING AUDIO RECORDING INTERACTION ETC UCNGUJQVNKPG 0870 333 9712 QT GTQPNKPG www.webfusion.co.uk GOCKNWU [email protected] THE INSTITUTE of MUSIC & TECHNOLOGY at HURRICANE STUDIOS  KPHQ"KOVJWTTKECPGQTIYYYKOVJWTTKECPGQTI EASY TO BUY • EASY TO SET UP • EASY TO SEE

COMING We’re about to launch the SOON best web mail package yet. It’s going to be hotter than hot

Soon you’ll be able to fire off and catch your emails from anywhere, protected by ANTI-SPAM and ANTI-VIRUS software. Don’t miss out on this great new package and free trial offer, coming soon from the big shots in domain names and hosting.

Watch this space for full launch details

1 Established in 1997 with over /2 million customers. Accredited ICANN registrar & nominet member. Prices exclude VAT.

Thames Valley University supports mass MA Computer Arts participation in higher education At the London College of Music & Media (LCMM) we serve three different types of students: those who want to upgrade their skills, those who want to specialise in Digital Arts and those who want to pursue original research. We have created a flexible and efficient studio environment for the emergence of a new breed of professional, an information specialist who is equally at home with both creative and analytical styles of thinking.

Philosophy and Rationale The MA in Computer Arts develops your understanding of relevant technological, cultural and aesthetic perspectives on digital arts and provides a studio environment where you can explore, examine and experience this unique meeting of art and technology. Course Content • Computing Principles for Artists and Designers • Creative Applications for Audio and Video • Interactive and Immersive Virtual Artworks • Experimental Digital Media • Contemporary Cultural Theory • Major Project

e-mail: [email protected] web: http://mercury.tvu.ac.uk/ca Tel: 020 8231 2779 London College of Music & Media Thames Valley University St Mary’s Road, Ealing, London W5 5RF  | pm’} £dšahF=a! F’aVm !m= aVaš!d mah!šapm p hpF F§!hzdF’ pO ’š£=Fmš ¦pc dpV pm šp ^ššz9——hh=!=!3£h)a!!3£c—=Fhphh=!=!

!hzšpm p!=: !da’dF £h)a!: œ n «s¡¡G T««œ«« amOp(3£h)a!!3£c ¦¦¦3£h)a!!3£c

ˆ}ˆÌ> ˆ“ U
Õ`ˆœ U Ài>̈Ûi i`ˆ>

Ài>̈Ûi i`ˆ> ˆ«œ“> œ˜`œ˜ QäÓäR‡ÇÈä™ ÓÈxÎ
­œ˜Ã® Տ̈“i`ˆ>
ÀÌÃI ˜iÜ ˆ}ˆÌ> ˆ“ >Žˆ˜} ˆ«œ“> ˆÛiÀ«œœ Qä£x£R‡Óxx £Î£Î
Õ`ˆœ ˜}ˆ˜iiÀˆ˜} ˆ«œ“>

I`i}Àii «Àœ}À>““i Û>ˆ`>Ìi` LÞ ˆ``iÃiÝ 1˜ˆÛiÀÈÌÞ >Ã}œÜ Qä£{£R‡{ә £xx£

,"  "7 ",  /
 - 
*, Óää{ 777°-
° 1 † 3WCTM:RTGUU  †#ETQDCV  JCTNGSWKP †2JQVQUJQR †/CE15:  † /CETQOG KC /: † OQTG

 $G VTCKPG KP VJG XGT[ NCVGUV UQHVYCTG CV *CTNGSWKP 5QNWVKQPU

YYY UQNWVKQPU EQ WM VTCKPKPI

CREATIVE TRAINING development and training creative From introductory to advanced levels. HTML, CSS, Javascript, XML, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Actionscript, Director, Lingo, Photoshop, ImageReady, Illustrator, InDesign and others.

New Flash MX courses: Courses delivered by industry professionals. •Games development Maximum group size is three people per course. •Data-driven applications Visit our website for the latest special offers.

#WVJQTKUG /CETQOG KC3WCTM CP # QDG VTCKPKPI EQWTUGU +44 (0)20 [email protected] www.ubiq.co.uk

3 XSI 3D YQTN Maya COMPUTER ARTS TRAINING 3DS Max #GV KP VJG K
[NNK- +V+NK+PRTQXKP-G QH Flash $WU-+P[  9QTN
QHHGTU RTQHGUUKQP+N VT+KPKPI ,[ +Y+T
YKPPKPI VG+-JGTU WT Dreamweaver OGVJQ
U +TGH+UV +P
GHHG-VKXG9G VT+KP GoLive UVW
GPVU HQT +-+TGGT KP  +PKO+VKQP YG,
GUKIPIT+RJK-
GUKIPQT KPVGT+-VKXG FormZ OWNVKOG
K+ WTU KU QPG QH VJG OQUV After Effects +
X+P-G
VG+-JKPIGPXKTQPOGPVU KP WTQRG YKVJ + YGNN GSWKRRG
+P
Premiere RQYGTHWN UVW
KQ$T+KPKPIKU QPGVQQPG /G+NU +P
+--QOOQ
+VKQP +TGKP-NW
G
 Director

Phone : +39.0575.690.060 E-mail : [email protected]

9G QHHGT QPG YGGM #V+P
+T
-N+UUGUHQWT YGGM /+UVGT-N+UUGU KP  +PKO+VKQPYG,
GUKIP +P
OWNVKOG
K++P
GKIJVYGGM 
X+P-G
/+UVGT-N+UUGU KP  +PKO+VKQP

$JKU #GRVGO,GTYG +TG QHHGTKPI URG-K+N VYQ YGGM KPVTQ
W-VQT[ -QWTUGU KP #QHV+O+IG :#+ JG-M VJG YG, UKVGHQT
GV+KNU www.3D3world.com ◗ tuning techniques to offer certified training centre for Alias ◗ CD leading-edge performance for the 3D Wavefront, Discreet and Softimage. FORTHCOMING DUPLICATION enthusiast, 3D gaming and Tel: +44 (0)20 524 7570 CATEGORIES:- professional applications such as Fax: +44 (0)20 524 7571 Complete Digital Solutions CAD, DTP, animation or video editing. Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0) 1635 524949 Website: www.escapestudios.co.uk Fast short run CDR Duplication with Fax:+44 (0) 1635 524948 superb full colour on CD Face, from Email: [email protected] 1-500 without glass master - free Website: www.gainward.net METRO NEW MEDIA ◗ACCOUNTANCY example on request. Call Simon Hughes for competitive prices for • London’s leading training Centre for CD-ROM REPLICATION for ◗ web-design, 3D, Animation, quantities of 500 upwards. ILLUSTRATION, Multi-media, Project Management and Programming ◗ADVERTISING Tel. 01923 261 269 3D ANIMATION & Fax: 01923 261 267 • All trainers are professionals in their field DESIGN Email: [email protected] VISUALISATION • State of the art studios ISDN: 01923 291 040 • All levels from beginner to advanced ARCANA DIGITAL • Specialists in customised training • Discreet Accredited DB Masters Animation, imaging and post Tel : 020 7729 9992 ◗ production for broadcast, interactive Email: BOARD AND •Short and long runs and print. Folio available on line or [email protected] PAPER •Competitive prices call for CD sampler. Studio 15 Web: www.metronewmedia.com minutes from Victoria. Clients •Fast turn-around include:- Bray Leino, Citigate.A.F, •A-Grade CDR DDB, Grey, JWT, Lowe, Masius, •Thermal or screen print Ogilvy, OWN&P, Proximity, Publicis, ◗WEB DESIGN Tel: 01795 597 755 RKCRY&R, Saatchi, TBWA, ◗COPYWRITING Fax: 01795 597 766 WTCS, WWAV. AZ*TECH GRAPHIC DESIGN Email: [email protected] Tel: 020 8466 0655 Website: www.dbmasters.co.uk Email: [email protected] Az*Tech Graphic Design is a Website: www.arcanadigital.com Contact: John Fox Midlands based Web design agency. Specialising in Custom built software ◗DESIGN ◗ solutions for all of your online or FONTS ◗ multimedia requirements. Az*Tech STUDIOS RECRUITMENT has its own reasonably priced E-commerce and Auction solutions FACES LTD CHANGE LTD that can be attached to a site easily and add real power to your web Whether you are looking for a single Change is an agency with a presence. ◗ font, a complete library or a custom EXHIBITION difference. We have been providing a Tel: 07931 554073 designed font, Faces offers you bespoke service to our customers for Mobile: 07930 396444 DESIGNERS knowledgeable and friendly service. over three years and recruit Email: [email protected] Fonts from the major foundries as well Website: www.az-tech.co.uk exclusively for the Interactive as new designers. Free confidential Entertainment Industry. Change consultation for font provides a friendly effective service licensing. Call for info and catalogues. ◗ ◗ to all sectors concentrating on the WEB HOSTING FREELANCERS Tel: 01276 38888 Gaming world. Our customers are Fax: 01276 38111 loyal, which speaks for itself! DEDICATED SERVERS E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 020 7241 4545 Website: www.faces.co.uk Mobile:07973 413060 The UK's leading hosting company Contact: John, Carolyn, Melanie ◗IMAGE Website: www.change-job.com • FREE and UNLIMITED phone & email support (24/7/365) • Service level agreement GALLERIES FONTWARE™ ◗ • State-of-the-art data centres TRAINING • Dedicated Control Panel The Custom Font Specialists • Partner Programme • customisation & conversions SERVICES • Windows, Linux, Sun, Cobalt and • digital branding solutions ◗LEGAL ADVICE Co-location available • individual fonts & collections CORPS BUSINESS • Host up to 200 websites per • licensing server from £74.99 per month • language Recruitment and Training solutions Tel: 0870 333 9738 • buy on-line since 1989. Fax: 0115 919 5514 Fontware Ltd Katana house Fort ◗ Email: sales@dedicated- MULTIMEDIA Fareham Newgate Lane Fareham Training available in tailored & servers.co.uk Hants PO14 1AH scheduled format. Authorised by Adobe, Extensis, Macromedia, Media Website: www.dedicated-servers.co.uk Tel: 01329 221121 100, Maxon and Quark. Fax: 01329 281145 Recruitment supplies staff on a Email: [email protected] ◗ temporary, permanent, contract and NETCETERA POINT OF SALE Website: www.fontware.com freelance basis. Tel: 020 7222 8484 PROMOTIONS Email: [email protected] Formed in 1996, Netcetera is one of Web: www.corps.co.uk Europe's leading Web Hosting ◗ service providers. Our services are GRAPHICS biased towards Microsoft based ESCAPE STUDIOS – VISUAL Internet Technologies - Microsoft ◗PRINTING CARDS EFFECTS TRAINING Certified Partner since 1999. Netcetera provides complete SERVICES As Europe’s only dedicated school of solutions for Web Hosting, Domain GAINWARD Visual Effects Escape Studios Name Registration, eCommerce, E-mail, Dedicated Server Hosting, Gainward’s "Golden Sample" products courses provide the necessary skills to enter the Visual Effects and Games Server-based Applications Hosting guarantee outstanding stability and (ASP) and .NETpplaince. ◗ Development industries. REPRO performance at enhanced www.inetc.net clock settings using hand selected Escape offer intensive day, evening Tel: +44 (0)1624 612948 graphics processors, carefully and weekend courses in Maya, XSI, Fax: +44 (0)1624 623385 qualified Ultra-DDR memory chips, and Shake, Combustion, Photoshop Email: [email protected] advanced, proprietary hardware and RenderMan. Escape is a Website: www.inetc.net ◗SOFTWARE TO FEATURE IN THE CREATIVE DIRECTORY TELEPHONE BRYONY WATTS ON 01225 442244 Sybex Maya® titles

Published in partnership with Alias® and written by the most respected professionals in the industry. From introductory level and complete reference to exclusive tools exploring complex tools, Sybex brings you an exceptional library of striking books.

Maya Press™ titles Alias Approved Titles

Introducing Maya® 5: 3D for Maya® 5 Savvy™ Beginners John Kundert-Gibbs and al Dariush Derakhshani • £22.99 • 0-7821-4239-7 £37.99 • 0-7821-4230-3 Dec-03

Learning Maya® 5: Maya® 4.5 Savvy™ Character Rigging and Animation John Kundert-Gibbs and al Alias • £45.99 • 1-894893-41-7 £37.99 • 0-7821-4109-9 DVD

Learning Maya 5®: Dynamics “The book is well thought out and organised. The content is Alias • £45.99 • 1-894893-42-5 well structured, and it is easy to dive into at any page and glean DVD some useful information rather than have to wade through waffle.” 3D World magazine Learning Maya® 5: Foundation Alias • £49.99 • 1-894893-34-4 Stop Staring: Facial Modeling DVD and Animation Done Right™ Jason Osipa Learning Maya® 5: MEL £37.99 • 0-7821-4129-3 Fundamentals Alias • £45.99 • 1-894893-44-1 Other Maya/3D titles DVD

Learning Maya® 5: Rendering Maya™ Character Alias • £45.99 • 1-894893-43-3 Animation Jae-jin Choi £47.99 • 0-7821-4171-4 DVD

The Art of Maya™ Maya®: Alias 2nd Edition • £45.99 • 1-894893-13-1 Secrets of the Pros™ John Kundert-Gibbs, et al £37.99 • 0-7821-4055-6

Available in all good bookshops and online retailers For further information: Sybex International Corp. T: +44 (0)20 7604 3769 F: +44 (0)20 7604 4105 E [email protected] Sybex, sponsor of the 2003 Ridley Scott Awards - www.escapestudios.co.uk/awards www.sybex.co.uk EXPOSURE

SUBMISSIONS: Exposure, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW, United Kingdom Turn to page 112 for full details

1 NAME Ben Brown JOB Creative Director CONTACT 07793 601 744, www.citizenstudios.co.uk SOFTWARE Photoshop, Illustrator IMAGE TITLES 1. Best Part, 2. Junctions In Our Sleep, 3. Let Them Have It, 4. Daybreak Vs Pride

“This artwork was created for the band Medium 21 and the Northampton club, Shakedown. I spend a lot of time searching through old family photo albums, scrapbooks and postcards from junk shops and car-boot sales. This gives me the resources to build unique landscapes and environments. I use the original colours and tones of old photography to make connections with the past, and create powerful, nostalgic 3 images that are instinctively familiar to my generation.”

1

2

4

108 Computer Arts_January2004 Exposure

2 NAME Konrad Grabowski JOB Freelance Illustrator CONTACT 020 7357 9460, www.konrad.org.uk SOFTWARE Photoshop IMAGE TITLES 1. Puzzle, 2. Typewriter, 3. Pipe & Paper

“I was born in Poland in 1967. In 1991, I came to the United Kingdom, where I obtained a Postgraduate Diploma at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and soon became established as an illustrator. I’ve worked on commissions for The Observer, Legal Business, computing mags, and more.” 3

1

2

Computer Arts_January2004 109 3 3 NAME Sandy Nys JOB Freelance Designer & Illustrator CONTACT [email protected], www.hybryds.com SOFTWARE Photoshop IMAGE TITLES 1. Centurion, 2. Che 2, 3. Ritualcal, 4. Binary Infinity

“I work part-time at a multimedia company, illustrating, designing Flash animations and photo-retouching. I dedicate the other days of the week to my music and art. I photograph all the models myself, in the beginning with film and a flatbed scanner, more recently with a four-megapixel digital camera. I always work with a drawing tablet; I had a classical art education and it gives me the feeling of painting.”

1

2 4

110 Computer Arts_January2004 Exposure

4 NAME Spencer Hickson JOB Graphic Designer & Photographer CONTACT 07977 919 480, www.spencerhickson.com SOFTWARE Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXPress IMAGE TITLES 1. Explode, 2. Speed, 3. Serpents, 4. 1919, 5. Round

“I’ve been designing for the past eight years. Each design is energised not only by my own experiences, but also the genius of artists and musicians whose creative excellence inspires me. My collections are bought for the karma they bring to a space; the aura of energies encapsulated where introspection meets Zen.” 4

1

5

2

3

Computer Arts_January2004 111 GET EXPOSED Send your work to us, along with an explanation of your techniques and software, the titles of each piece, your telephone number and email. Images should be sent as PC or Mac TIFF or JPEG files, on CD-ROM or Zip disks. A hard copy is a great help. We will endeavour to return all entries that provide an SAE. All contributions are submitted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide licence to publish, both in printed and electronic form. Post hi-res files for print to: Exposure, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW.

