Author - Jerry Paxton

Anime Studio 5 Review

Smith Micro Graphics/eFrontier’s Anime Studio 5 was meant to give artists the ability to create their own cartoons and anime shows with little or no fuss and without having to have a huge production studio lying around.

Like Manga Studio, Anime Studio is laid out a bit like Adobe Photoshop with controls on the left side of the screen and more detailed tools such as layers, etc on the right side. Unlike these other products, however, Anime Studio 5 adds an additional window to the bottom of the screen: key framing. We will get to key framing later.

Ideally, you would have drawn your character in Manga Studio and then imported the drawing into Anime Studio, but something that makes Anime Studio nice is that you can also create characters in-app with the provided drawing tools. Though lacking alot of the shading features inherent in Manga Studio, the tools provided are enough to create a character without too much issue.

Once drawn in a neutral stance, it is time to add bones to your drawing. Basically, you add enough bones to your drawing in order to form what is known as a ‘skeleton’. Creating a bone consists of placement of the base ends of the bone followed by adjusting the area the bone controls. Characters will be moved by adjusting their bone positions, so this part is important. Making the bone control too much area means it will control unintended parts of your drawing. In addition, we found that the bones can sometimes move in unexpected ways. For instance, a rotation in one direction can spin the bone the opposite way for some reason. This doesn’t seem to happen often, but just enough to be annoying. When this occurs, the ‘undo’ feature is your best bet. It is not worth moving a joint back to where you think it was, only to have it create a key frame on that timestamp because it wasnt exact.

After you add your character skeletons, it is time to animate. Animation in Anime Studio is very simple. It is a key framing system, meaning that you tell Anime Studio where you want a bone to be at point A and B, then the program will go back through and fill in the points in between. This is a very convenient way of animation, although it can be tricky to get the movement just right. Sometimes you need to go back to a place in between the two points and adjust the path decided upon by the program to move your bone. However, after a bit of practice, you should get the hang of it.

You can even add a soundtrack to your animation, then export the whole thing off as a Flash, QuickTime, or avi movie file. So, as you can see, Anime Studio 5 is an excellent product at a very reasonable price point. The standard version of the program costs $49.99 while the Pro edition will set you back $199.99

Here is a sample character animation that was entirely done inside Anime Studio, from initial drawing to final rendering.

Conclusion:
Aside from the minor boning system issues, we found Anime Studio 5 to be not only a fun program to use, but also a great doorway for any artist into the world of cartoons and animation that won’t break your pocketbook.

Flip Video Ultra Review

Pure Digital Technologies has been in the ‘affordable’ camcorder market for quite some time. They developed the first ‘one-time-use’ digital cameras and camcorders you can find in your local drugstore or gift shop. Their line of highly-compact digital camcorders, the Flip, has been extremely successful with people needing to have access to quick video recording without alot of hassle. Now they have released the Flip Video Ultra and completely raised the industry bar for this class of camcorder.

Design/Construction: The Flip Video Ultra features a plastic body measuring 4.17′ x 2.16′ x 1.25′ and nicely fits in one’s hand, despite what its blocky appearance would suggest. The central body of the unit is rubberized, making it much easier to handle. The Flip Video Ultra features a slightly recessed 1.5′ TFT screen that produces very little glare, even in broad daylight. Under the screen are the unit’s video control array: A 4-way directional pad with a central record/stop button in its center. A playback and delete button are situated slightly above and to the sides of the 4-way pad. On one side of the unit is the power button and lanyard strap loop while situated on the opposite side is the TV output and USB interface.

Connectivity: One of the unit’s biggest selling points is that it has a USB connector built in, as opposed to needing a loose cable to carry around with you. The connector is housed on the end of a small arm which ‘switchblades’ out at the slide of a button. Retracting the arm is done manually, and it snaps back into its recessed housing. The USB connection itself is high-speed 2.0 spec, which transfers video from the device very quickly. The Flip Video Ultra can also connect straight to a television via an output port on the side of the unit and an included cable. One thing that bothered us about the unit was that after releasing the USB arm, it is slightly worrisome to plug in. The arm swivels about a hinge and pushing it into the port while holding the main body feels somewhat ‘unnatural’. Also, unplugging the unit means pulling it from the USB port by the main body. This also feels slightly worrisome as the arm is not directly in the middle of the Ultra. When you apply force to the main body it is not transfered equally to the USB arm, making the unit wobble a bit.

