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Germany's favourite titling program has finally been
converted into English and Graeme Sandiford took the
opportunity to give it the once over.

After reviewing the excellent ClariSSA last issue, you can imagine how pleased we were to receive a copy of longtime German favourite and stablemate of ClariSSA - Monument Designer. Formally known as Monument Titler, this program has been Germany's most popular titling program for a few years and it has also enjoyed immense success as part of a powerful double-act with the Neptun series of Genlocks.

The program has finally been converted to English so we can see how good it really is. At over 170 Monument Designer is clearly aimed at the professional and high end of the "keen-amateur" markets. As well as being designed to work with the Neptun Genlock, ProDAD have made sure that Monument works effectively with ClariSSA. To that end Monument Designer, like most of ProDAD's current range of software products, has full support for the SSA (Super Smooth Animation) format.

strong but simple

Despite its high target-market, ProDAD has not lost sight of their goal of professional software being both powerful and, more importantly, usable. As a result, the program is not over-laden with unnecessary or inaccessible features. Instead, the program strikes a fine balance between possessing features that are both powerful and useful and keeping the interface simple enough so that you can concentrate on using the tools rather than finding them.

Like ClariSSA, Monument's interface is based on a window system, although some of them will lock out others if they are opened. The interface has an eye-pleasing MUI look to it and can be configured to your needs and machine's abilities.

This can be achieved from within the program itself or, as with ClariSSA, through the external SSA Pref tool.

As well as enabling you to set the screenmode for the program, it can also be used to access the program's virtual memory settings. Unlike most virtual memory programs, SSA virtual memory doesn't require an MMU and will quite happily, if somewhat slowly, work with an 020 processor. The program's virtual memory function enables you to edit title sequences that would otherwise be too large. However, thanks to the SSA animation format, the finished animations can be played back from disk as well.

quality

Although artistic flair and a fair amount of knowledge are crucial to producing effective and attractive titling sequences, the look of the finished production will depend mostly on the quality of the program's output. In order to achieve this quality, Monument Designer works in 32-bit, that's 24-bits and a 8-bit alpha channel. This means that if you have a whizzy 24-bit graphics card your titles can be displayed in all their true-colour glory. The program will also convert down these images so that they can be displayed on AGA and ECS Amiga's and the results, particularly on AGA machines, can be quite impressive. You also have the option of exporting the results as RGB images, ILBM or SSA animations.

Monument Designer's main interface looks and works more like a DTP package than a traditional titler. The main window provides you with an overview of your project and enables you to position and otherwise modify the elements of your project on an individual basis. When you are "laying-out" a project the default view is a preview which will stop things from

Text is usually the focal point of most titling projects and the program has plenty of text effects.

Thumbnails are provided so that you know what an image looks like before you apply it to
an object.

being slowed down by constant re-rendering. Unlike most other programs of its kind, Monument Designer is object-orientated so that just because you place one image in a particular position it doesn't have to remain there forever. You can move each element whether it is text, an image or an effect around the screen and even move them backward or forward as you would in a DTP package.

rendering

Once you have things arranged the way you want you can then render the sequence. This can take quite a long time as there are a lot of calculations that need to be made before it is played back. Fortunately the playback window has an option to speed this process up. You are given control over the animation's resolution, colour-mode and quality. Another feature that is found in this window that is also useful is the memory defragmentation button which will also help speed up the play back of your animation.

There are a variety of tools and object types to choose from and most are available as icons. When double-clicked on, each will bring up an appropriate modification requestor which provides several methods of adjustments.

The most important element in most title sequences is

the text and the program is capable of loading scalable Compugraphic fonts, so you can resize your text without loss of quality. For added control you can even adjust the horizontal and vertical size of your text separately as well as adjust the orientation of the characters, their outline, add a drop shadow or even create a perspective effect which makes them look 3-dimensional.

It is also possible to modify the appearance of the face of your text by adding a texture (an IFF image) or a gradient. To help you create the latter the program has a built-in gradient designer. You can use it to create two or three-colour gradients and adjust their angle by "hand".

The same options are available for graphics objects as well. However there is a third type of object called luminous objects. They are mainly for light effects such as glints and lens flares and their shapes can be based on the existing alpha channels.

By combining the wide range of tools and effects it's easy to create effective title sequences. Likewise animating your titles is also a breeze. Monument Designer has it all - a wide variety of powerful tools and a simple interface that should meet the needs of experts and yet remain accessible enough for beginners to use. If you are looking for a professional quality titling package then this is it. a

distributor

White Knight Technology

01920 822321

price

179

system requirements

A 68020 processor, hard disk 2Mb Chip RAM and 4Mb Fast RAM.

speed l l l l

Even with an '030, you'll find yourself waiting around for complicated sequences to render - however, it's worth the wait.

manual l l

While the contents are actually useful its poor structure means you have to read through the whole thing.

Accessibility l l l l

Once you stop thinking like a paint package-user and start thinking like a DTP-er, it's a piece of cake.

features l l l l l

The only thing that I can think of that's missing is support for anim brushes, but everything else is there.

value l l l l

Although it costs nearly 200 - it's a professional quality product.

"This is the Amiga's premier titling package"