5 NAME Matt Jones JOB Freelance Designer CONTACT 07967 803 909, www.lunartik.com SOFTWARE Photoshop, Illustrator IMAGE TITLES 1. Blaine View, 2. Kanidigirl, 3. Logos, 4. People 1 “I'm a workaholic and I love art, especially computer art. I have been working as a soul trader for about two years. My love of stickers started about two years ago, when I meet my business partner Graham Powell – we started producing comical moments for the Northern Line. I’ll send out free stickers to anyone who 3 sends me a stamped-addressed envelope. I’ve also started a new line of T-shirts at www.primateinvasion.com!”

1

2

4

112 Computer Arts_January2004 Exposure

6 NAME Clarence Whirley JOB Art Director CONTACT [email protected], www.mindteadesign.com SOFTWARE Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4D IMAGE TITLES 1. _i_nostromate, 2. bluefractions_xc, 3. 00_tone_lix, 4. destruct_00.2254 5. destruct_00.2253

“I build catalogues, advertisements and Websites during the day. While the ladder offers a bit more creative freedom, I find that the only way to stay fresh is to create for myself. These images are a glimpse of that.” 4

1

5

2

3

Computer Arts_January2004 113 EDITORIAL 01225 442 244 VICKI ATKINSON EDITOR [email protected] RODDY LLEWELLYN ART EDITOR [email protected] ROB CARNEY DEPUTY EDITOR [email protected] RETROSPECTIVE RACHEL ELLIOTT OPERATIONS EDITOR [email protected] JON ALONGI CD EDITOR [email protected] MATT GALLIMORE SENIOR CD EDITOR [email protected] ISSUE 27 JANUARY 1999 CD PROBLEMS 01225 822 743 [email protected] We extolled the virtues of Freeway and the ‘kooky’ KPT 5 Contributions from Acrylick, Jason Arber, Ryan Carson, Christian Darkin, Dan Goodleff, Karl Hodge, I Love Dust, he gold-toothed hard-arse issue 27’s cover, Karen Jones, Christopher Kenworthy, Benny accompanying our enormous 3D tips feature, Luk, Magictorch, Vicky Mitchard, Output, Ed Ricketts, Mark Sparrow, THS Design, came courtesy of Me Company, and was then Jerome Turner featuring in an ad campaign for Firetrap. T PHOTOGRAPHY R James Wilson Meanwhile, in the news, MetaCreations and Kai PRINT TPL Printers (UK) Ltd Krause were doing their usual ‘kooky’ thang with the REPRO Radstock Reproductions Ltd imminent release of KPT 5 – possibly the last great CONTACT software they ever produced. And our erstwhile Art Computer Arts magazine, Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW Editor Phil Cheesbrough was named New Business 01225 732 361 ISDN 01225 789 293 Magazine Designer of the Year, no less. Overseas subscriptions +44 870 4448 455 FrameStore, then without its CFC, showed off ADVERTISING 01225 442244 LEE HAINES key account manager shamelessly in our main profile, while the likes of [email protected] Red Design, Chameleon Creative and Subliminal did GEORGE LUCAS sales executive [email protected] their own show-and-tell. And if Subliminal doesn’t MELISSA WATKINS classified sales executive sound eerily familiar, you clearly haven’t seen page [email protected] 42 yet. We also puzzled over Amapi 3D 4.0 in the DIGITAL DIVISION reviews section and heaped praise on Freeway 2.0 – JOHN WEIR publishing director SHEENA PITTAWAY publisher a Web editing package which is still going strong. FIONA TULLY marketing manager For that matter, so is HoTMetaL Pro – except now it’s CLARE TOVEY production manager PAUL MCINTYRE group art editor called XMetal. STEVE JARRATT group senior editor Finally, CA Mail featured one letter with a plea SARAH WILLIAMS software copyright coordinator of “How many Photoshop classes do we need?”, followed by another saying, “I always welcome the PRODUCTION DAVID MATHEWS ad design point of contact Photoshop stuff.” Some things never change… ■ KATTY PIGOTT production coordinator MIKE THORNE commercial print buyer

CIRCULATION & LICENSING RICHARD JEFFERIES circulation manager RICHARD BEAN overseas licensing manager SIMON WEAR overseas licensing director Computer Arts has licences in China, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain

UK DISTRIBUTION Seymour Distribution 020 7396 8000 86 Newman Street, London, W1T 3EX THE FUTURE NETWORK ROGER PARRY non-executive chairman GREG INGHAM chief executive COLIN MORRISON chief operating officer & managing director UK JOHN BOWMAN group finance director

Tel +44 1225 442244 www.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk

Computer Arts is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations Jan-Dec 2002: 30,024

Computer Arts is the registered trademark of Future Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks and copyrights in this issue are recognised, and are acknowledged where possible. FLASHBACK If we have failed to credit your copyright please contact us – we’re happy to correct any oversight. Material It’s no less than eight years submitted is accepted on the basis of a worldwide right to publish in printed or electronic form. All since a small team of digital contents © Future Publishing 2003.

art enthusiasts at Future Future Publishing is part of The Future Network PLC. The Future Network Publishing kicked off what produces carefully targeted specialist magazines for people who share a passion. We ABOVE Interviewee we now know and love as aim to satisfy that passion by creating titles offering Jon Collins of Computer Arts, and it’s now value for money, reliable information, smart buying advice, and which are a pleasure to read. Today FrameStore is now the leading title in its field. That we publish more than 90 magazines in the UK, US, managing director France and Italy. Over 80 international editions of field has changed massively in our magazines are also published in 28 other of Framestore CFC countries across the world. New York, y’know. those eight years – DVD is The Future Network PLC is a public company quoted no longer a mystery, and on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FNET). RIGHT Back then, Photoshop is now a household Subliminal was designing striking name. We continue our look album covers like this. back with 1999’s issue 27…

114 Computer Arts_January2004 Your guide to Web development, design & rich Internet applications issue 01 MASTERCLASS MX 2004 GOODBYE HTML? Websites are getting richer. So can you. Here’s what you need to know

AKQA’S RACE FOR NIKE How AKQA revolutionised the Web for Nike’s online campaign BUILDING DYNAMIC SITES Plan ahead for Website success Announcing Macromedia® MX 2004: New versions of Dreamweaver®, Flash™, Fireworks® and Studio.

This is for you.

The hardcore, the dedicated, the enthusiast. The one with a passion for figuring things out. The one who builds things … and takes them apart again.

You give us new ways to see things. You show us things we never saw in the first place. You make things better. You make us better.

We can’t wait to see what you’ll do with it.

For more information and to order your copy of Studio MX 2004 or Studio MX 2004 with Flash Professional, please visit www.macromedia.com/uk/buy or call Macromedia direct 0131 458 6766

Macromedia MX 2004. Run with it.

Copyright © 2003 Macromedia, Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Macromedia, the Macromedia logo, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Macromedia Flash are trademarks or registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other marks are the properties of their respective owners. MASTERCLASS MX2004 contents welcome hile browsing the Web, you’ll probably have noticed how site interfaces are no longer restricted to static HTML forms and cosmetic Flash design. 4 The Studio MX2004 Map W See how the separate elements Using Macromedia Studio MX 2004, you can now deliver of Studio MX integrate to form rich Internet applications to the desktop that are engaging, a hugely powerful suite of tools. time-saving and a vast improvement on anything that’s gone before. And the good news is that you can do it without adding development time and cost to yourself or your client. With all this in mind, Computer Arts has teamed up with Macromedia and Peachpit Press to bring you the first of four Macromedia Masterclass MX 2004 supplements. This in- depth series aims to dispel any myths that the Web is restrictive or complex. With a combination of articles, 6 Run London, Run We talk to AKQA about its Check out interviews and excerpts from Peachpit's new books latest online campaign for Nike for MX 2004, we’ll demonstrate that all building rich Macromedia's 10 Planning a dynamic tour — at a Internet applications requires is simple planning, Website MX 2004 bold ideas and Studio MX 2004. The first steps when dealing city near you soon. Over the following pages, you'll find out how the with a new project are the most important — find out why www.macromedia. individual elements of Studio MX 2004 integrate com/uk/events (page 4), how design outfit AKQA got Nike’s 10K race site up and running using rich Internet applications (page 6), and why the industry is raving about them in our special Why Bother? section (page 18). Read on and enjoy. Look out for the next issue of Computer 16 Win a trip to San Arts featuring issue two, and don’t forget to let us know what Francisco and more you think — we value your opinion. Two whole pages of special offers and a great competition Computer Arts 18 Why bother? Leading Web designers on the [email protected] advantages of working with rich Internet applications