Usage: Using the Flip Video Ultra is as easy as can be. A simple press of the center red button starts recording while a second press stops it. The up and down buttons control the digital zoom while the left and right buttons control the selection of recorded videos when not recording. You can playback recorded video as alluded to before, with full sound which is a very handy feature. The unit comes with some basic editing software as well as the necessary codecs to watch/edit the Ultra’s videos. This eliminates the need for external CDs to carry about and makes the Ultra a very ‘self-sufficient’ device. The Flip Video Ultra comes with 2 Energizer-brand AA batteries as well, which is a nice step up from the usual generic brands some companies will ship out. Two alkaline AA batteries will last about two and a half hours which is not bad considering the 2GB Flip Video Ultra only records up to 60 minutes of video.

Video Quality: The Flip Video Ultra takes 640×480 video at 30 frames-per-second. The quality of the video is quite good. Much better, in fact, than the Ultra’s competitors in the highly-compact category. Recording in low light, the Ultra’s quality does not diminish much, and takes surprisingly good video. The video is compressed using the 3vix codec, which apparently still has some issues (not any fault of the camcorder mind you). We couldn’t edit any video taken with the Ultra until we removed Divx from our machine, which the 3ivx codec conflicted with for an unknown reason.

Audio Quality: One of our biggest concerns when recording is getting too much ambient noise and not enough of what we want the viewer to hear. The Ultra handles loud situations quite nicely and its microphone is able to focus on what is in front of it surprisingly well.

Druthers: If I could change the design of the Ultra in some way, my additions would be rather simple. First, I would include a lens cap/cover of some kind. It wouldn’t necessarily need to be built-in, but maybe something that would have from a lanyard off the device. Second, I would have added a 3.5mm microphone input. This device almost screams ‘Blogger’ and ‘Podcast’ so loud it could be deafening. The only thing that would totally push it past that point for me would be a dedicated microphone input. I would much rather have that feature than the TV out, especially considering you can playback your videos on the device before transferring them off.

Final Thoughts: You will notice I used the word ‘surprisingly’ in the last two sections and that is one of the best things about the Flip Video Ultra: It pleasantly surprises you constantly. Just when you think you have found a situation it cannot handle, being the inexpensive camcorder it is, it takes it and comes running back for more. Now we are not willing to trade our 1080p video cameras in for an Ultra yet, but you can bet we would supplement our footage or create video podcasts with the Flip Video Ultra any day of the week. The unit comes in two base models: 1GB and 2GB. The prior will afford the user with 30 minutes of recording time while the latter, 60 minutes. It is also available in five vibrant colors. You can also buy some very cool accessories for the unit such as an underwater case, ‘action mount’ which will connect the Ultra to a set of handlebars or any custom mount you can rig up, and even a small mini-tripod.

Test Video Compilation:

Test video note – we compressed the video from the Ultra down for this compilation – ACTUAL direct Ultra footage is even better.

Manga Studio 3 Review

Smith Micro Graphics’ Manga Studio 3 is the latest in their award winning line of manga/comic creation programs. Manga, for those of you who don’t know, is a form of Japanese comic book, which has become especially popular here in the States.

Let me preface this by saying I am not an artist by trade. Sure, I dabble here and there with 3D Studio MAX but every artistic application has its own quirks and methods of accomplishing a task. As such, I approached this program as a total nugget.

Upon starting the application, I noticed that the general layout of the program is similar to Adobe Photoshop in that your basic control box is on the left side of the screen while your layer, tone, and history boxes are on the right side.

Creating a single page in Manga Studio from start to finish is a seven step process. The first step is to pencil out a rough sketch, so I selected the pencil tool and began to eek out a very bad rendition of a space ship. What I found to be truly incredible was that, since I was using a graphics tablet to do my drawing, that Manga Studio responded to the pressure I exerted on the pad and changed the line stroke accordingly. This gives drawing in the program a much more natural feel than using just the mouse.

The next step in the process is to ink your sketch. So, I created a new layer for inking and selected the pen tool. Inking is basically tracing over the outlines of your sketch (avoiding all the unnecessary lines) with the pen tool. Again, Manga Studio adapted to my changes in pen pressure and drew the lines with different stroke widths to compensate. The inking stage is where you really start utilizing the ability to have multiple layers on a project. By using more than one layer, you compartmentalize ink of certain areas. This way, if you don’t like a specific layer you can delete that ink without erasing other sections around it. After the inking is completed, you have the option of erasing your pencil layer entirely or, like I did, just setting it to invisible.

