Review: Swift 3D v3

Reviewed By: Kirk Hiner

Review Date: September 30, 2003 (originally posted November 12, 2002)

Genre: 3D vector graphics tool

Format: CD

Developer: Electric Rain

Minimum Requirements: 200MHz PowerPC, Mac OS 8.1 or Mac OS X, 96MB RAM, 1024x768 monitor resolution at thousands of colors, 20MB hard disk space, CD ROM

Retail Price: $169.00 (upgrades from v2 - $89.00

Availability: Out now

There are many hidden costs to computing. I don't need to name them, of course, as anyone reading this obviously has a computer and therefore knows what they are. Seems that new computer owners--or even those just upgrading--can't leave the store without a bag full of products they hadn't planned to purchase with their system.

Now, it's gotten to the point where even software purchases incur hidden costs. Can't upgrade Photoshop without upgrading the plug-ins. Can't upgrade Quark without upgrading the extensions. Can't update Flash without updating it's companion software.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Over the past couple years, I've both purchased and received for review numerous enhancement programs for Flash. Early on, pretty much all of them were useful. Flash was in its infancy, and it needed some help. With Flash MX 2004, however, the program is more than ready to stand on its own. Flash sites and animations are starting to take over the web (although, 90% of the time, the results aren't pretty, my friends). Even music videos are being created in Flash, as illustrated by Muckafurgason, Tenacious D (no direct link here, I'm afraid, as I don't want to make it easy for the "chirrens" to find), and even video pioneers Duran Duran.

What's left to conquer in Flash? Saying "3D" would be a nice lead into this review of Swift 3D v3, but it's not really accurate since Swift 3D v2 pretty much already conquered it. So, what does Electric Rain do to improve upon their pretty much perfect program? Expand the feature set, of course. Trouble is, this isn't always a good thing.

Swift 3D v3's spec sheet looks amazing. Along with the great tools available in v2 (see the Applelinks review for details), Swift 3D now supports:

• Transparency - Renders individual objects with opacity settings respected by Flash
• Reflectivity - Supports reflective materials to create realistic vector and raster effects
• Advanced Specularity - Gradated highlights add depth to low-bandwidth output styles
• Multiple Shadows - Overlapping shadows from any light source increase visual accuracy

Not sure what all that means or how to use it? Don't worry, neither did I when I first read the press release. But then I read the manual (not only does Swift 3D come with a thorough, printed manual, but it's actually entertaining to read) and ran through the tutorial, and then it became clear to me. What we have here is no longer just a 3D vector tool, but a 3D animation tool that now extends far beyond Flash. Not to worry, though. Flash support is still at the program's core, and has been enhanced with this version and Flash MX. Swift 3D's SmartLayer technology allows for files to be imported directly to Flash MX libraries with various aspects split it into individual layers. This makes it much easier to incorporate your 3D elements into more complex Flash animations. The integration between the two programs is nearly seamless.

Now, that there would've been enough for me. It wasn't enough for Electric Rain, however, as they also incorporated the EMO Ray Tracing Rendering Engine for compatibility with bitmaps. Translation? Well, at its most basic, textures. Your 3D animations can now contain full textures for improved realism.

Provided, of course, you want realism. See, the best thing about vector graphics is that they look like vector graphics. There's a charm to the simplicity (a simplicity conducive to faster loading and rendering speeds). There's also a certain degree of coolness; they're fun to look at. It seems now that everyone is trying to blur the lines between vector and bitmap images. Photoshop has vector tools, Flash has bitmap tools, Dell's developing an MP3 player...it just makes no sense to me.

Of course, I'm not about to lower this program's rating because of my personal preferences. I am, however, going to lower it for a couple other reasons. First, the interface has become somewhat jumbled with all the new tools that have been added. See that 1024x768 monitor resolution requirement above? You need nearly all that space just see the tools! Even worse, they're not well implemented. The different palates can't be docked or snapped into place, and most of them contain plenty of wasted area. But perhaps that's inherent in OS X's GUI. The OS 9 version is not without its faults, either. The slight shading applied to the active tool is almost indistinguishable from the others, making it difficult to tell what's selected. This led to more "undos" than I would have liked.

Second, the program is extremely sluggish on older systems. Swift 3D v2 performed wonderfully on our old 400MHz G4. This version, however, is very slow, and not just when rendering the more complex animations; it's slow pretty much across the board. It's as if it's outgrowing its old clothing too quickly, thereby constricting its movements.

With this latest update of v3, however, comes OS X compatibility. Considering that Flash MX was built for OS X right out of the box, Swift 3D's OS X compatibility is long overdue. Now that it's here, though, all is forgiven. Sure, it brings along some of OS X's problems, such as the chunky menus I mentioned earlier, but it's worth it to not have to boot into OS 9 just for the 3D portion of a Flash project.

How does it perform in OS X? Well, this is a bit tricky. Swift 3D v3 still runs slowly on our old 400MHz G4, but so does OS X itself. On systems that are actually built to handle OS X and its programs, v3 zips along at a decent clip. Menus and such now pop right open, and the program renders animations at enviable speeds. Quite simply, using Swift 3D v3 in OS X is a much more enjoyable experience than it has been in OS 9. Once again, you'll find yourself seeking ways to use it.

"What's that, dear client? You want a spinning maple leaf on your site? You know, we can make that maple leaf 3D for you, and for only [insert marked up dollar amount here] more!"

And so, we come to the question; is Swift 3D v3 worth the upgrade now? If you've already purchased the OS 9 version of Swift 3D v3, the upgrade to the OS X version is free. Absolutely it's worth it. For those still in OS 9 running Swift 3D v2, just take a look at the feature set and see if it's worth suffering the speed hit. The only real deterrent from upgrading to or purchasing Swift 3D v3 outright is the sluggishness of the program on older systems. Electric Rain suggests at least a 200MHz PowerPC, but, in our experience, the program doesn't actually get comfortable until around 500MHz, with optimum performance beginning at 867MHz.

I've said this before, and it still stands today: In my opinion, Swift 3D is the most useful Flash companion currently available. If Electric Rain had been content with that, I'd be fine. But they're understandably looking beyond Flash, and they're implementing many suggestions from their users. That's great, provided the program's performance can grow as quickly as its feature set, which provides for some amazing 3D vector animations. Want proof, check out Electric Rain's designer showcase. If you're impressed with what you see there, you'll be even more impressed with the ease with which Swift 3D allows you to create comparable images.

Sometimes, after all, the hidden costs of computing are worth the expense.

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