EDITORIAL a word from

VICKI ATKINSON EDITOR macromedia [email protected] GRAEME AYMER ASSOCIATE EDITOR AL RAMADAN elcome to the first edition of Macromedia Masterclass MX 2004. [email protected] Executive Vice You’re reading the ultimate guide to our products. This PAUL MCINTYRE ART EDITOR W President of supplement will show that when it comes to digital experiences, there [email protected] Marketing ROB CARNEY DEPUTY EDITOR is a vast amount of unchartered territory. Throughout this series, we MACROMEDIA [email protected] will arm you with the knowledge to explore new opportunities. I LOVE DUST COVER ILLUSTRATOR We launched Macromedia MX in June 2002. It was a bold initiative, www.ilovedust.com aimed at providing the tools you needed to create rich Internet CONTACT applications. MX 2004 is the next generation of MX, even more powerful than the first. These new products streamline Web and Computer Arts magazine, applications development, so you can create better experiences. These Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Masterclasses will help you drill down into MX 2004 and see what is Street, Bath, BA1 2BW PHONE 01225 442 244 happening now and where we are taking the digital experience. EMAIL [email protected] Ultimately, Macromedia is successful because of the work you do SUBSCRIBE 0870 444 8455 each day with our products. Together, we have a lot of work to do to deliver on the promise of this constantly expanding digital world.

Macromedia Masterclass 01 3 overview Integration is the key to building dynamic Websites and rich Internet applications – as Macromedia’s Studio MX 2004 proves… Studio MX 2004 mapped out

tudio MX 2004 is the second incarnation of the Studio MX set of tools, and includes brand new S versions of Flash (either Professional or Standard), Dreamweaver, Fireworks, FreeHand and ColdFusion Developer Edition 6.1 (PC only). Once upon a time, building a Website used to be a matter of knocking together a couple of HTML pages, coding in Notepad or BBEdit until the early hours and incorporating a few images (if you were lucky). But now tools such as Dreamweaver and Flash have revolutionised the way designers design for the Web, and server technology such as ColdFusion enables you to create dynamic, data-driven Websites and rich Internet apps with relative ease. The beauty of Studio MX 2004 is the way each tool integrates so smoothly with its companion applications. Whether you're working in Flash, Dreamweaver or Fireworks, each tool is simply a click away. Full-on roundtrip editing enables you to use, for example, Dreamweaver to edit HTML pages and then, with a single click, edit an embedded SWF in Flash, save it back out and update everything in Dreamweaver automatically. Similarly, building data-driven sites with ColdFusion is a piece of cake, thanks to Flash ActionScript and Components and Dreamweaver’s easy-to-use Wizards. Integration is the key Read on for a more detailed look at Those Studio MX tools in full (clockwise from top-left): Flash, each of the tools in Studio MX 2004 and how ColdFusion, Dreamweaver, FreeHand and Fireworks. Check out their close integration can save you precious the facing page for a breakdown of how they function together. time and money.

4 Macromedia Masterclass 01 Flash MX ColdFusion Professional 2004 MX 6.1

Flash was once a tool for creating great Web animations. ColdFusion MX 6.1 Developer Edition is included with the Now it’s evolved into something much more. Of course, you PC version of Studio MX 2004 and is the key to deploying can still create fantastic animations using the familiar Flash dynamic content on your Websites or Flash projects, and timeline, but this is just a small part of what Macromedia's building rich Internet applications. seminal Web design tool can do. Rich Internet applications ColdFusion MX is a rapid server scripting (RIAs) are the name of the game with Flash MX environment that enables you to build and Professional. Whether you want to create deploy dynamic Websites, content-publishing high-quality streaming video, forms-based or systems, self-service applications, commerce dynamic, data-driven applications, FMX sites, and much, much more. Professional is the app for you. ColdFusion MX, when hooked up to a Using this tool, you can build an interface, Flash MX or Dreamweaver project, enables hook it up to ColdFusion, and quickly create a you to feed data into the applications quickly dynamic, data-driven application that looks like it’s and securely. Flash MX 2004 Professional and been designed by a designer, not a coder. It’s actually pretty Dreamweaver MX 2004 each feature components and easy to link up Flash and ColdFusion – all it takes is a small Wizards for setting up this kind of Web application. It’s a investment of time and a little knowledge of ActionScript. terrifically straightforward process. Flash also works brilliantly In issue two of with Dreamweaver – the Web Macromedia Masterclass authoring and HTML tool that MX 2004 , we take a look at provides roundtrip editing for how you can use Flash SWF files – as well as ColdFusion MX with your Fireworks MX 2004 and own projects to create FreeHand MX. Designing a database-driven content in site has never been so easy. no time at all.

FreeHand MX and Dreamweaver Fireworks MX 2004 MX 2004

FreeHand MX is the vector graphics and illustration software Dreamweaver is the industry standard for professional Web in Studio MX 2004 and the ultimate companion to Flash. authoring. The MX 2004 release takes the tool one step With FreeHand, you can create stunning interface further with a streamlined interface and a raft of great new elements and typography for use in your Flash features, including easy-to-use CSS tools, an improved Tag projects. And because it’s so completely Inspector, plus improved support for ASP.NET form controls. integrated with Flash MX 2004, you can But where Dreamweaver really excels is in its ability bring Flash files into FreeHand, easily save to act as a central Studio MX design tool, enabling them out and ultimately save time when you to, say, import a SWF, edit it in Flash, then working on projects. re-import the file with one click of a button. Fireworks MX 2004 is the ‘Photoshop of Thanks to its Fireworks image-editing Web graphics’, and will help you achieve technology, you can even crop and resize fantastic raster and vector-based designs, graphics without having to leave the app. plan site interfaces, and create HTML-based It’s also compatible with virtually every navigation from scratch. Fireworks MX 2004, Flash type of Web technology you can think of, be it ASP, MX 2004 and Dreamweaver MX 2004 work in perfect sync, ASP.NET, JSP or PHP – you name it and Dreamweaver can complete with roundtrip editing handle it. In addition, superb of graphics. Again, using these integration with the rest of apps together can save you a the Studio ensures an ultra- lot of time. Flash MX 2004 now smooth workflow– even if even imports EPS graphics, so you’re creating dynamic, you can easily repurpose your data-driven sites with built-in FreeHand print content for use multimedia content. Very in RIAs and site designs. impressive indeed.

Macromedia Masterclass 01 5 case study

Above: The AKQA team take a break from building some seriously rich Internet applications

Opposite: AKQA co-founder and chairman, Ajaz Ahmed INFO AKQA, www.akqa.com RUN, LONDON, Design agency AKQA uses rich Internet RUN! applications to create powerful sites that are more user-friendly than ever. The Nike 10K site illustrates how they do this with Macromedia’s latest technology

6 Macromedia Masterclass 01 Studio MX 2004 in action

Working together Teamwork was as important to Runlondon.com as software integration

Technology is great and designers and our writers. Runlondon.com, there was good but without people There are both disciplines,” another, very important to drive it and shape it, adds Matthew Treagus. member of the team – the you’re left with a bunch of Integrating the team client Nike. boxes and a lot of undone means that the workflow “Nike is also part of work. For Runlondon.com, is smoother, creativity is the project team,” explains AKQA used a team of 15 enhanced and confusion Ahmed. “We work very core members, with is kept to a minimum. much in partnership with auxiliary members lending “We have a clear them. We have a number additional expertise and planning process, a clear of different departments helping hands. planning methodology, and involved in different parts “We have an a very clear allocation of of the event. At one stage integrated team that responsibility and what's we'll have the brand people consists of technology required from each team involved, at another part of specialists, creative player,” continues Ahmed. the event we'll have the specialists, project “Everyone knows what events people involved, at management and usability their responsibilities are, another stage, we'll have experts,” says Ajaz Ahmed. and they’re clear about the sports marketing “These are the critical what they need to deliver. people. They're involved in elements of the team.” That helps the quality of every single component of “Within that creative the product.” that site. That's what makes sphere, we have our visual In the case of it so much more exciting.”