Step three and four are to shade and texture, or, tone your scene. Selecting an area to shade or texture can be done in several ways. These methods should be familiar to anyone who has used an Adobe product. There is a magic wand tool as well as free-form lasso tools to select an area. Once I selected my desired area, I opened up the Tones window and double-clicked the tone I wanted to shade in the area with. Tones are basically the way a comic is given a sense of depth, usually with some sort of close-knit pattern to give texture as well as shading. I found this to be the most difficult process as trying to use the magic wand tool proved to be difficult if I did not make sure all of my ink lines are closed off. Otherwise it would select outside the area I wanted to shade. This being the case, I mostly stuck with the lasso tools to manually mark off my areas. Manga Studio comes with a huge number of preset tones for you to use. You can even create new ones and save them for later if you like.

Adding speed & concentration lines is the next order of the day and Manga Studio provides very useful tools for making this relatively easy. One thing I noticed was that it was very easy to get lost in your list of layers. An important tip would be to label layers very carefully as to keep them organized.

After adding your line effects, it is time to add thought/speech bubbles and text. Manga Studio allows you to create ‘organic-style’ bubbles and writing text is extremely simple. Adding text in Manga Studio is much like adding it to an image in Photoshop.

Finally, it is time to publish the page and export it into whatever file you like. Manga Studio will allow you to export your pages to .bmp, .jpg, and .psd image types. As I expected, my drawing was awful and, as such, I will not show them to you out of total embarassment. Instead, I will regale you in the image gallery with screenshots of other people’s Manga Studio work.

Final Thoughts: When read, this page creation process might not seem that daunting, and to tell the truth it isn’t after you have used the software for a while. As a newbie, though, you are bound to be a bit overwhelmed at first. Just keep learning how to use it and you should find it quite rewarding. If you are an aspiring comic artist or even an established artist looking to move into your own publications: Manga Studio 3 is for you!

You can find the Manga Studio homepage here.

Kanguru Defender Pro Flash Drive Review

Kanguru has been in business since 1992, but made a huge leap into the data storage business in 1993 by creating the 20mb external Kanguru Disk hard drive. Now they have a large stable of flash drives, with feature sets for just about any demographic you can think of. Their latest line of flash drives dubbed the ‘Kanguru Defender’ are geared towards businesses and individuals seeking to safely secure their data, especially when traveling. On February 1st, they announced the next stage in the Kanguru Defender series, the ‘Pro’ edition.

Package Contents: When unpacking the Kanguru Defender Pro, we found it contained the drive itself, the ‘Kanguru Drivers & Manuals CD’, a USB extension cable, a lanyard, and registration paperwork. The CD that accompanied the unit did not, in fact, have drivers or manuals on it. It contained pdf registration paperwork for both Defender models (std and Pro). The nice thing about the drive is that it does not require drivers anyway, but it was a bit confusing to not find them on the labeled disk. The USB extension cable is a brilliant addition to the package. It will allow you to snake a hard to reach USB port from your machine around to an easy-to-reach place on your desk, for example. This is something flash drive makers should be more proactive in providing and it shows good forethought on Kanguru’s part. The lanyard is also a handy addition, as the loop that could possibly be used for your key chain was too narrow to be used with mine – being so, that lanyard is my only option. However, the lanyard works very well.

Design/Construction: The Kanguru Defender Pro features a mostly ‘tamper-proof’ aluminum casing. I say ‘mostly’ because while it’s aluminum body feels very rugged and durable, the hard plastic butt cap feels like it would crack if stepped on or had a sharp impact. The data port end-cap is also a plastic that feels like it would crack if stepped on. Having aluminum versions of these plastic pieces would make the outer casing virtually impregnable and is something we would like to see in the next generation of Defender. The drive is roughly 2.5 inches long and weighs in at a much smaller form factor and weight than most secure drives such as the IronKey, for example. This makes the drive more carefree in its transportation, as hanging from the lanyard it almost feels like you don’t have anything around your neck at all. Kanguru offers the drive in 4 stock colors and will customize drives with personalized logos or text for an additional fee.

Installation & Usage: Setting the Defender Pro up was a snap, and takes place the first time you insert the drive into a computer. The Kanguru Defender Manager application will open (loaded from the drive – no pc software required) and ask you to assign the flash drive a password. This password is used anytime the drive is plugged into a machine, PC-independent. If the user enters the wrong password, the drive does not allow access to itself.

Security: Speaking of drive security, aside from the aforementioned password protection, the drive features an external switch that write-protects the drive for added security against accidental erasure. The encryption technology used in this drive is of the 256-bit AES variety, which is tried and true, having been used in most of the secure flash drives on the market.

