Applelinks.com: Review: FILTERiT

Nakae Software Development Corp.
(distributed by) CValley, Inc.

949-727-9163
$129

This collection of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator is sure to increase your playtime. This is not only because FILTERiT provides an extensive collection (82) of new ways to alter, distort, and/or tweak your work, it also can be captivating to see what the next distortion may provide, and lastly, because of a lack of good documentation, you will be spending some extra time trying to figure out how to make all the features work.

FILTERiT works with Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and 9, and requires System 7.5.3 + and a Power PC processor. The 24 plug-ins are simply carried in their folder to Illustrator's "Plug-ins" folder. When you restart Illustrator, the FILTERiT filters are ready to go.

FILTERiT shows up in two areas of Adobe Illustrator: in the Tool Palette, a collection of six new icons (see Fig. 1) providing nine new tools, and in the Windows menu, a new FILTERiT submenu is now available (see Fig. 3).

The Warp Tool provides 22 different shapes that can be used to distort objects and text. (To create any effect on text, one must first select the text, and then select "Create Outlines" from the Type menu.) (Text that has been turned into outlines cannot be edited after that point.) The Wave Tool provides 4 more tools that are similar to the Warp Tool, plus a "wrap" tool that will wrap the object or text around an invisible cylinder. If you look at the sideways hourglass shown in the Warp Tool selection icon as an example shape, you can increase the amplitude of the selected distortion by moving the mouse up and down, and the location of the distortion by moving the mouse left to right. What this means is that of the 26 tools, some of them seemed to overlap to some extent for any given effect. In truth, they didn't overlap, but some of the effects can end up with similar results.

The Lens Tool provides 4 variations: Fish-eye, Magnify, Twirl, and Tone. These can take objects or text and distort them as if they were being altered by the respective lenses. The Craft and Broom Tools which seem to have the same type of tools (Free Distortion, Dynamic Distortion, Pinch Distortion and Twirl Distortion as opposed to Free Sweep, Dynamic Sweep, Pinch Sweep, and Twirl Sweep) but are different in that the former actually bends/distorts the objects while the later moves the pieces (components) of a bunch of objects. The final result is the same concept, but radically different results. For example, if you construct a grid of lines, the Craft Tool will bend the lines to the resulting shape, while the Broom tool will move the lines to new locations trying to create the desired shape. Thus, the Broom Tool is best to be used on lots of little objects while the Craft Tool is best used on anything that is big enough to distort. The Roughening Tool takes straight or smooth lines and makes them look like what cartoon characters look like when someone is in the bathtub, and someone else throws an electric fan in the water.

The Fade Tool allows you to drag an object or text across the screen to create a preset number of repetitions of the object until it fades in or out, or from one color to another. The AlignPoints tool provides ways to align objects vertically and horizontally, but I found that it also changed the shape of objects simultaneously.

The MetaBrush Tool (see Fig 2) is an experience by itself and is as complex as it is powerful. You can (for example) within Illustrator create a leaf and then make two copies of the leaf and save one leaf in green, another in yellow and a third in Autumn red. Then, after making all three active and selecting the MetaBrush Tool, you can drag the mouse across the screen creating a beautiful random pattern of leaves of various sizes, orientations, and colors across the page. The possibilities are as extensive as the range of variations available to the user.

In addition to the tools just mentioned, there is a whole new list of eleven new "Live" Palette windows. These options are shown in the "Live" Windows Palette view (see Fig. 3).

The Live Pallets provide the same kind of Pallets one sees in all Adobe products.

One sample would be FILTERiT's Live Shadow (seen in Fig. 4) which includes a sample of what Live Shadow did with a simple rectangle. When using the Live palettes, you don't need to create outlines and you can edit text after alteration.

The term "Live" Yada Yada in each title is that if you have the "Live update" checkbox selected, as you tweak the various features in each Palette, the selected object changes as you tweak. Otherwise, you need to click the "Apply" button to see the effects.

Since you cannot apply two "Live" effects to any object, you need to "Release" any effects from one "Live" Palette before going to the next. The "Expand" button sets any resultant object from what you've created as a separate object on the page. That is, if you select an effect that creates a series of objects from an original, all the subsequent objects are aliases of the original. By clicking on the "Expand" button, the aliases cease being aliases.

You cannot perform more than one "Live" effect to an object at a time. If you cannot remember which "Live" Palette you used, you can select the object in question, then select "Show The Palettes" from the FILTERiT subMenu. This will bring up whatever palette was used to create that effect. Interestingly, if you try to apply a second effect to an object, you receive a warning that you must remove the effect before trying to apply another. This is only half-true as you can perform multiple actions upon an object if you click on the "Expand" button before going to any subsequent effects. You can undo FILTERiT actions up to the same number of undos that you have Illustrator set for. (Using the "Show The Palettes" will also open any palettes you have windowshaded.)

FILTERiT does have a Help palette that is OK, but no manual is provided. There are also several tutorial files provided on the CD that are helpful. There are a surprising number of typos in the Help palette, but at a minimum, they don't affect the information there and at a maximum they do provide a bit of amusement. Due to the limited amount of help provided with FILTERiT, you will have a longer learning curve than should otherwise be necessary. So, set aside some extra time for figuring out why you want to use one tool instead of another even though it seems as if they perform the same task.

To show the range of effects that can be achieved with FILTERiT would fill this review up with more pictures than text, so if you are really curious as to what it can do, I encourage you to visit their web site and see for yourself. FILTERiT is a fine collection of plug-ins increases the ways that you can alter text and/or objects in Illustrator. I think the cost is somewhat high for what you get so the value is not as good as it could be. However, if you need these effects, you won't be disappointed.

One extra comment. There have been many articles talking about cultural differences where Americans in other countries perform some action that in the US is common, but in the foreign country is a faux pas of some level. With FILTERiT, we can see this in reverse. FILTERiT is made in Japan, and Nakae Software would do well to hire a US marketing manager to clean up Nakae's advertising copy and tutorial files. There is a tone to these files that comes across to me as antagonistic. They try to prove the value of FILTERiT by attacking their competitor. The result is ad copy that reads very uncomfortably and is awkward in tone. I shall assume that this is a cultural difference and nothing more. Unfortunately, they may lose a sale here or there because of the poor quality and tone of their advertisements. This is a pity as FILTERiT is a good product that is hindered more by lack of a good manual and its somewhat high price. It doesn't need bad marketing as well.