ich Internet applications by London agency AKQA. The site is part of technologies such as Flash to provide have evolved. A few years the third annual campaign surrounding clients like Nike, and their client’s customers, ago, you might have the Nike 10K race. Three years ago, Nike with a rich experience, much of which placed a retail order via challenged Londoners to get fit and take is well concealed. For Runlondon.com, for a basic HTML form. The part in a ten-kilometre race in the capital. example, much of the site was built using vendor would have Since then the Internet has played an Microsoft’s .NET framework integrated with Rreceived your order, printed it off and ever-increasing role in promoting Flash. This made it possible to deliver a site walked around the aisles, filling a basket the run and also in the administration of that looked great but was far more than with your goods. Then the order was the event and in providing up to the minute a fancy piece of window dressing. boxed or bagged and dispatched to you. race information for participants. In 2003, Last year, for example, you could book At the time it was all quite clever. rich Internet applications were central to a place on the race through the Web or a But it took a lot of browsing, clicking and running this Website in tandem with the standard call centre. This year, all the behind-the-scenes activity to make it training and the event itself. bookings were done online. “Because of happen. Now the shopping experience the popularity of the Web, some of those can be streamlined onto one page. This Flash and frameworks [call centre] elements aren't used anymore,” is what rich Internet applications are all AKQA has been associated with Nike for the says AKQA co-founder and chairman Ajaz about – making the Web work faster, better, past four years, and has been responsible Ahmed. “We found so many consumers and more efficiently, for developers and for the Nike 10K race site since its inception. prefer the Web experience.” end users. AKQA’s expertise goes beyond simply “I guess because we've made the Web For example, take a look at creating a front end for a site. The company pivotal, it's actually enabled certain Runlondon.com, designed and developed also knows how to get the best out of mechanisms for the customer that we >

Macromedia Masterclass 01 7 Studio MX 2004 in action

Creating a great Web user experience To bring Runlondon.com to life, AKQA took a simple yet effective approach AKQA approached rather rigid approach but emphasises Ajaz Ahmed. Runlondon.com as it would AKQA is aware that people “When we talk about any other. First, the use Websites in intuitive, we also mean company worked out the unpredictable ways. Site intelligent. When you customer flow, planning the visitors like to explore. The make selections, the other journey that the visitor company was careful to selections get deleted would take as they made ensure that options were automatically so that only their way through the site. available for visitors to the relevant ones appear. For AKQA, copywriting is part of the visual design process. Getting it right leads to clear interfaces that are easy to understand Then a prototype site was discover. It also had to be For example, only available Capturing the visitor's imagination is an important element for any built. That was tested for its sure that the site was training runs were actually site. This simulated TV added an extra dimension to Runlondon.com usability, to ensure the intuitive and simple so that displayed on the site. It also expectations of the visitors wouldn’t be displayed how many you customer matched those of overwhelmed or confused. were booked on, just the developer. Once It’s all part of a customer- keeping the critical data. revisions were made, it was focused approach. There's never been an possible to release the final “Whenever we're application like that. So site, keeping an eye on how developing any activity, the it was really important for the customer reacted to it. customer experience is us to think about the That may sound like a always at the forefront,” customer experience.”

> wouldn't be able to do in any other print-outs, pencils, ticks and data entry integrate. We needed a framework and medium,” adds Matthew Treagus, the clerks. In 2003, working in a rich Internet architecture that could handle transactions company’s client services director. environment, the system was completely and would be a robust solution for the For evidence of this, you need look no automated. If you were a participant, your consumer and for the client as well. It's a further than the way places for the race details were automatically sent to your scalable architecture so we can add other were reserved. There were 20,000 places session manager via the Internet to an elements or modules, as we want to. For us available of which 2,000 were set aside for iPaq in his or her possession. Your .NET and Web services were fundamental people who attended five training sessions attendance was noted on the PDA and to what we were doing.” with one of the coaches. These sessions returned to the central system straight were held during lunchtimes and after work. from the mobile device. User interface and beyond When you booked a place, you were also “You try to administer that through If .NET provided the site’s skeleton and invited to choose a coach and attend these any other medium and it just becomes too underlying structure, it was Macromedia sessions. When you showed up, the day’s complicated and expensive to do,” explains Flash Professional that ensured that training manager checked off your name on Treagus. What made it possible for Nike customers would want to use the site. It a register. This information was then sent to 10K was Microsoft’s .NET Web gave the coaches personality through the overall database as a record noting your services framework. animation and enabled users to enter their attendance. When you had been to five “For us it was a very clear decision to details on the site. In short, it was the part of sessions, you were sent an email informing use .NET Web services framework and the site with which race hopefuls actually you of your eligibility for an automatic place. architecture,” explains Ahmed. “The main interacted. Therefore, it had to look good Had this been 1999, much of this reason for that is the speed of roll out and and be rewarding. Hence, it was all about process would have involved paper the way that those different components giving the customer a great experience.

8 Macromedia Masterclass 01 case study

The site's graphic design provided each of the promotional coaches with a great deal of personality making the whole Runlondon.com experience fun and exciting

Far left: Using Flash with .NET technology enabled an availability checker, site registration and training schedules to be presented to the user without being intimidating

Left: Details, such as the ability to zoom into various pages on the site helped to enhance the site's customer experience element

However, Flash didn’t just provide entire site was its installed base,” adds For AKQA and Nike, using a component pretty pictures and amusing animations. Ahmed. “It's so much greater now than it’s model involving .NET integrated with Flash The application’s ability to work seamlessly ever been. And that's obviously a key was a time and money saver in the long with the .NET framework made it an integral decision-making criterion for us. That's run (excuse the pun). It means that Nike component of how the site actually why we wanted to use it for our front end.” and AKQA have components that can be functioned. Not only did it look good but, used and reused as necessary, this year on a practical level, it worked brilliantly. Beneficial details or the next, for races in London or in other “That's one of the benefits of This technology wasn’t used just for the parts of the world. Macromedia’s technology,” says Treagus. hell of it. Such an approach yields benefits Ahmed can certainly recommend “We can seamlessly develop a consumer for the consumer, the developer and the taking a rich Internet application based front end that enables us to integrate it with client. For the consumer, a rich Internet approach, as long as you make sure you our architecture and our framework. application leads to, well, a rich Internet ask yourself a few questions first. That's an exciting element: bringing experience, whether he or she is aware of “For us, the most important question those technologies together seamlessly. just how clever it all is, or not. The Nike 10K has to be, is this the best way of performing Rather than being a disparate animation competitor doesn’t care about .NET, Flash, this task?” he says. “That needs to be the tool that sits aside from everything else, iPaqs, or even the fact that everyone had a goal that is kept in front of mind for all rich it can be wired up to .NET and we can build video clip recorded and available online of Internet applications. Whether it's making a sensible manageable applications using themselves finishing the race. All they know purchase, finding information, or making those technologies.” is that the Nike 10K race was a fun and a transaction – that has to be the most “The other critical factor in deciding to enjoyable experience, and using the important goal. That's really the best use Macromedia on the front end across the Website was part of that. advice we can give.” ■

Macromedia Masterclass 01 9 Peachpit books

10 Macromedia Masterclass 01 Building Dynamic Sites

MASTERCLASS MX 2004 The following will inevitably happen to you. You are sitting at your desk and the phone rings. When you answer it, the individual will start a conversation that goes something like this… PLANNING A