Performance: The main difference between the standard and ‘Pro’ Defenders is the type of memory used in the drive. The standard Defender uses MLC NAND memory, providing an advertised write speed of 7MB/s and read speed of 15MB/s. The ‘Pro’ drive uses SLC NAND memory providing an advertised write speed of 15MB/s and read speed of 30MB/s. We took the Defender Pro to the HD Tune and HD Tach benchmarking programs to determine whether or not it lives up to the touted speeds (graphs in gallery). HD Tune reported an average read speed of 28.2MB/s and HD Tach reported the average to be 28.7MB/s. Write speeds were tested with a series of large and small files. Our results ran from 12.8MB/s to 14.5MB/s, all within an acceptable range of the advertised speed. In short, this drive is one fast mover.

Conclusion: The Kanguru Defender Pro flash drive exudes excellent security features while also providing an exceptional transfer rate. Its rugged casing, despite its minor annoyances, should hold up a long time keeping your data safe and secure.

Patton Drives East Expansion for Strategic Command 2 Announced

Fury Software has announced an expansion for Strategic Command 2 titled Patton Drives East. It is a campaign based on the ‘what-if’ of Patton leading Allied forces towards Moscow after Germany’s surrender during World War II.

Image gallery after the break.

Official Release:
Battlefront.com and Fury Software are thrilled to announce the
second Expansion Pack for ‘Strategic Command 2: Blitzkrieg’ titled ‘Patton Drives East‘.

‘Patton Drives East’ allows players to explore the historically possible what ifs of WWII such as:

  • What if the Western Allies and the Soviet Union went to war after defeating the Axis?
  • Could America liberate a Europe subjugated by the Axis?
  • What if the Western Allies had accepted a surrender from Germany and together they would fight against the USSR?

This expansion incorporates a list of new features including:

  • a new and bigger map, now 172×46 tiles,
  • a much larger North America stretching from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the Rocky Mountains,
  • enhanced and unpredictable AI via new decision events and global variables,
  • new unit graphics to reflect equipment that would become available post WWII,
  • campaign scorecards
  • and much, much more…

SunAge Review

Vienna-based developer Vertex4’s ‘SunAge’ is a real-time strategy game set in a world where the aftermath of a nuclear war has forced humans into protective domes while those outside either died or mutated into the ‘Raak-Zun’, the game’s ‘evil’ mutant faction. Those that stayed in the domes are known as the ‘Federals’. Much like the winning number of people in a ‘boy band’ is five, the winning number of factions in an RTS seems to be three. In keeping with this tradition, a third alien robot faction is thrown into the mix as well.

Graphics: SunAge is played in a 2D world from an isometric viewpoint, similar to the RTS games of the mid 1990s. In fact, the whole visual style of the game echoes back to that generation of RTS games. The background seems straight out of Fallout 2 (and that is a compliment), albeit much higher resolution. The units are very well detailed 2D sprites and they animate smoothly to boot. The game is not entirely two-dimensional however, as some of the game’s effects are done in 3D and, as they are the only three-dimensional elements in the game, really stand out over the background art.

Gameplay: The game’s campaign starts with a couple of missions which teach the player the ropes of command while setting up the story to follow. Cut scenes are featured at the beginning of every mission and sometimes are dispersed during a mission as well. They are done in a 2D comic-book panel style which, while maligned by some critics, I actually thought we a nice change from full-motion video. While I appreciated this change, I felt the artwork was often a bit dull.

Controlling your units is generally a smooth experience. Once you click on a controllable group of units, a blue circle encompasses your mouse cursor. This denotes the currently selected group’s weapons range (a very handy feature). In addition, by right-clicking and dragging on a location you can change your group’s formation and facing direction. Unit AI seems relatively intelligent as far as target selection is concerned. Infantry will try to attack other infantry and soft targets before turning to heavy units while heavy units tend to attack other comparable units before turning to soft targets. By right-clicking an enemy, you tell your group to make that type of target their highest priority. They will still attack other targets as needed, however, to survive. This really gives you the feeling of giving orders to your troops. You tell them to go to a location, form up, and they will handle the rest. A ‘feature’ of the game doesn’t always work as planned is that right-clicking and dragging will not select multiple unit types. They do this to help the player avoid selecting unwanted units. However, in a scramble situation when you need to throw alot of units somewhere fast, it is a bit of a pain. In addition, most units have a secondary mode which can be toggled on and off. For infantry, they become snipers. These dual-functions expand a unit’s flexibility and a nice addition.

