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TEACHERS have been looking for alternatives to standard written book reports and other student reports for years, often combining them with art projects for more visual presentations. As computers have […]

WELCOME TO OUR ANNUAL REVIEW of the products that help Mac users work and play--the Editors' Choice Awards. Macworld's editors surveyed every Mac product released between November 1, 2000, and […]

Award-winning animator Chris Landreth and his team at Alias|Wavefront turn a theater performance into an amazing five-minute character animation At midnight, in a ramshackle theater above a funeral home in […]

CREATING CHARACTERS HAS BECOME MUCH EASIER, THANKS TO THE HUGE ASSORTMENT OF ANIMATION PLUG-INS NOW AVAILABLE Digital artists are forever pushing the envelope when it comes to 3D animation, as […]

Computer graphics and movie monsters are by no means strangers. Indeed, computer-generated creatures are almost as common as stop-motion puppets these days, starring in scenes that demand fast-moving, full-body shots […]

A new generation of animation software based on an open, procedural architecture paves the way for technical directors and nontechnical animators to craft custom features and project-specific tools Commercial 3D […]

As you enter the mythical kingdom of Atlantis, the graceful domed city floats in the ethereal and earth--and you float, too, immersed in its beauty and depth. Gods and heroes […]

The level of sophistication in computer graphics is often measured with the ruler of reality, that is, by how closely a 3D-simulated world fools people into believing they're seeing something […]

Are you a 3-D neophyte or a seasoned master? Our tour of the exploding 3-D-art movement has something for everyone Pop artists made their careers by putting a fresh spin […]

Last year at about this time, I was at Industrial Light and Magic looking at some early footage from the movie Dragonheart. Although the person showing the footage of Draco […]

In their endeavors to create signature imagery, digital artists have always sought more control over their medium. These quests have not only generated some amazing work, they've also advanced the […]

With its 3.51 release, Softimage 3D includes a number of new functions. The most notable are the additions of Mental Ray rendering and the Particle program to Soft image Extreme […]

In '96, vendors of 3D software took a particular interest in game developers. Here's what those vendors have to offer. If you had any doubts that 3D will play a […]

As reviews go, PowerAnimator V7, with its Advanced Animation and PowerModeling modules, proved to be quite daunting. One reason is that, quite simply, V7 has an incredible wealth of features. […]

For more than a decade, the venerable Silicon Graphics workstation has been the workhorse of Honywood's 3D animation and visual effects industry. This year, however, the workhorse could get a […]

The fact that LightWave 3D V4.0--NewTek's 3D modeling, rendering an animation program--runs on Amiga, SGI, Windows, and Windows NT platforms is exceptional. The fact that it provides advanced features such […]

If, as they say, God is in the details, then s/he must be finding that the world of computer graphics is getting just a little bit hairy these days. That's […]

As the 3D animation marketplace heats up, the software available for Macintosh-based animators is getting increasingly sophisticated. But how does one choose among the available programs? After all, while most […]

These packages let you create blockbuster 3-D graphics for business presentations, computer-based training programs, kiosks, and CDs -- without a Hollywood budget. COMPARED: Alias Sketch 2.0 Alias Research Inc. Asymetrix […]

Master's of 3D imagery are masters of lighting. After the arduous process of creating the 3D models and giving them surface characteristics, the lighting of a scene is pivotal to […]

Computer-based modeling and animation are taking off. Driven by the successful use of animation in Hollywood, the rise of new forms of animation-based interactive entertainment, and the rapid advances in […]

Housed in an unpretentious, one-story office building in an industrial park in Glendale, California, about 10 minutes away from the Burbank airport, is one of the most creative and successful […]

Authoring Educators were the first to embrace authoring programs. The advent of multimedia has only widened interest, within the education community and outside of it as well. Of course all […]

An in-depth comparison of those 3D graphics and animation packages that define the high-end of the computer graphics world In this two-part series, CGW contributing editor Tim Forcade takes an […]

In the last year or so, professional 3D animation has undergone a kind of transfusion--new digital blood is invigorating the old. Small, fast, and ever more capable personal computers are […]

In addition to handing out Oscars for Best Actor and Actress, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last month also handed out several technical Academy Awards recognizing significant […]

Alias Sketch! This high-end 3-D-modeling and rendering program includes several unusual features. It provides powerful NURBS modeling, many options for complex objects and vertex editing, and model-perspective control against scanned […]

When Lon Chaney transformed into a werewolf in the 1941 horror movie classic The Wolf Man, the effect was done with makeup changes and a series of cross-dissolves during which […]

First there were 2D graphics with rotations and scaling. Then there were 3D wireframe images with multiple views for perspective. The next step? Rendering, the transformation of a wireframe to […]

For the user, a Windows program that provides no feedback during long processing operations is frustrating. The static hourglass cursor can make the user wonder whether the program is still […]

The animation starts out simply enough. A lone marimba appears on-screen against a black background. Then, a mallet rises, as if moved by the hand of an unseen musician, and […]

To create even a simple animation such as a flying logo requires careful preliminary homework. You need to know your hardware and software, of course, and you should have at […]

THE 6TH ANNUAL EDITORS' CHOICE AWARDS Every year, the editors of MacUser evaluate hundreds of Macintosh products. Some products are great and some of them aren't, but by the end […]

In the movie A Bug's Life, an animated feature film scheduled for release this November from Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios, a misfit ant named Flik must try […]

Using 3D Studio Max R2 to animate a scorpion stinging its prey Scorpions are truly aggressive and nasty predators, often fighting each other over territory and mates. They have been […]

It has been approximately a year and a half since I reviewed Power Animator 7.0. Looking back, I remember being most exited about the program's new interface and robust modeling […]

Conventional keyframe animation often appears simplistic, artificial, and lifeless. Computer-graphic objects and characters appear to float or move and react as if they were in a weightless environment. In contrast, […]

Fractal Design's Poser software was created to address the need for realistic anatomical characters in a world of digital artists and animators. Initially, Fractal seemed to target Poser as a […]

ElectricImage has had a long history on the Mac. To date, it has been the only serious 3D rendering and animation solution on the Mac platform. The package produces excellent-quality […]

The job looked impossible: create a realistic-looking, fully rendered CG Moonbase that's over 30 stories tall and nearly a mile in diameter--in only two weeks. That was the task put […]

Character Studio, developed by UnReal Pictures (Palo Alto, CA) and marketed by Kinetix, is one of the first plug-ins for 3D Studio Max. This revolutionary plug-in not only substantially advances […]

Professional character animation is so demanding that, although you can accomplish it with most modeling and animation software, there are definitely a few programs that make the job easier. One […]

For animators using 3D Studio, some of the most difficult tasks are creating realistic motions and collision responses. Typically, these demand painstaking time and effort working with precision keyframing techniques. […]

Material objects in the real world have subtle personalities,' expressed by the way they interact with other objects; these interactions are governed by the laws of physics. Trying to emulate […]

With the release of the Windows-based Animator Studio, Autodesk provides developers with an excellent set of tools they can use to paint and compose 24-bit 2D images and animations as […]

If you've been a teacher for even the shortest period of time, you know that all children have their own unique stories to tell. Now with the emergence of multimedia […]

Going through the tutorials of Quest V5.0, Allen Communication's Windows-based multimedia authoring system, I was reminded of one of those wonderful old hardware stores you used to find everywhere, way […]