DYNAMIC SITE On the Computer o you build web sites?”Your Does-It-All” shop is a thing of the past. In today’s Arts CD answer is, “Of course,” and then production environment, speed and accuracy are The extract presented here is you talk about the work you have critical. This means projects can only be completed from New Riders’ Building Dynamic done for other clients. “Here’s what by a team of specialists working with a carefully Websites with we need,” says the voice on the crafted production and project plan. Macromedia Studio “ MX 2004 by Tom phone. “We need to rethink our The old business adage, “Plan your work and Green, Jordan Dsite and are looking at adding a couple of features work your plan,” is more appropriate than ever. Chilcott and Chris Flick. On the that cement our relationship with the community. More often than not, that means the production Computer Arts CD, They would include an interactive tour of the facility cycle doesn’t start with pixels lighting up on a screen. we provide chapter one in full (see the based on interest. We would also like to streamline It starts with a sheet of paper. Pearson folder on the root of the disc). our current facility booking procedures and enable Turn to page 16 to people to book sports facilities or meeting rooms get 30% off this great book at online. Finally, we do a lot of community work and WANT VS. NEED Amazon.co.uk. want to create something on the site that enables When talking to the client, a key skill to have is the people to meet online... or something like that. Do ability to distinguish between a “want” and a you do that sort of thing?” “need.” All too often, clients and developers get This is typically the start of the process, and caught up in the technology and the software when a positive answer will result in a client meeting. The project’s success or failure is dependent upon The old business adage, “Plan what you do next. In the good old days of the Wild, Wild Web, up to your work and work your plan,” about 1998, the answer was a resounding, “Yes.” In those days, the developer met with the client, got a is more appropriate than ever. rough idea of what was needed, and gave the client a rough idea of what he or she was going to do. The they start discussing the project. A huge number of client, not having a clue what the developer’s Flash MX 2004 sites out there could have been done proposal entailed, inevitably bought in because it more easily in Dreamweaver MX 2004. Why Flash? sure sounded “cool.” At that point, the developer The client, discovering how cool it is to have a Flash bought the necessary software and spent the next site, decides they want one. month learning how to do what he or she had just The problem here is technology is constantly promised the client. changing and can’t be fixed in place. A great With the rise of dynamic sites and the example is the MX Studio. In April of 2002, we were introduction of the work group and some pretty all using individual Macromedia products. Six sophisticated software, the technical and creative months later, they were completely reinvented as the demands placed upon web developers have MX Studio of integrated products that also included increased. This means the day of the “One-Guy- a developer edition of ColdFusion MX. Director >

Macromedia Masterclass 01 11 Building Dynamic Sites

developers planning a number of projects around ● Does your ISP have the necessary software to > the Multi-user server discovered, with the release accommodate dynamic data transfer? of Director MX in late 2002, that the Flash Communication server replaced the Multi-user The key here is discovering whether a full-bore server. A valid question at this point, therefore, interactive area with streaming video, audio and chat is, “How long will the online meeting facility be is needed, or whether the client would be better available through the site, and will it be able to served with an instant messaging feature. adapt to changing technologies?” Never forget, your client is rarely as In the case of our community center, they want technologically adept as you are. Thus, your role is an online meeting room. This room will be used twofold: web developer and educator. You will be by various members of the clubs or other building the site but also translating the technology associations based in the community center to get to the client and presenting it in terms he or she together online to discuss plans, events, and so on. It understands. If the client needs instant messaging, recommend it. Although instant messaging isn’t as The question is, do they need “cool” as a Chat Room built in Flash, you will have saved your client a serious amount of money that such a facility? Ask that question would have been spent on unnecessary technology. of both yourselves and the client. Developing the project scope When you understand what is needed, there is an should have a shelf-life of at least two to three understandable urge to start up the computer and get years, which means the enabling technologies— to work. This would be a huge mistake. The only ColdFusion and Flash—will most likely change, but software you will need at this point is word the upgrades and changes are easy to effect. Then processing software. It is used to produce a again, there is an even more fundamental question document that lays out the parameters of the project, that should be asked. including items such as a budget, deadlines, a The question is, do they really need such a creative brief and a technical specification. This is facility? Ask that question of both yourselves and called the project scope. It should be regarded as a the client, and the production process takes on an deliverable for the client to sign and date. entirely new dimension. By producing this document and having the client sign and date it, you and the client reach Defining exactly what is needed an agreement regarding exactly what is to be The last thing a web developer needs is the client produced, by when, and at what cost. In this changing his or her mind mid-project. This situation manner, you avoid scope creep. usually results from the clients’ discovery that the Scope creep is composed of those changes that, project is moving in a direction they never expected. at the time, appear insignificant, but when added up Even worse is the client discovering they have a can actually result in charges that can increase the technologically-advanced site their market either original budget by a factor of 20 per cent or more. For can’t or doesn’t use. example, the decision is made to use JavaScript In the case of our Oakbridge Community Center rollover buttons for the navigation. Midway through asking for an online meeting room, it is interesting, the process, the client decides they should be done in but do they need it? In this situation, it is incumbent Flash. In the total scheme of things, the three hours to upon the developer to break out a pad of paper, meet make the change seem insignificant. If you have a with the client, and start doing some very careful fact- number of them, though, they can have a huge, finding. The questions that could be asked are: negative impact upon the final bill, potentially culminating with the involvement of lawyers. ● Have your clients expressed a need for this? To avoid this potential messiness, create the ● What sort of market do you serve? aforementioned written document and include the ● Do you have any idea about what kind of fact that changes, additions or deletions through connection they have to the Internet? such things as cancellation penalty clauses in Broadband or dial-up? contracts will incur extra charges. Some agencies go ● Are they technologically sophisticated as far as setting a limit for these charges, at which enough to use video cameras connected time they will actually stop work and renegotiate a to their computers? new agreement with the client.

12 Macromedia Masterclass 01 ● Project Objectives: List two or three key THE CREATIVE BRIEF objectives for the project. When one introduces complexity into the web design ● Communication Objectives: Two or three process, one also creates a management problem. key objectives that can be measured The problem is retaining the consistency of design should be listed. throughout the project. If the site is composed of ● Audience: Who is using the site? Try to images, text, artwork, video, sound and other media, be as specific as possible. it is absolutely critical they all have the same “look ● Tone and Manner: What is the site’s “look and feel.” This way, the site visitor is not left and feel” going to be? wondering whether he or she has left the web site. ● Brand Idea: What impression should visitors A good example would be Nike.com. The site is get from the site? A brand idea can be massive. Yet visit any page in the site and you still developed by laying out the idea, why you feel you are on the Nike site. think it works, and the rationale. The other issue you will have to contend with Having wrestled with those broad topics, you can is search engines. You have absolutely no guarantee produce a brief that is acceptable to both the client the visitor will start at the index or home page. Again, and the creative team. The creative brief we will be a consistent and intelligent design ensures the working with throughout the book is shown below. surprise visitor is not disorientated. The solution is a solid creative brief. As we pointed out earlier, the web design process begins on CREATIVE BRIEF a sheet of paper. The software used is usually word Job Title: Oakbridge Community Center The Oakbridge processing software, and one of the key documents Community Center produced will be a creative brief. Project objectives: is being used as an example project. A ● To provide a vital communication creative brief will drive What is a creative brief? opportunity between the Center and the the design of their site. The creative team essentially receives its direction Oakbridge community. from the creative brief. The document is a written ● To position the Oakbridge Community Center summary of the goals and objectives of the project, brand favourably amongst the community. with very close attention being paid to the visitor. It ● To educate the community regarding the depth also serves to give the team an idea of the creative of the facilities offered by the Oakbridge direction for the project. It does this by laying out the Community Center. demographics of the audience, their expectations, and the communication strategy behind the site. Communication objectives: This is also a valuable document for the client. It ● To drive a measurable response throughout the is not uncommon for clients to have unreasonable Oakbridge community to increase facility usage. expectations regarding the design of a site. A ● To drive a measurable awareness of the OCC carefully-crafted creative brief will serve to focus the brand explicitly associated with facility usage. client’s attention on the creative goals of the site. It ● To educate the general public regarding the can also be used as the vehicle that enables the variety and breadth of facilities and programs creative group and the client to agree to a common offered by the OCC. set of objectives. The document can be as short as one page, or, if Target audience: the project is complex, it can be many pages long. ● Male/Female (assume a 60/40 split). Regardless of size, each member of the team should ● Age: 20 to 49. receive a copy of the brief. It should also be given to ● Internet-aware professionals and the client to be signed and dated. community members. ● Current and former users of the facility. How the brief is developed The brief is usually the result of a number of Tone and manner: meetings held between the developer and the client. ● Contemporary The document can take any form, simply because no ● Approachable two web shops approach the process in the same ● Engaging way. Still, there are some broad topics that can be covered, such as: >

