|
|
JUNE 10, 2003 Digital Element Verdant 1.0
I'd also like to see improvements in the way of camera controls. As I mentioned before, you can adjust the field of view and the rotation and position of the plain. When working with single trees, you can also rotate the trees themselves for overhead or underneath shots. But with groups of trees, the trunks, regardless of rotation, remain vertical, so you have to render individual trees over and over if you want to create and overhead or underneath shot of several trees. There are also no controls for focal length or depth of field. (You could use a filter like Andromeda's LensDoc to add lens distortion, if needed, but this feature really should be integrated into Verdant.) The plugin also lacks fog and volumetric effects, which I think are crucial in a plugin of this nature.[an error occurred while processing this directive]The bottom line Without a doubt, Verdant will be a useful plugin for some of your compositing projects. Could it be better? Definitely. If nothing else--even if at the expense of performance--I want to see higher-quality renders coming out of this plugin. What it can do now is good in some cases, but it's not as good as it could be. Not for the price. At $179 for the download version ($199 for the boxed version), I could buy E-on Software's Vue d'Esprit, a full-featured landscape, scenery and atmospheric effects application that offers some incredible rendering capabilities, not to mention animation. For now, my recommendation for Verdant is Neutral, though I'll be happy to bump this up once a future release addresses my issues (or once the price comes down dramatically.) In the meantime, I do recommend that you download the trial version of Verdant and give it a try. It may be just what you're looking for. (While you're there, check out Digital Element's Aurora, a plugin for creating atmospheric effects within Photoshop. Excellent piece of software.) Digital Element Verdant is available now for $179 to $199 for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and Windows running Adobe Photoshop 6.0 or higher. For more information, visit http://www.digi-element.com. Contact the author: Dave Nagel is the producer of Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; host of several World Wide User Groups, including Synthetik Studio Artist, Adobe Photoshop, Mac OS, Adobe InDesign, Adobe LiveMotion, Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; and executive producer of the Digital Media Net family of publications. You can reach him at dnagel@digitalmedianet.com. Prev 1 2 3 4 Related sites: • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Media Designer • Digital Producer • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
|