Your construction projects are fueled by natural resources which have to be mined from around the map. The resources in SunAge come in four flavors: Nitrium Ore, Plutonium, Zirkonium, and Iberium Rods. Each are used in different applications. For instance, building light vehicles requires not only Nitrium Ore, the most common resource, but also a quantity of Plutonium. Capturing and controlling the ‘mines’ where these resources are gathered is of vital importance, as is defending them. The concept of resource gathering may not be very mainstream anymore, when looking at titles such as World in Conflict, but in this case the natural resources add an additional layer of planning to the battlefield.

Base planning and construction will be a big part of your game in SunAge. You will need to instruct your builder units to construct power distribution networks to feed energy to your future buildings. An improperly planned base layout can cost valuable resources and time later on in the game. Base defenses are also extremely important in SunAge, as the constructible defenses in this title are actually viable in combat, unlike many other RTS games where they limit the number of turrets you can create.

It seems to us that in SunAge, the developers wanted to create something where strategy was of the utmost important. Where ‘Zerging’ was disapproved of and players were meant to gather resources, fortify their bases, and then send their armies to duke it out. We feel they succeeded in their efforts.

Sound: The sound design in SunAge is adequately executed. While nothing extraordinary it serves the title well. The voice acting in the cut scenes leaves something to be desired. It is often a bit over-the-top and unbelievable which, unfortunately, only serves to bring down their quality.

Score: SunAge features an orchestral score that appropriately sets the mood depending on which side you are playing as.

Conclusion: While SunAge features nicely detailed 2D art assets, it looks somewhat dated when compared to modern RTS games. However, upon closer inspection you will find a very fun game that holds strategic thinking in the highest regard and offers a large amount of flexibility in its base building and unit usage. It is the kind of small release that the ‘big’ companies out there ought to take note of and learn from.

Democracy 2 – Review

I cannot emphasize enough how addictive this game is. The developer, Positech, states that D2 ‘looks daunting at first’ and they’re not kidding. There appears to be so many variables to contend with it’s a wonder you got elected in the first place! Once you’ve played a few ‘test’ regimes, however, you quickly settle in and learn what’s effective and what’s not. I made the mistake of showing D2 to my girlfriend and subsequently had to sit patiently watching her for two hours before I got another chance to play.

D2 opens with a series of 9 nations to choose from. Each has its own perks and drawbacks. If you want a lot of money to play with early on, choose the capitalist haven, Koana. Your budget surplus will easily hit $90billion within the first couple turns, giving you plenty of cash to fund various policies.

Once you choose a nation, you are given the option of configuring the populace. For a balanced game, Positech recommends not adjusting the default settings. Each nation comes pre-set with a pretty mixed society. Obviously, in a heavily capitalist society you’re going to have a lot of business owners concerned about taxes and property rights. This is important! You need to know your people to propose initiatives which will be viewed favorably.

Choose your political affiliation carefully. It doesn’t make sense to be a socialist president in a capitalist country. Do that, and you’re setting yourself up for a single term regime! It took me forever to figure out why I was so unpopular! I had glossed over that option the first couple times I played. The game doesn’t default you to the most beneficial, so make sure you know what’s popular and what isn’t.

Once you’ve chosen your country, political affiliation, and term limits, you are presented with the main screen. As can be seen from the screenshots below, the issues (represented by the icons) seem very overwhelming. If you hold your cursor over any segment of the population, or any issue, the red and green lines appear showing you how the issues related to each other and to your people. In the screenshot below, ‘Crime’ is directly related to poverty, police spending, etc… Increase police funding, maybe do some racial profiling (for non-liberals), and crime goes down. Getting rid of problems makes everyone happy, but your methods might have negative influences on certain members of your population (i.e., the aforementioned liberals).

With each turn you have a certain amount of political clout (represented by a fist and a number). Each policy, or adjustment to spending requires different amounts of clout to implement, and most policies take several turns before their effects are felt. Pay attention to your reports and your society! The people will let you know what needs to be done! Ignore them and you risk terrorism, or even a coup! At the end of each term, there is an election. If you’ve done your job well enough and get re-elected, the people will hold you to your campaign promises!

CONCLUSION: That being said, you cannot please all the people all the time. So go ahead! Be controversial! You may, over time, liberalize your society (or make it more conservative). Have fun and experiment! D2’s creators spent what appears to be an ungodly amount of time coding the interworkings between …well, everything!

I have to go, my girlfriend is feeling dictatorial…

Roy Scheider is Dead

According to AP news, veteran actor Roy Scheider passed away at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock at the age of 75. The actor had been treated at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy unit there for around the last two years. The official cause of death was not disclosed.

Fans will most likely remember Scheider from his roles in Jaws and later, SeaQuest. However, the actor had acted in over 80 films in his long-spanning career. He will be missed.

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