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Summitt New MediaSoftware ReviewsLiveArt™ 98 Spooky Halloween Collection |
ViewPoint DataLabs
1998
I received an email the other day telling me that there was some free holiday art available for download at the ViewPoint DataLabs' website. I had dealings with the people at ViewPoint DataLabs back when Mary and I were writing the Creating Cool 3D Websites with VRML book. They provided a large number of 3D VRML images for inclusion on the book's CD-ROM. I was very happy with the quality of the images they provided for the book so I was naturally interested in what I would find at the website.
What I found was ViewPoint DataLabs' new product LiveArt™ 98 and the free demo Spooky Halloween Collection. I don't know how long this free download is going to be available so before you quit reading this (if Halloween isn't over yet), go ahead and click on this hyperlink for ViewPoint DataLabs and download the collection. You won't regret it.
Now, if the free demo download has already been taken down, you can still read about the LiveArt™ 98 product. You can purchase the product from the site for only $49.00.
You'll need the following in regard to system requirements:
- Windows® 95, Windows NT® or above
- Pentium 166 Processor (P133 minimum)
- IBM PC or 100% Compatible
- CD-ROM Drive required
- 48 MB Ram (32 MB min)
- 24 MB minimum free hard drive space (minimum)
- 16-bit SVGA card (8-bit min)
As with several other of the newer programs, these requirements eliminated several of my machines from even being considered as host for this package. I installed it on one of my machines that met the minimums and was greeted by one of the easiest applications for 3D art I've used.
There's a five minute tutorial right off the start after installation and you can start the tutorial from the Start menu also. You can rotate, change the color, change the lighting, and a wide variety of different options. You can then export the product of your work to TIFF, JPEG, or PNG formats. You can even insert your objects into a Word, PowerPoint, or Excel document by using the insert toolbar.
A couple of warnings . . . I had quite a bit of trouble getting the full-blown version of the program installed with the Spooky Halloween Collection. The free download demo version worked fine with the Halloween artwork. When I added the full-blown version of the program, somehow I lost elements of the holiday collection. I had to install, uninstall, and reinstall three or four times before I finally got everything to work correctly. While the small user manual is informative, it didn't provide any help with the installation problem. Another disappointment was that I was unable to find a method of porting the 3D animations over to FrontPage 98. I was able to save individual graphics in JPEG format and use them on web pages but not the animations.
Still, this is one fine package and the free download will give you something to use for several years come Halloween. I recommend the download and the package.