Subject: REVIEW: MainActor 1.52
From: [email-masked] (Keith Christopher)
Date: 2 Jul 1994 02:16:08 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	MainActor 1.52

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
	FAX:		Not listed

	E-mail:		[email-masked]
			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:

	A TeX set, printed/bound handbook,
	the latest version of the program.
	A keyfile
	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 a packet consisting of

	The latest version of MainActor
	A key file.

	Additional updates cost the same as above. No free updates here.
	but do not advertise for any particular store!>>

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		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 2500/020 and on my 4000/040 !

		A faster CPU will mean increased performance, but it not
		necessary to run this SW.

	SOFTWARE
	
		Minimum OS 2.x or higher

		Flawless operation under Os 3.0 (even has OS 3.0 specific
		functionality. [see later in review section.])

COPY PROTECTION

	None. However a nasty and VERY bothersome requester will popup
during saving/loading of animations. This is very annoying. A .key file is
required for registration.

	The program installs on a hard drive buy simply un-archiving it on
the partition you wish.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Test Machine(s):
			Amiga 2500 68020/881 OS 2.05
			Amiga 4000/040 OS 3.0

	The amiga 2500 used C= 68020 daughter board. It has a 52MB hard drive
	and 8MB of FASTRAM and 1MB CHIPRAM
	The 4000/040 is a stock 040 4000.
		
REVIEW

	Even when searching through the archive sites on the internet, one
still becomes surprised when he or she stumbles upon a program that fills
ones needs completely; with a few extras! I was browsing through the Aminet
archive looking for a way to convert my Dpaint anim to an fli format. while
looking through the archive site I stumbled upon a program called MainActor.
It was defined to do exactly what I needed.  Sure I could convert pictures
all day long into another format, after all I did get a copy of ADPro when I
bought my 4000, however taking my animation and separating it into its
different frames and then getting them to my PC to put them into fli format
was to say the least, unthinkable! I could not even imagine the boredom and
time needed to sit through separating and saving 332 frames ! I needed an
animation conversion tool. Sure I could've used ARexx, (more on this later)
but I am a little bit of a net junkie, so I thought that before I put a lot
of work into an ARexx script I would take advantage of the resources
available on the internet.

	Always the skeptic I ftp'd the file and decided to see what it had to
offer (the readme sounded very nice.) 

	The archive is a smallish one, around 600K and compressed in lha
format.  It is obvious that the author took the time to make installation a
breeze, simply un-lha the file . The file creates a home directory along
with a drawer icon and places it in your current directory. Eager to get my
animation converted I opened the MainActor drawer and was greeted by some
VERY professional looking icons. I was beginning to think that I had ftp'd
and downloaded a expensive and very disabled piece of shareware. The layout
is well done, the window opens to accommodate the icons in the drawer. There
is a drawer for documentation (dvi, guide, text formats.,) a preferences
drawer, ARexx scripts drawer and an anim example drawer. There are two main
icons in the parent drawer that one is sure to notice, the MainActor icon
and the MainView icon, the icons are very similar but the programs do vastly
different things. The main actor icon launches the main program, while the
Mainview icon launches a "player like" utility to play animations in any of
the supported formats. Quickly double clicking on the MainActor icon I
started the program, an information requester pops up about the author and
his recommended fee.  The screen opens there are several windows the open
shortly thereafter.

Project Window

	This window is where you select which type of anim or pic to load and
what format to save to. The listview in the window will display each
individual frame or picture. This will also be followed by the timecode of
the frame.  Once a file is loaded the loader type cycle gadget becomes
ghosted.  This window will allow you to select a few frames or all of them
from an animation. So saying that I wanted to get 10-15 frames from the
middle of an FLI animation, I would simply load the anim and select the
frames I want. (This can be done by selecting a frame and hitting the "show"
button in the project control panel.) Once you know you start and end frame
you simply select the entire range, then select your output format type, and
from the project control panel select "save" and the frames will be stored in
the area you choose in the format you selected. To save even more time one
could select append and simply append the frames to an existing anim. The
project control panel is a small window that lies next to the project
window, this panel of buttons controls all the action in the project window.
The items in this window are: load, unload, play, show, append, and save.
All operations that take place in the project window are launched with a
click of a button in this window. The project window is the "meat and
potatoes" of this program. There can be more than one project window open at
a time, however one can only operate within 2 of these windows at any given
time. There will be a "source project", a "destination project" , and a
"Deactive project." These can be changed at any time by selecting the cycle
gadget at the top of the window. One can see how loading and manipulating
animations in MainActor can become quite intense, and varied.

