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Review: Wild FX Pro 3Reviewed By: Kirk Hiner Review Date: September 21, 2003
I think I was watching the movie Disturbing Behavior a few years back at the theater when a thought occurred to me: Quite often, the opening credits of a movie are now more interesting than the movie itself. Remember back when opening credits just popped up over black backgrounds or perhaps over the opening scenes of the movie? Does anyone even do that anymore? Again, computers have made their mark on Hollywood. With them, opening credits are no longer used simply to introduce the actors, but also to set the entire mood of the movie to come. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon see Oscars handed out for Best Opening Credit Animation in A Feature Film. Just as the computer has made all of this easier on Hollywood, they've made it easier on the hobbyist as well. Yes, your iMac, Shuttle Pro and iMovie have turned you into your own local David Nutter (I'll leave it to you to decide if that's good or bad), but if Hollywood doesn't have to rely on good stories and decent acting to create their movies, why should you? Enter Wild FX Pro. This handy little program makes Text animation quite simple and allows for export to many different format. It doesn't provide everything the budding young film maker could want, but it offers a lot more than is currently available at this price level. I should first point out that Wild FX Pro isn't just for video. With the ability to export .swf files for Flash, it has many web uses as well. In fact, if you only need the Flash output, you can pick up the standard version of Wild FX for $50 cheaper than Wild FX Pro. The extra cash here gives you the option of outputting to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4. Upon launching Wild FX Pro, you're presented with a rather large options window. Don't panic; it's not too difficult to figure out what's what after a few uses. At it's most basic, simply type in the text you want to use, choose from one of the 419 (!) included effects (currently, 200 more are available for an additional $25.00), and export it. Of course, if you want to produce some really good results, you'll need to get your hands a little dirtier. 
First, the 419 presets. These are split into only three groups—custom, todynamic and standard—so you'd better set aside quite a bit of time up front familiarize yourself with what each does. Categorizing them differently would've proven difficult and futile since each user will see these effects different ways. Thankfully, Wild FX did include the ability for the user to create his own folders and rearrange the filters according to his needs. Aside from the effects list, the largest field in the window belongs to the text entry field. Unfortunately, you cannot do any formatting of the type in this field; no typeface, alignment or type size changes. So, in order to see what your type will look like, you'll have to check the preview window. I understand why this is necessary for the animation, but I would like to get a better feel for how my type will look as I'm typing it. If the selected filter can be customized, the Main tab in the options menu will adjust itself accordingly. The Custom tab will also offer more options, but bear in mind that the degree of control in both areas is still quite limited: speed, color and such. Items such as typeface and type size can be adjusted on every effect...or at least on those I tested. Unfortunately, though, you can't mix typefaces or colors in the animations (although some effects do automatically alter the colors). The Main tab is also where most of the grunt work is done. Delays, alignment, dimensions and frames per second are all controlled here, although some can also be altered in other tabs, depending upon your output method. Most on the font control happens here as well, including the ability to add a stroke to your type. If an option is not available with the selected effect or with a previously selected formatting choice, it will be grayed out. The next two tabs are Video and SWF, both of which provide the necessary choices for exporting to either a video or Flash file. With Video, for example, you can select to export to AVI, DV Stream, FLC, image sequence, MPEG-4, or QuickTime Movie. Clicking the Options button will then pull up additional options conducive to your selection. The Video tab also gives you the ability to insert frames at the start or end of the clip, display the title-safe area borders, select either NTSC or PAL framerate settings, create a transparent background (very helpful for iMovie), and more. Likewise, the SWF tab offers Flash specific features such as the ability to create links, loop the movie, automatically load pages at the end of the clip, and control the method for starting playback. 
The Custom tab simply allows you set the adjustable elements of effects that support customization (parameters and colors). Once these have been adjusted, you can save your changes as a new effect for easy retrieval later. And finally, the HTML tab provides additional control over how your file will be handled. For instance, you can set this to automatically have your SWF appear in a pop-up window and control what browser elements appear in that window. You can even tell the HTML to not allow the page to be cached. This is another area in which you can adjust the width and height of the animation, but I still found this frustrating to control. Again, I'd prefer to have a WYSIWYG typing area, complete with a ruler, so I would know exactly what size to make the dimensions. As it stands right now, I had to adjust the dimensions, check the preview, adjust them again, check the preview, etc. The preview of your animation appears in a separate window you can float around the screen. This window automatically adjusts itself to your selected dimensions, but doesn't adjust the elements in your animation. For example, if you used a 12 point font at 320x240, then switched the dimensions to 640x480, your font would still be 12 point. Most often, the preview will automatically reset itself and start back up after you make a change. If there is rhyme or reason to which changes cause this to happen, I wasn't able to discover it. That's not a big deal, though, as you can manually preview your animation in either video or SWF format by clicking the appropriate button in the menu bar. Likewise, the auto preview can be turned off or switched between formats by clicking a button in the menu bar. You can't, however, have both video and Flash previews on simultaneously. Also, when I would adjust certain elements such as type size, these elements wouldn't always update properly in the preview window. For example, the type wouldn't center itself after making the change. On my 867MHz G4, exporting both video and Flash files moved along at a decent clip. If you'll be working with long or complex animations, though, you won't want to use a machine much lower than this. Bringing the files into the appropriate editors was also quite simple. With Flash, you simply open the .swf file if you want to use it as an element in a larger animation. In iMovie, simply place the .dv file in the media folder of your project and iMovie will recognize it upon launch. Here, though, it would be nice if there was a way to chain multiple animations together. As it stands, each individual .dv file has to be brought into iMovie and placed separately. Wildform offers no printed or PDF manual with Wild FX Pro, but they do have some decent tutorials available on their website. Most of them, however, are Flash specific. In its current incarnation, Wild FX Pro has some growing up to do. Yes, it makes text animation easy, but perhaps too easy at the expense of some other important features. More control over the type and the ability to link animations together would help push this program over the top. I'd also like to see better and clearer communication between the various options and the preview window which don't always seem to gel. Still, there's plenty here to like right now. With 419 filters, you're bound to find something worthwhile without much tweaking, although it may take you quite some time to find it. Also, you simply won't be able to produce dynamic type animation of this quality without Wild FX Pro...certainly not at this price level, anyway. Video hobbyists will be able to put Wild FX Pro to good use many times, but prosumers—or those who want to get really creative—may quickly find themselves checking Wildform's website for news of Wild FX Pro 4.
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