Macromedia Masterclass 01 13 Building Dynamic Sites

> BRAND IDEA included as a part of the Center’s efforts to broaden its reach into the Oakbridge community and to What’s the idea? enable a variety of community groups to either ● To position the OCC as being more than just a communicate their message to the Oakbridge sports complex. community or to hold online meetings. Having done that, the process can be reduced How does it work? even further, and we can describe and rationalise the ● The visuals portray the breadth of the Center. functionality of each feature. ● The copy educates the visitor about the nature and scope of the OCC. Rationales for the features ● All visuals positioned in proximity to programs The tour will be the part of the site that will receive or facilities. the most visitor interaction. Visitors will need to be ● The design guides the visitor visually on each able to view the various programs and facilities, page of the site and directs the eye on the page. based upon their specific interest. After the visitor selects a category, he or she should be presented Why is it right? with an overview of that particular facility. If more ● Visitors will be exposed to the variety and depth specific information is required, the visitor can reach of the OCC. it with a single click. ● For visitors new to the site, the copy and visuals The booking facility will perform a number of will position the OCC as a community resource tasks. It will need to keep a running list of the facilities and not just a sports complex. the visitor wishes to book. It must also include ● The descriptive copy reinforces the community functionality to enable the visitor to change his or her resource philosophy. mind and add or delete items. It should also include ● The design conveys key brand personality and the capability to refuse a booking based on over- enforces visual approachability and ease of use. capacity or, if the facility is unavailable, provide a few alternative dates or times that can be booked. It should also be able to issue an email confirmation THE TECHNICAL BRIEF regarding the booking. Dynamic web sites use a lot of technology. As such, The online meeting facility should be flexible it makes sense to produce a document that gives enough to accommodate all manner of users, from the technical team its “marching orders.” From the novices to the technically adept. Thus, it has to be client’s perspective, this document can help to flexible enough to offer services ranging from a text demystify the process. input chat facility to streaming video and audio. It should be able to accommodate groups ranging in Focus on “cool” and the project is size from three to 300. It will also contain a “help agent” that will “create” the meeting facility based doomed to failure. Never forget the upon user input. web is a communications medium. Cool vs. practical The rationale, if you are on the web team, just oozes Let’s take a look at the key features the Oakbridge “cool.” Focus on the “cool” factor and the project is Community Center site will employ. First is an doomed to failure. Never forget the web is a interactive tour based upon user interest. This tells us communications medium. This means information is we will need to create a facility that enables those being transmitted. Focusing on the technology— interested in indoor sports, outdoor sports and ”cool”—and not the process—”practical”—will community use features—meeting rooms and overwhelm the message. For dynamic sites to work, conference rooms—to quickly review those features the technology has to be transparent. online. We’ll also need to create an application that The tour could be done in any number of enables the visitors to book the various sports and applications, but we decided to feed the content meeting facilities. into Dreamweaver templates using content located A new wrinkle introduced by the client is the in or referenced by the database. This way, the creation of an online meeting facility. This is being information is not fixed in place and can be quickly

14 Macromedia Masterclass 01 amended to accommodate change. For example, it rigid. Spawned from the key event schedule, this outdoor tennis courts and baseball diamonds can document should accommodate the fact that scope easily be removed during the winter months, and creep will occur and that tasks will inevitably be programs like “spinning” or aerobics can be added added or subtracted and deadlines will expand or without major modifications to the site. contract as the project moves toward completion. The booking application will be created in both Flash MX 2004 and Director MX. The reason The tardy client here is to demonstrate to you how both applications There are any number of solutions available to the can obtain and display data using ColdFusion and project manager who has to deal with a team Flash Remoting. member who consistently misses deadlines. What The online meeting facility will be a Flash about the client that misses them on a regular basis? application that shows you how to add some The solutions here range from blood oaths and “cool”—streaming video and audio—to the site. It weapons on the table to account resignation. To will also be built to accommodate those visitors not avoid this situation, make the client aware right at the as interested in “cool” and will offer a text chat option start of the process that time is money... the client’s using the Flash Communications Server. money. This tends to get their undivided attention. Clearly explain each of the project’s goals and the Timelines/deadlines financial implications of the client missing his or her More and more web development companies are goals for content delivery and approvals. In certain starting to understand the importance of project instances, it also doesn’t hurt to request that the client management and the use of a project manager. This appoint a back-up individual with the authority individual, in many respects, could be the difference to approve, sign, and date documents, should the between the success or failure of a project and, to be client be unavailable. ■ blunt, the web development company. In fact, one of the authors has gotten used to hearing the principals of many large and small web development firms tell him the smartest thing they ever did was to actually hire a “project manager.” This individual knows the key to the successful completion of the project is the schedule, and that means he or she must get the team and the client to “sign on” to the agreed deadlines. If the schedule is properly developed, both groups will see a Read continuum from the start of the project to upload to the client’s server. This continuum involves timelines more of and deadlines and helps everyone involved to this book differentiate between forests and trees. Timelines, the forest, are usually contained in a This is an extract from New Riders’ Building key event schedule that lays out the broad Dynamic Websites parameters of the project and the scheduled with Macromedia completion date for the elements of the project. Studio MX 2004. On Depending on the complexity of the project, this the Computer Arts CD, document presents the major milestones of the we also provide project’s progression through the production process chapter one in full from as a series of weekly or monthly deadlines. This this brand new book. document should be included in the proposal Or turn to pages 16 presented to the client. and 17 to find out how A detailed schedule—the trees—serves to move you can get 30% off this book at the team toward the completion of the project. By Amazon.co.uk, or get it breaking the project into a daily schedule, all the completely free when major team members have a daily “to–do” list. This you upgrade to should be a fairly detailed document, but don’t make Macromedia Studio MX 2004!

Macromedia Masterclass 01 15 Macromedia masterclass MX 2004 special offers

OFFER 1 OFFER 2 30% DISCOUNT FREE BOOK WITH ON PEACHPIT EVERY UPGRADE BOOKS TO STUDIO MX With each issue of Macromedia Masterclass MX 2004, Peachpit Press, publishers of leading design titles, will be 2004 offering special discounts on a selection of books to help As if you needed any more incentive to upgrade... you get to grips with the Macromedia Studio MX 2004. Nevertheless, the first 300 people who upgrade to You can take advantage of this special discount when Macromedia Studio MX 2004 (with Flash MX 2004 you buy one or more of the four books at Professional or Flash MX 2004 Standard) will Amazon.co.uk. The four books featured in this receive the New Riders book, Building issue’s offer are: Dynamic Websites with Macromedia Studio ● Macromedia Flash MX 2004: MX 2004, that retails for £34.99. Training from the Source This brand new title by Tom Green, Author: Jen deHaan Jordan Chilcott and Chris Flick is an ISBN: 0-321-21342-4 in-depth guide to using all the elements RRP: £33.99 of the Studio to create attractive, ● Macromedia Dreamweaver MX dynamic and data-driven sites. 2004: Training from the Source To be eligible for this free book, Author: Khristine Annwn Page simply purchase the upgrade via the ISBN: 0-321-21919-8 Macromedia store or your preferred RRP: £33.99 reseller. To claim your book, fax your name, ● Macromedia Fireworks MX address and proof of purchase to BOOK 2004: Training from the Source OFFER on 01344 458666. The first 300 Author: By Patti Schulze upgraders will be sent the book within 28 days. ISBN: 0-321-21340-8 Proof of purchase is required. Offers ends 21 January 2004 RRP: £33.99

● Building Dynamic Websites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Author: Tom Green, Jordan Chilcott and Chris Flick ISBN: 0-7357-1376-6 COMPETITION RRP: £34.99 WIN A TRIP TO SAN FRANCISCO 30% OFF OR A PEACHPIT LIBRARY PEACHPIT BOOKS AT Get an incredible 30% off the RRP of the following books when you log on to Amazon.co.uk: Macromedia Flash MX 2004: Training from the Source Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004: Training from the Source Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004: Training from the Source Building Dynamic Websites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004 To take up this fantastic offer, simply follow the link www.amazon.co.uk/macromedia Enter this Macromedia and Peachpit Discount against RRP. Prices exclude P&P. The above voucher has no cash value and may not be used with any other discount. Offer ends 31 January 2004 and is subject to Competition for the chance to win a trip availability. Information correct at time of going to press. See Website for more details. to San Francisco with Macromedia, or a complete Peachpit Training from the Source library.

