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1994-02-10
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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