Stories by: Michael Burns

Recently released for free following the takeover of developer Caligari by Microsoft, trueSpace is a fully featured 3D application. Although it has an unorthodox look and feel, it offers hundreds of tools, animation facilities and physics simulations, and a collaborative working environment.

With the addition of the X4 tag, Corel has moved Designer further away from the 2-D technical drawing market towards the 3-D CAD space. Not that Designer can now create 3-D models, but the addition into this suite of Right Hemisphere’s Deep Exploration 5.5.

DX Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) aimed at users building real-time 3D interactive applications, simulations or games, as well as multimedia presentations, kiosks and Web sites. Its 3D engine is based on Microsoft’s DirectX 9.0c technology, so its player is Windows-only — which isn’t much of a problem if you’re creating an in-store kiosk, for example, but may be an issue if you want to distribute branded games online.

The standout new feature of 3D modelling, animation and rendering application XSI 7 is a visual programming environment, ICE (Interactive Creative Environment). This opens up the application to more than shader writers and effects teams with scripting knowledge. In the ICE workflow, elements, such as particle generators and emitters, are linked in a data-flow view with the forces that act upon them and the processes that they undergo, all connected in a node tree.

Strata’s 3D[in] plug-ins, Design 3D[in], Foto 3D[in] and Live 3D[in], slot neatly into Photoshop Extended CS3’s 3-D features. We’ll concentrate here on Design 3D[in], which offers a well-featured 3-D authoring environment with transformation and modelling functions, including tools for creating primitive objects.

The latest version of Maxon’s mid-range 3-D suite adds tools that will appeal to its users across design, VFX and animation markets. The software is based around a core application, which can be expanded by a series of add-on modules including Advanced Render 3, Dynamics, Hair, MOCCA 3.1, MoGraph, Net Render, Sketch & Toon, and Thinking Particles. You can also buy the money-saving XL and Studio Bundles, which include some, or all, of the modules.

Microspot 3D Toolbox is a bit of a curiosity: it's a truly modular 3-D application.

Director has been notable by its absence in the successive Master Collections, so it's refreshing to see this old stalwart of the multimedia-authoring brigade decked out in Adobe's new livery.

Now owned by Smith Micro, Poser Pro is built on the Poser 7 character-animation solution and comes with that version's Generation 2 family of fully rigged figures, SydneyG2 and SimonG2.

Expression Web 2 continues the design-led approach of Blend, offering a well-sized Design view for working with images and text

Microsoft's Blend is the heart of Expression Studio, the company's suite of tools that allow designers to create rich Internet applications and user interfaces with Microsoft.NET technologies