16 Macromedia Masterclass 01 To find out more, register at: www.computerarts.co.uk/macromedia/masterclass special offers OFFER 3 OFFER 4 10% OFF THE FULL FREE FLASH MX VERSION OF HANDBOOK STUDIO MX 2004 WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE TO COMPUTER ARTS Get the Macromedia MX 2004 editions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash Standard or Professional in the new The Flash MX Handbook contains more than 250 pages Studio MX 2004 which also includes FreeHand MX, of the best tutorials, tips and features from Computer Contribute and ColdFusion Developer Edition (Win Arts and Computer Arts Projects magazines. only). Each application works together seamlessly in Anyone who subscribes or renews their the creation of Web applications, Websites, subscription to Computer Arts before 21 animations and more. January 2004 is eligible to receive this superb Computer Arts issue 91 collection. You’ll also get 13 issues delivered awarded Studio MX 2004 to your door, including all CD-ROMs four out of five stars for its and any supplements. integration and unrivalled UK readers can subscribe for just Web graphics capabilities. £46.80. Call 0870 444 8455 to order. In addition to the massive US, Canada, Eire and European savings attached to this readers can subscribe for just £73.53. powerful bundle, Macromedia Call +44 870 444 8455 or email Masterclass MX 2004 readers [email protected] are eligible to receive ten per today. Anywhere outside the EU and cent off the estimated street North America can subscribe for price of Studio MX 2004. Call £86.53. Call +44 870 444 8455 or email 0870 730 6996 or visit [email protected]. www.computerarts.co.uk/macromedia/masterclass and click Please quote code COAMX01. Offer ends 21 January 2004. through to the Macromedia special offers. Offer available by phone or email only, not available with online applications. Offer ends 21 January 2004.

FIRST PRIZE £300 to one Macromedia Masterclass MX To be in with a chance of winning, answer Win an exclusive trip to San Francisco 2004 reader. These ten brand new books the following simple question. What is with Macromedia to attend the contain everything you need to know about the abbreviation for ColdFusion FlashForward2004 conference in March using the MX 2004 range of software. See mark-up language? 2004. The prize includes flights, full contents below. accommodation and entry to the a) AFML conference for two people. The event THIRD PRIZE b) BFML includes a full day of in-depth workshops Win a subscription to Computer Arts and c) CFML plus two days of educational seminars, Computer Arts Projects. By providing technology showcases and Ask the Expert industry insight and expertise to everyone Closing date 21 January 2004. To enter, sessions. See the Website for more details interested in digital art, design and register at www.computerarts.co.uk www.flashforward2004.com. animation, these magazines are essential /macromedia/masterclass to access the monthly reads. Our third prize winner will competition link. Or to enter by post send SECOND PRIZE get a year’s supply of both magazines – your answer on a postcard to Macromedia Peachpit is offering a complete Training that’s 26 issues including CD-ROM and MX 2004 Competition, Computer Arts, 30 from the Source library, worth more than delivery for themselves or as a gift. Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW.

Competition terms and conditions: PEACHPIT’S TRAINING FROM THE SOURCE LIBRARY IN FULL Competition open to UK readers only. Employees or All this valuable and in-depth from the Source, Flash MX 2004 PHP: Training from the Source, freelancers of Future Publishing, Macromedia Inc or knowledge could be yours with Actionscript: Training from the Macromedia Freehand MX: Pearson Education and their families are not eligible to this huge library - all for one Source, Flash MX Professional Training from the Source, enter. First prize winner is responsible for travel insur- ance, spending money and transfers to and from air- lucky reader. 2004 Application Development: Macromedia ColdFusion MX: ports. If any books are unavailable, the winner may Flash MX 2004: Training from Training from the Source, Flash Training from the Source, choose a book from Peachpit Press, Macromedia Press the Source, Dreamweaver MX MX 2004 Actionscript 2.0 and Macromedia ColdFusion or New Riders to the same value. The winners will be selected from all the correct entries on 22 January 2004: Training from the Source, Dictionary, Dreamweaver MX MX Web Application 2004. There is no cash alternative. The editor’s decision Fireworks MX 2004: Training 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion and Construction Kit is final, no correspondence will be entered into. E&OE.

Macromedia Masterclass 01 17 why bother?

So why should you even consider using rich Internet applications? We asked a broad array of design professionals for their experience of time-savings and client satisfaction – here’s what they said…

Name: Delmar Mavignier Name: Keith Pape Company: DNA Company: Virtual Image Consulting Location: London, UK Location: Newport Beach, CA, USA Contact: www.dna.co.uk Contact: www.virtual-image.com “Flash MX, especially, enables us “With rich Internet applications, to take existing campaigns to the we have both the extensibility of next level. The right choice of Name: Peter Cobb a complex set of languages such media format – expandables, Company: eBags Location: Greenwood, CO, USA floating ads, interstitials and so Contact: www.ebags.com as ColdFusion – which is now on – allows us to offer very “Our feeling is fully J2EE compliant – along with specific functionality. Users that the Internet Flash/ActionScript (ECMAscript continues to be can search for a product, find compliant). This enables a project accepted by more out prices, get more information and more people to be divided into components on mouseover, can play small as a place to and modules, allowing for rapid, games and get engaged with the research and parallel development cycles brand, its products or services purchase products. instead of linear development, before leaving the ad. From As technology a creative and marketing continues to be with all of its inadequacies. With perspective, this truly frees up developed and enhanced features and a growing many possibilities. Clients high-speed lines extensibility and functionality set, recognise this and are more become ubiquitous, there is little that cannot be rich Internet willing to explore new ways accomplished in both online, as applications will to communicate with their well as offline environments, target audience.” play a key role in enhancing the giving the final customer a customer shopping substantial cost savings by experience.” Name: Ian McMillan developing an RIA over a Company: Cygnus Location: Lake Mary, FL, USA traditional desktop application.” Contact: www.cygnus.com “Everything we do is absolutely dynamic. Everything is built on the fly. Name: Nick Ridley Company: Root6 We have no static pages. If we add a Location: London, UK Contact: www.root6.com product to the database, the Web page automatically reflects those new “A good Website presents up-to-date products. That’s an advantage of rich information in an attractive manner. Internet applications. Everything can be dynamic so you’re not having to However, a rich Internet application manually publish pages, which of course saves a huge amount of adds that final key element that flat time on the developer side.” HTML pages lack – interactivity.”

18 Macromedia Masterclass 01 Peachpit Essential books for the creative community

Get MX 2004 Training Straight from the Source!

Master Macromedia’s new MX 2004 line-up with this best-selling series from Macromedia Press.

Macromedia Flash MX 2004: Training from the Source By Jen deHaan 0-321-21342-4 • £33.99

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004: Training from the Source By Khristine Annwn Page 0-321-21919-8 • £33.99

Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004: Training from the Source By Patti Schulze 0-321-21340-8 • £33.99

Learn how to use all of the Studio MX 2004 tools together to create dynamic, data-driven Web sites!

Building Dynamic Websites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004 By Tom Green, Jordan Chilcott and Chris Flick 0-735-71376-6 • £34.99 Take video where it has never been before

Develop advanced Flash content, applications and video experience.... Introducing Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004! The Professional version includes all the features and benefits of Flash MX 2004, plus advanced functionality for creating more sophisticated interactive content, rich Internet applications, professional quality video, and easy deployment to devices.

Use Flash Pro to create completely customised video experiences for e-learning, sophisticated presentations and interactive marketing. Reach the widest possible audience with its progressive streaming and instant delivery. The Flash video format is supported directly by leading professional video tools that you already know and use.

And, for a limited time only, receive free extensions worth £150 with the purchase of any Macromedia MX 2004 product.(Offer valid until 31/12/03)

To order your copy of Flash MX Professional 2004 visit www.macromedia.com/uk/buy or call Macromedia on 0131 458 6766

Macromedia MX 2004. Run with it.

Copyright © 2003 Macromedia, Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Macromedia, the Macromedia logo, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Macromedia Flash are trademarks or registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other marks are the properties of their respective owners.