What is Amorphium Pro?

The 3D composition and rendering program, including different modelling techniqies, e.g. primitive, metaball, polygon, transformation tools. Materials support is nice. DEMO VERSION - has some 10-seconds waiting before file operations and is a 24-hour trial. Works well with SheepShaver or with a real Power Mac with OS 9.

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Three-dimensional design and animation can be tricky business for even the most seasoned multimedia developer, and most current 3D tools are a little standoffish when it comes to welcoming newcomers. But don't despair — Electric Image’s Amorphium Pro could be the software you need to start working in the third dimension. Amorphium Pro is easy to learn (though it demands patience and practice to master) and has great advanced 3D effects — Web designers will appreciate its ability to export directly to Flash animation format (SWF).

Designed with the beginning artist in mind, Amorphium Pro will instantly make sense to anyone familiar with 2D programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash. Applying paint to a 3D object, for example, is easy — just pick a color and brush it directly onto your model. Those well acquainted with Flash’s animation timeline will discover that Amorphium has a very similar system of keyframes and timelines.

Despite its ease of use, Amorphium Pro doesn’t lack advanced 3D creation tools. In fact, we discovered quite a few features, such as wax modeling and special effects, that you won’t find in some of the more expensive and intimidating 3D programs. We were especially pleased with its organic modeling capabilities, which yielded results that require years of practice to achieve in other 3D programs. Try modeling a realistic tree in most 3D software, and you’ll probably end up more frustrated than comfortably shaded. But with Amorphium Pro’s Wax and BioSphere features, which allow you to mold and shape objects, you can build yourself a 3D forest in no time.

Amorphium Pro scores big with its scene animation tools. Situating and animating camera angles is as easy as moving files around on your desktop. You can also set advanced lighting schemes for your scene as you would in any high-end 3D software. Amorphium Pro’s environmental features, such as smoke and fog, add a sense of realism and require very little effort.

Despite this full feature set, those familiar with advanced 3D software, such as Lightwave or Maya, will find that a few key features are missing. Most noticeably absent is an inverse kinematics (IK) system (the skeleton-like feature commonly used for character animation). While you can workaround this omission, it’s much more difficult to animate your characters in Amorphium Pro than in most other 3D programs. Fortunately, Amorphium Pro supports imported 3D files from programs like Lightwave (LWO files only), 3D Studio Max, and WaveFront OBJ files, so you can import complex animations like IK character movements and integrate them into your models.

Our favorite feature in Amorphium Pro is the ability to render work directly to the vector-based Flash format. Although the original release of Amorphium Pro 1.0 has somewhat limited options for Flash exports, a free patch... includes additional shading options and numeric controls to adjust the size and color of your model outlines (a feature for giving animations that cool 3D-cartoon look). The only downside to Amorphium’s Flash rendering capabilities is the time it took to render Images after we applied transformation and paint effects.

Whether you’re planning to use Amorphium Pro for traditional 3D modeling and animation or for sprucing up your Web site with some cool 3D Flash effects, it’s a rock-solid addition to your multimedia tool chest. And most important of all — especially if you’re new to 3D design — you’re going to have a lot of fun with this program.

Baggatta, Patrick. (June 2001). Amorphium Pro. MacAddict. (pg. 52).

Download Amorphium Pro for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

System Requirements

From Mac OS 8.6 up to Mac OS 9.2

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver