"There has to be something better than this."

Designers and digital artists are no doubt quite familiar with this phrase. Unless they're working in Photoshop, there's always the hope that the missing feature, the better results, the greater stability can be found in a competing product. In most cases, whether through shareware add-ons or that bizarre program hidden in the back of Publisher's Toolbox, there usually is.

QuickTime VR development, however, is not such a case. A great technology, QuickTime VR saw few development tools of note outside of Apple's forgotten (yet still overpriced) QuickTime VR Authoring Studio. Luckily, one of these tools is VR Toolbox, Inc.'s VR Worx, and The VR Worx is "...something better than this."

The VR Worx comprises three QuickTime VR technology applications; VR PanoWorx (panoramic movies), VR Object Worx (VR object movies), and VR SceneWorks (multi-node scenes). Each component can be purchased individually, which may be a good idea depending upon your needs. For creative professionals seeking a complete set of QuickTime VR tools, however, The VR Worx is the way to go.

Panorama module

Of all the panorama creation software I've used on the PC and the Macintosh, The VR Worx yielded the best results, hands down. The resulting movies were smooth and clean, although a lot of tweaking to the default settings was required. In fact, simply setting up the panorama was much more unwieldy than need be. For instance, why should users have to specify the image size and frame count before importing the pictures? Most other programs I've used automatically figure this out by the number of and the size of the images I import.

Once everything's set up, however, The VR Worx does a very good job stitching your images together. Despite my extremely amateurish images, I found The VR Worx's stitching guesses to be off-base in only a couple areas. Adjusting these areas was then just a matter of selecting the out of place image and using the arrow keys to slide it into a better position (all images to the right are also moved). A transparency feature can be selected to help get optimal alignment.

Beyond the awkward set-up and importing is where The VR Worx panorama component really shines. Hot spots are easily generated, and a robust set of editing tools can be used to clean up any bad areas. Most other programs I tried offered no such tools, so any image editing had to be done outside the program after the movie had been generated. The ability to stamp out overlapping areas and smooth out transition blending is a great bonus that Photoshop users in particular will love.

Web designers, on the other hand, will love the multitude of options for exporting the video. Any compression method currently on the system, including Sorenson, Cinepak, and even my Eskape TV options, can be utilized. The VR Worx also includes scripts optimized for output to the web and even e-mail.

Object module

I'll admit to being pleasantly surprised by this portion of The VR Worx, but with a disclaimer. Building a VR object requires many pictures (into the hundreds, depending upon the complexity and detail), certainly more than this amateur was willing to deal with. Therefore, I stuck with the images provided in the tutorial. The process of getting these images into the object module was still unnecessarily complicated, but working with them was very simple. I especially liked the ability to adjust the center point of the image, changing the axis of rotation for a fairly cool effect. Hot spots were as easy to add as in the panorama module, and the compression options remained present.

Another feature here I neglected to mention in the panorama module is the ability to pull in images from multiple sources. Although I used scanned photos, images can be grabbed directly from any TWAIN source, including digital cameras. The object module specifically offers support for object rigs as well.

Various effects can be easily applied to the object, including the ability to crop and matte ("blue screen"). A handy de-wobble feature is also available, allowing you to correct wobbling which can occur if the camera was not perfectly centered to the turntable.

Scene module

The final component of The VR Worx is the scene module, which allows you to connect QuickTime elements for easy navigation. For instance, different rooms of an art gallery can be connected, allowing the user to jump from room to room by simply clicking on a hot spot. As with the other modules, in order to effectively use the scene module, you must preset the size of the project map and the viewing size for the movie.

Awkward beginnings to powerful endings is pretty much the routine here, though, and the scene module is no exception. Connecting the QuickTime VR movies is as simple as drawing a schematic of the rooms and then defining hot spots in the individual movies. Hot spots already defined in the movies can be utilized or altered, even if the movies weren't created in The VR Worx.

The VR Worx

Once you get into the VR Worx and become comfortable with its abilities and procedures, it can become a very powerful and useful tool for web and multimedia designers. The troubles come in first acquainting yourself with the program and then in setting up the project. The manual does a good job of explaining the high-end features, but glosses over the fundamentals that must be addressed before accessing the program's full power.

Although going back to earlier points in the project is as simple as clicking on a tab, undoing a simple selection is almost impossible; the Undo feature was greyed out on almost every task I needed to try again. Also, I occasionally received error messages telling me I couldn't complete a certain task, but was able to do so after moving back a step then forward again without making changes.

On the other hand, the VR Worx was very stable in both the Classic OS and in OS X. There were occasional graphics anomalies in Classic, such as panorama images not redrawing when scrolling through the project, but these weren't present in OS X.

Each module of The VR Worx can be open simultaneously, allowing for quick editing and drag-and-drop between them. For instance, object movies can be placed within a panoramic background for greater effect in stores, galleries and the like. Images and projects can be imported and exported at up to 10,000 x 3,000 pixels, and the program is also fully compatible with AppleScript.

Although it does have an extensive feature set and produces tremendous results, The VR Worx still has room to grow in its interface and ease of use. Unfortunately, VR Toolbox missed their major opportunity when creating the Mac OS X version. Rather than take full advantage of the operating system's capabilities, they simply created a carbonized application with the exact feature set of the Classic version. With some minor tweaks to the interface and a few adjustments to the set-up process, The VR Worx could quickly become the Photoshop of QuickTime VR authoring.

In the meantime, if you're still telling yourself, "There has to be something better than this," I'll have to disagree...at least until we see The VR Worx 3.0.

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