Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: keithc@library.welch.jhu.edu (Keith Christopher) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: MainActor 1.23 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 7 Feb 1994 03:09:01 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 363 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2j4bcd$ar4@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: keithc@library.welch.jhu.edu (Keith Christopher) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: graphics, animation, shareware PRODUCT NAME MainActor 1.23 [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on Feb 10, 1994. Search for the text "[UPDATE:" to find updated information. -Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION MainActor is a modular animation package. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Markus Moenig Address: Im Johannistal 36 52064 Aachen Germany Telephone: (49)-241-71844 E-mail: moenig@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de FIDO: 2:242/7.13 LIST PRICE There are two types of registration on this product: Package 1: $50 (US), which gets one a packet containing: o A TeX set, printed/bound handbook. o The latest version of the program. o A keyfile. o Two free updates (author must be contacted for them). Additional updates are $20 with and $10 without a printed handbook. Package 2: $25 (US), which gets one a packet containing: o The latest version of MainActor. o A key file. Additional updates cost the same as above. No free updates here. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE NONE. While no substantial RAM is required, more is better. While it is not required to run, a hard drive should not be considered optional. (How long can an animation be on a floppy?) Worked great on my A2500/020 and on my A4000/040 ! A faster CPU will mean increased performance, but is not necessary to run this software. SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 2.0 or higher is required. Flawless operation under AmigaDOS 3.0. It even has AmigaDOS 3.0 specific functionality -- see later in the REVIEW section. COPY PROTECTION None. However a nasty and VERY bothersome requestor will popup during saving/loading of animations in the unregistered version. This is very annoying. The program installs on a hard drive simply by dearchiving it into the partition you wish. MACHINES USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2500 68020/881, 8 MB Fast RAM, 1 MB Chip RAM. 52 MB hard drive. Commodore 68020 daughter board. Kickstart 2.05 Amiga 4000/040 Kickstart 3.0 REVIEW Like many other animators, I felt the need to take my work and show it to many of my friends. Of course not all of my friends own an Amiga. Solution? Convert my animations to a style that they can display. I asked around and no one knew how to it except using a klunky method: load the animation, save each frame as an IFF file, then convert each to GIF format, copy the files to a PC, and run filmmaker(TM) or GRASPRT(TM) and convert it. No way! I thought this was to be my destiny until someone mentioned a program called MainActor. I ftp'd the file from my favorite Aminet site. I thought this program can't be much as I downloaded if from my unix host, since it was only 371K. I thought it is probably a command-line style program, slow and klunky. Boy was I wrong! I unarchived the LhA file, which nicely created its own drawer. After double clicking the drawer, it opens to a nicely sized window. First impressions: bravo to the icon creator (who I later find out is Norbert Bogenrieder). These icons are professional looking, very creative, and sit nicely on a Workbench screen. The next thing I see is a README file, a Prefs drawer, Doc drawer, and an ARexx script drawer. The two main programs are MainActor (the main program) and MainView (MainActor's external player). I double clicked on the MainActor icon and was presented a very nice screen with several smaller windows. First is the Project View Settings window, used to define screen attributes as well as the animation display mode (whether to play the anim in a window or on its own screen). Second is the Project window, which controls which type of animation is loaded and in what format it is saved. A nice thing about MainActor is the modular setup. It has modules much like ADPro(tm) for loading and saving. These modules make it easy to upgrade: simply get a new module and put it into its proper directory. The currently supported modules (Version 1.23 Rel 1/94) are: Loaders Savers ------- ------ DL FLC FLC (>320x200 FLI's) FLI FLI IFF_ANIM5 IFF_ANIM5 IFF_ANIM7_16 and 7_32 IFF_ANIM7_16 and 7_32 IFF_ANIM8_16 and 8_32 IFF_ANIM8_16 and 8_32 Universal (automatic) Universal_Merlin Universal_PicassoII Universal_Retina These may be updated simply by adding more modules! Next is the Project Control Panel, which has the buttons to control anim loading, saving, playing, unloading, appending, and showing the current frame. Basically, this window causes the magic. Then there is a Project information window. This has buttons for displaying information about the anim, profiling the size or the time base and the bitmap time. This is a MOST information window: a MUST for making FLI animations, as the PC timing differs from Amiga timing. Last but definitely not least is the text output window or the console window. This window spits out more information about what the program is doing. From this I learned that FLI's may only be 320x200x256. The program menus are pretty much self-explanatory. The Project menu allows one to open a new project, run control panel functions, configure the program preferences, and iconify the program (a very, very nice option -- one of the most desirable functions any program should have). As I write this review, I have a 68 frame animation loaded in MainActor (iconified), and am downloading using zmodem and still getting 1620 CPS on a binary transfer! This includes when I was saving my anim to FLI format and it rang up approximately 1 frame per second on my A4000. Basically, this program multitasks VERY well. There is a Misc menu which controls the opening and closing of animations, and the selection of frames to edit/load/save/view. There's a Text Buffer menu which allows one to print the text buffer, save it as a file, or the it. (This refers to the text output window.) There is an ARexx menu... anyone wonder what that is used for? Running ARexx scripts. Lastly, there is a Windows menu which allows one to decide which windows should open on the screen. The menus are well laid out, and almost all of the commands have keystroke equivlents. For only 371K (packed size), this program has a lot of horsepower. I converted a 200 frame animation I created into an FLC format, and it broke down to 2 frames/second! Very nice. This was running alone and in RAM. WOW! Now to all my friends who have a PC: wait until you see the animations an Amiga