For example:

	I open 3 project windows, I have an FLI in my source project window,
DL animation in my second or destination project, and a non looping anim in
my third project window or my Deactive window. (We of course assume that the
animations have the same depth and resolution.)  I select 4 frames from my
FLI and append them to my DL anim. I then click on my anim and change it to
source project, then insuring that my DL file was the destination I click on
the dl animation and my anim is now the destination and my DL file is the
source.  Selecting the last 10 frames from the DL will include 6 frames from
the DL and 4 frames from the FLI. I then select append and 'voila' the 10
additional frames are added to the anim. Selecting save, I save the anim in
the format of my choosing (detailed later in the review.)  Now I can play it
back.  Of course if you have different depth/resolution for each anim one
will need to extract the frames and convert them and then append them
together.  A lot of work but easily done via the ARexx port on the program.

Project View Settings

	This window sets the "environment" for the animation(s). In this
window one can select the screen type by clicking on the "Select Display"
button, then selecting from their favorite screen type. There are an X and Y
offset that allow one to set the offset of your viewing. This option is only
enabled if the center object is disabled and one is not in "window" mode.
There is a cycle gadget in the center bottom of the window which will switch
between displaying your anim on a screen or in a window! 

	Note: The window is an option only in OS3.0 or greater.

	This is a great feature, on my A4000 I run all the animations I load
in a window. At first I was VERY disappointed with the window output, after
reading the documentation I discovered that I had to set my amount of screen
colors available from the default of 4. (I set the to 256 always.) This is
done by selecting "system preferences" under the "windows" menu. Even on my
040 A4000 the animation still played MUCH slower than opening its own
screen, but being in a window is very nice to watch the output from the
development screen.  Making for easier edits. The repeats is a value telling
MainActor how many times to repeat the playing of the animation. Values from
1 to 9999 are accepted.

	Checking the frame info button causes MainActor to display
information about the current frame. There are a few items of interest here
but they are well covered in the documentation. Items such as what to do if
no information appears in the screen. Center, checking this option will
cause MainActor to center your animation in the display screen or window.
(opposite of X and Y offsets.)

	Checking the bblank will cause the borders surrounding the anim to be
set to black. (BorderBlank.)

Project Information Window

	This window contains information about your anim/picture. Clicking
the various gadgets will display information about the project, like colors,
number of frames, frame pixel size. . . The time profile and size profile
buttons open windows that have a graphical display that depicts the time
needed to decompress the frames of your anim and the sizes of the individual
frames in your anim.  The bitmap time shows the time required to decompress
your animation into bitmap format. Chunky time does the same function but
only works with chunky formatted anims. i.e. FLI.

Text Buffer window

	This window display messages that MainActor wants to "share" with you
about the operation you've selected. If your animation type was not one of
the types supported, the error message will be displayed here. As well as
success messages.  This window is controlled from the menu bar.

Menus (the list goes on. . .)

	The menu(s) contain all of the basic menu stuff, like "open a new
project", save, close. . . basically any item that can be clicked in the
screen below can be selected from the menu. There are, however, a few
exceptions that are menu specific.  The first is "text windows", this will
allow one the clear, print or save the messages in the text buffer window.
The second is the ARexx support.  This will allow one to start an ARexx
script from the menu and will install an ARexx script in the directory with
the others for easy usage. This can be a script you've written or one that
is sent as an update. Under the "misc menu" there is an option for SOUND
support !  This is done by selecting the "set sound" option and selecting
the module of your choice. (currently MA only supports .snd format.)  So add
a little spice to your animation, add some noise !

	The last is the windows menu, this contains 2 items not found in the
screen, system preferences, and MainActor prefs. These two windows allow one
to change the color depth for the screen.  (Very important for viewing 256
color anims in a window.)  Select the font type and select which module is
the default loader and saver module. While these windows are fairly self
explanatory, and the documentation fully covers them.

Modules (What anims/pic formats you can and can't load.)

	The following modules are available in MainActor.

Animations           Loaders		Savers
***********          *******            ******
AVI		        Y	          N
DL		        Y                 N		
FLI                     Y                 Y
FLC                     Y                 Y
Anim types:             Y                 Y
3, 5, 7_16,7_32,
8_16,8_32
Animbrush               Y                 N
AnimJ                   Y                 N
Picasso                 Y                 N
Real3D                  Y                 N
Universal types:        Y                 N
EGS,Merlin, PicassoII,
Retina

Picture

GIF                     Y                 N
IFF                     Y                 Y
PCX                     Y                 N
Universal types:        Y                 Y
EGS,Merlin, PicassoII,
Retina	
Workbench-Icon          Y                 Y

Did I say something about ARexx ?

	Why, yes I did! MainActor support 33 commands via ARexx and
interfaces very well. In testing, I wanted to convert an anim7 format to
mpeg. The anim I created was 332 frames and to convert it into an mpeg each
frame needed to be 24bit . This would mean converting these by hand after
separating them by hand via MainActor. Since I was going to create this mpeg
on my UNIX workstation at work, I also needed to upload the files. The ARexx
script was simple, call MainActor, load in the anim, select all, save the
output as iff pictures and then call ADPro(tm) and convert the iff files
into 24bit and then calling Terminus upload them to my workstation. Having
this save me hours of work!

	MainActor's ARexx portname : MAINACTOR

How does it stack up ?

	Not that there aren't any other utilities out in the wide world that
can do what MainActor can do, I have however, not run across another.
MainActor is alone in what it does. I would have to classify MainActor as
the ADPro(tm) of animations ! For anyone who wishes to convert his or her
animation to another format this is without a doubt the software of choice.
The documentation is well done, and comes in several flavors, the two I used
are the TeX printed manual and the amigaguide docs. They are well written
and very clear and concise. The icons are excellent and look professional.

(NOTE: the icons were created by: Norbert Bogenrieder)

The archive is approximately 800K lha compressed (the original version I
received on floppy, fit on one disk. I've received subsequent releases via
email.)  Using lha it decompresses into its own directory and after adding a
MainActor assign pointing to where MainActor resides the program is ready to
go. If it is registered the .key file needs to be placed in the T directory
on your workbench disk.

	 For those who wish to try the software before considering
purchasing it, will be pleased to know the unregistered version is not
"crippled" in any way.  There is however a VERY bothersome requester when
loading and saving animations, (approximately every 5 frames.) The software
is very well laid out and has an easy to use interface, I especially like the
ICONIFY option, the ability for software to iconify has long been one of my
favorite options that a programmer could put in his or her programs. This
one does so very nicely.  Another nice thing is MainActor is modular, all
the loaders and savers are modules, very similar to ADPro(tm) savers and
loaders. I reviewed this software since version 1.2x, and this is a product
that has gotten better with age ! Each release has needed enhancements and
new file formats!  Overall I rate this program as a must have if you do any
animation work. There are many more options I did not cover in this review
that await discovery, one of them being the ability to read a picture format
in and save it out to a workbench icon!  Very nice indeed.

DOCUMENTATION

	MainActor comes in two different versions, one of the differences
being one version has printed documentation and one does not.
	
	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:

	Amiga guide: Very well organized and detailed, well done!

	ASCII: The icon defaults to call more and is the ASCII version of the
		guide documentation.

	DVI:   Didn't look at it. (no need to really. I had the printed and
					guide 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.

	Dislikes are none, a wish list is more like what I have in mind
	        here:

A loader and saver for:

  Mpeg, Quicktime, AVI (a saver.)

       I would also like to see an option to make the animation one has just
saved into an executable file. i.e. an fli output would be a .exe on a pc.

       As well as the ability to restructure an animation to fit another's
resolution/depth when appending to different animations. Also removing the
loop at the end of an animation and appending the frames requested and then
putting the loop back.

	More graphic picture file formats. Mostly savers.

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 SW! 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

	None found.

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

       The final word is MainActor is a hard hitting performer. This program
performs as well as many of the commercial programs out there. It is programs
and efforts like this program that make the amiga the machine that it is.
Supporting this program will continue to make this program get better.

	It is indeed, in my opinion, money well spent.

	Thanks to Markus Moenig for the concept and release of this program,
keep up the good work!

	*****  (5 out of 5 stars!)

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1994 Keith Christopher.  All rights reserved.

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