can create! This however is not the only thing this program is useful for. Say you wanted to grab a particular image from an FLI animation you've seen and put it into you Amiga animation. Simple. Load the animation, select the particular frame you want (highlight it and then select Show from the control panel to see if it's the correct one), then click on the Select save module button in the project window. When the requestor comes up, click on the animation saver bar and it flips to PICTURE saver! Save it as IFF and incorporate it into your anim! That's right: not only can one load/save in various anim formats, but also MainActor allows one to load/save the following picture formats: LOAD SAVE ---- ---- GIF IFF IFF Workbench Icon <---most cool! PCX Universal (autoload type) Universal_Merlin Universal_PicassoII Universal_Retina Workbench-Icon MainActor also has excellent ARexx support, with more scripts planned for the future! For those ARexx junkies out there, this ranks up there! This program ranks in my high priority backup directory: don't want to lose this one due to hard disk crash. This software is not copy protected; however, during the course of saving a anim to FLI format I kept getting the requestor every 2-3 frames. This requestor freezes up the processing of you anim until you click OK. I decided that I couldn't wait until my key file arrived. Markus sent the key via email, and much to my pleasure, this program flows smoothly now. The documentation comes in 2 basic versions: disk based and printed TeX bound. The printed documentation is very well done! It is staple bound and on a very good bond paper. It is will organized and easy to read. Good font choices. The disk based documentation is also well organized (AmigaGuide format) and covers the use of the software very well! The differences between the two? Other than the obvious that one if printed and one is diskbased, the printed documentation comes with the $50 registration package and the diskbased comes with both the $50 and the $25 documentation. The program is registered by placing your personal keyfile in the L: directory and then assigning MainActor to where ever you installed it: i.e., "assign MainActor: hd3:MainActor". I didn't get a disk due to my lack of patience and my getting the archive and key file via email. Markus sent them to me the very next day, and when I had a question he answered it in the same manner. This software is one of the most useful software packages I've used! It is almost hard to believe it's shareware. I think ASDG ought to look into this software! I've been waiting for software that will do what this does! It even has an ICONIFY option! (Which I think all programs should have.) This software multitasks like a champ and does what it is supposed to do. I created a 200 frame animation with some serious morphing and converted it into FLC format and (even though a couple of PC FLC players choked on it) it worked fine. I'm surprised ASDG hasn't contacted Markus and asked about buying it from him. This software has a very good user interface and works well under 2.X and 3.0! In fact, it operates a little faster under 3.0! If you animate and you want to convert it to a PC format or various other formats listed above, and want the easiest most trouble free way to do it, MainActor is for you! I really hope to see this software updated and would definitely like to see more coded by Markus. EXCELLENT JOB MARKUS!!!!! Some exciting features planned for the future: Faster hard disk playback of IFFANIM formats. [UPDATE: Formerly, the above sentence read "Hard disk playback...," implying (incorrectly) that hard disk playback is not yet supported. It is supported. Thanks to Marcus Moening and Keith Christopher for this update. - Dan] Animation loader/saver for VRLIs (Vistapro format and Real 3d anim format) MPEG and JPEG loader. More ARexx scripts Synching sound. More special modules for commercial hardware.. The archive comes with online documentation in amigaguide format, ASCII format, and DVI format. The guide files are well laid out and easy to navigate. The information is complete. DOCUMENTATION MainActor comes in two different versions, one with printed documentation and one without. The printed documentation is in TeX format and is very clear and concise in describing the features on this software. It is also an attractive manual, that is printed on a good bond paper so one doesn't have to worry too much about tearing. The font size is easy to read and the manual is very well laid out. The disk based documentation comes in 3 different formats: AmigaGuide: Very well organized and detailed, well done! ASCII: The icon defaults to call more and is the ACSII version of the guide documentation. DVI: Didn't look at it. (no need to really. I had the printed and amigaguide docs! ) LIKES AND DISLIKES I most liked the modular programming, this will make upgrades/updates easy and painless. New modules, copy then in the respective drawer(s) (loaders/savers) done. I have to mention the ICONIFY menu option (A. <- keystroke option) it worked flawlessly! I am always a fan of this option. Improvements? I would love to see an MPEG saver! I spoke to Markus about this and he said that in the event he could get information on it, he would give it a try, but thought it was beyond his programming ability. After seeing MainActor in action I don't think anything is beyond Markus's skill as a programmer. Sound support is promised in a future version. Which will be VERY nice! GRASPRT saver also would be nice. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS MainActor is alone in what it does and shines like a bright star! ASDG's ADPro(tm) is the only package that I've see to come close, and we all know how much it costs! I think ASDG should take a look at Markus's software! While ADPro(tm) is the best of the best, I feel that MainActor ranks up there. I use it to do with animation what I use ADPro(tm) to do with image files. BUGS I had a problem running some animations I converted to FLC format on my PC (I need one for work compatibility) which had major morph sequences in them. After talking to Markus via email and trying a different FLC player, I determined it was the FLC player not the animation. VENDOR SUPPORT I emailed Markus about the above problem and he responded quickly and hammered out some suggestion which worked. Rating: A+. Markus knows his software and its limitations and high points!` WARRANTY Author is not responsible for misuse or damage caused by MainActor. (Taken straight from the documentation.) CONCLUSIONS I have concluded that this product will stay in my Amiga software collection as long as it maintains the quality (or better) that it has today. ***** (5 out of 5 stars!) COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Keith Christopher. All rights reserved. http://tomahawk.welch.jhu.edu/ --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews