Maya 4.5 for OS X
Contents
1. to a Mac OS X World BY DAVID LEISHMAN Almost two years to the day after Apple released the beta of its Unix based operating system Emagic now owned by Apple introduced Logic Platinum 5 3 for Mac OS X the first profes sional digital audio production application to work in the new OS Of Logic s chief competi tors Digidesign s Pro Tools MOTU s Digital Performer and Steinberg s Cubase only Cubase was OS X native at press time The other two products should be OS X native by the fourth quarter of 2002 The OS X native Logic avail able as an update on Emagic s Web site is great news for the Mac and gives Logic users tem porary bragging rights but it s still gearing up for prime time Emagic s subsequent release of an OS 9 version ensures that longtime Mac users and those switching from Windows will have a rich full featured pro duction environment to work with as they migrate to OS X Although Emagic hasn t made any announcements regarding further OS 9 development it seems inevitable that the com pany will concentrate on mov ing to the new platform And you can move files easily between the two versions which are similar except for some OS X specific issues More Power New Gear Logic Platinum 5 3 the fifth update to a massive 5 0 upgrade released in February 2002 adds minor tweaks and bug fixes to a host of new features A key to its power is the addition of AltiVe2. for the verdict on its OS X native version before you decide to switch to Logic RATING 666 PROS Approachable but profes sional level program stable great included plug ins CONS Copy protection dongle is a liability no OS X specific documenta tion no OS X support for system tech nologies and third party formats PRICE 949 upgrade from version 4 or 5 149 upgrade from version 1 2 or 3 399 OS COMPATIBILITY Mac OS 9 Mac OS X COMPANY Emagic 530 477 1051 www emagicusa com 41 6 1 megapixel SLR GOOD 44 Electronic encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Ultimate Reference Suite 45 Compact DV camera Panasonic PV VM202 45 Reviews in Brief A New Kind of Science Explorer Consistency 1 0 Zip 750MB FireWire External FLAWED 36 This Month in Digital Cameras Canon PowerShot G3 Fuji FinePix F401 Kodak EasyShare LS443 Minolta Dimage 7Hi Nikon Coolpix 4300 Nikon Coolpix 5700 Sony Cyber shot DSC F717 UNACCEPTABLE MAYA COMPLETE 4 5 3 D System s Second Release for Mac Gets Real Offers Subdivision Surface Modeling BY SEAN WAGSTAFF The combination of tightly inte grated and completely scriptable modeling character animation physics based dynamic and par ticle simulation and remarkably flexible rendering in Alias Wave front s Maya is unmatched by most other 3 D effects packages including NewTek s LightWave 3D and Electric Image s Uni verse So when Alias Wa
3. ing schemes for tables and fig ures as many do you ll have to number the tables manually Still EndNote s ability to insert and keep track of figures is sure to be a big time saver Easy Formatting Academic writers face enough of a challenge in making sure their information is valid they don t want to worry about proper for matting as well EndNote 6 helps here by providing Word compatible templates for 145 publications from the Journal of the American Chemical Society to the Journal of Virology You can fill in the template manually or you can use EndNote s Manu script wizard which asks you to supply the basic information most publishers require such as a title authors and keywords EndNote creates a formatted document from your data com plete with margins headings and markers for all the required sections Special placeholders tell EndNote where to place the bibliography and figure list in the final manuscript The pro gram even chooses a biblio graphic style that matches the publication you ve selected In our tests EndNote did an excel lent job of selecting styles and putting all the elements in their proper place If the journal you need isn t on EndNote s list you can try to modify an existing template by opening it in Word How ever neither EndNote s printed manual nor its online help offers any guidance on how to accomplish this Although we managed to devise a rough tem pl
4. ResearchSoft 800 722 1227 www endnote com www macworld com M AUDIO SONICA Expand Your Mac s Sound Horizons BY GIL KAUPP Looking to get high quality stereo sound from your Mac If you don t have access to a sur round sound system but still want to increase your Mac s sound fidelity by hooking it up to your receiver M Audio s cool blue Sonica will let you do just that Featuring a minijack stereo analog output and a 24 bit 96kHz digital optical SPDIF output the portable Sonica plugs into your Mac s USB port and uses licensed TruSurround XT software from SRS Labs to simulate multichannel surround sound via just two speakers The Hookup Getting started with the Sonica is easy and the process is well described in the manual you just install the driver attach a USB NIKON D100 Digital SLR Adds Strong Choice to Semipro Camera Market BY RICK LEPAGE In the low end of the digital single lens reflex SLR camera market one company s absence has been conspicuous Nikon But now two years after the release of Canon s highly suc cessful 3 1 megapixel EOS D30 and months after Canon s 6 3 megapixel follow up the EOS D60 6666 Reviews August 2002 Nikon has entered the fray with its 1 999 D100 an impressive 6 1 megapixel cam era that aggressively goes after the market Canon is targeting Feels Like Film The primary appeal of SLR dig ital cameras is that they look feel a
5. a minor annoyance More problematic is the unavailability of a vast library of plug ins for Mac users including Alias Wavefront s Real Time Author and Right Hemisphere s Deep Paint as well as dozens written by small independent developers Command Performance Of all the usability enhance ments in Maya 4 5 the most significant are its gains in per formance Although Maya now supports dual processors for ren dering and other computation intensive functions users will notice mainly that the program is simply faster and more fluid than it was even on single processor Macs Actions such as painting 3 D textures onto surfaces with Maya s delightful Paint Effects brushes are now fast and fluid We enjoyed running Maya on an 800MHz Titanium PowerBook G4 whose ATT Radeon Mobility 7500 chip set was able to keep up with Maya Part of the reason for the change in speed and flow is the fact that we were running OS X 10 2 the other part is Maya s greatly reduced dependence on specialized graphics cards with hardware overlays To give credit where it s due we should say that we tested version 4 5 with the newest OpenGL cards includ ing ATT s Radeon 8500 and the Nvidia based GeForce4 Tita nium from Apple on a dual 800MHz Power Mac G4 Both cards offered big performance gains compared with older cards and finally laid to rest our criti cism about OpenGL on the Mac We highly recommend adding a top end Open
6. could see a difference between each level from 0 through 10 and as we cycled through the levels the grays remained dead on neutral Before we encountered the Artisan the only monitors that Sleek and Simple To calibrate the monitor just choose a target color space click on the Calibrate button and follow directions to attach the sensor to the screen bezel But what makes the Artisan system much more than just another monitor is the Artisan sensor and calibration software Marry It to a Sensor The Artisan sensor is a very sen sitive colorimeter whose filters are matched to the phosphors used in the GDM C520K mon itor Therefore it provides very accurate data to base the mon itor profile on it won t work particularly well on monitors with different phosphor sets but on the GDM C520K it s more accurate than any general purpose instrument The Arti san sensor also avoids the major weakness of most affordable third party monitor calibrators their inability to accurately mea sure black The Artisan software commu nicates directly with both the sensor and the monitor through USB connections The software uses the feedback from the sen sor to adjust the monitor s RGB had passed this extreme torture test with flying colors sported a Barco logo The upshot is that you get reliable calibration with a predictable contrast range which is essential for making fine judg ments about tone and color Contro
7. people who create digi tal music have more money invested in VST tools than in a music sequencer and they re watching the market for VST plug ins closely Emagic has promised to release a free library that will enable VST www macworld com 38 All in one backup system 39 Speech recognition 41 Sound output device M Audio Sonica camera Nikon D100 storage Drive developers to quickly and easily port their products to Apple s format This would be great because Audio Units promises systemwide plug and play for products from different manu facturers which means greater performance capability for you Emagic released Logic Plat inum 5 4 exclusively for OS X 10 2 at press time We were able to check this version and con firm that it worked with Audio Units and Rex file import We also found a bug Logic 5 4 would hang while recognizing the MIDI hardware each time we relaunched the program Emagic s tech support suggested that this was due to a problem with Jaguar s Core MIDI tech nology and they told us to rein stall our Delta drivers We did but to no avail Macworld s Buying Advice Logic Platinum 5 3 offers a comprehensive set of tools for digital audio production and it s very stable If you currently use Logic version 5 3 is a must have upgrade and the program is a worthy if complex choice for those new to music sequenc ing But if you use a competing product you may want to wait
8. s The digital output is louder and cleaner and the upper frequencies are crystal clear while the volume level of Sonica s analog output is low making it difficult to enjoy simulated surround sound via your headphones The Sonica s digital output can carry multichannel sound such as Dolby Digital 5 1 AC 3 Dolby Pro Logic and DTS to your receiver for decoding but if you want to use Apple s DVD Player to play a DVD you won t get the multichannel sound you expect since Apple s DVD player doesn t yet support this feature Accord ing to M Audio a future update of DVD Player should fix this since multichannel sound is the DVD standard For now in OS X 10 1 5 the freeware VLC VideoLan Client available at M Audio s Web site can pass AC 3 sound to your receiver The TruSurround XT settings in Sonica s own Sound Accessing the D100 s com prehensive set of features can be difficult The camera s body has a lot of buttons and wheels that take some getting used to and some actions such as deleting images using the LCD to zoom in on an image and changing the ISO setting require more effort to perform than they should Once we were up to speed however we found that using many of the features became second nature The D100 produces very high quality images They have a bit more contrast than the images the EOS D60 generates and in general they are fairly soft but neither characteristic is
9. EOS D60 for its more refined user interface you really can t go wrong with the Nikon D100 especially when you consider that it costs 200 less than the D60 and has a comparable bundle RATING PROS Excellent image quality rich feature set long battery life CONS Accessing some features can be awkward PRICE 1 999 OS COMPATIBILITY Mac OS 9 Mac OS X COMPANY Nikon 800 645 6689 www nikonusa com January 2003 MACWORLD 41
10. GL card to any Maya purchase Macworld s Buying Advice It s true that Maya s rendering features and performance need some work and it will be some time before Mac users have access to the variety of plug ins available to users on other plat forms But despite these rela tively minor gripes Maya Complete 4 5 is a must have program for graphic artists or animators who are serious about 3 D animation At a great price the program adds many improvements includ ing cross platform compati bility subdivision surface modeling and vastly improved performance to an already impressive feature set www macworld com SONY ARTISAN COLOR REFERENCE SYSTEM New CRT Provides Accurate One Button Calibration in a Sleek 21st Century Package BY BRUCE FRASER For Apple the CRT may be dead but for those of us who need accurate stable predictable color the CRT not only is alive and well but also continues to improve The Sony Artisan Color Reference System is a case in point This 1 729 21 inch monitor and calibrator bundle provides rock solid contrast and color without the viewing angle problems and lack of uniformity that plague LCD monitors And with a maximum resolution of 2 048 by 1 536 ppi it also displays more pixels than current LCDs The Artisan runs in both OS 9 2 and OS X 10 1 and it offers one button calibration for people who rely on a monitor when making critical decisions about tone and color suc
11. a mark against either camera Both issues can be adjusted easily in Adobe Photoshop and the softness of the D100 s images helps to keep noise lev els down Another attribute that will appeal to photographers in the field is the D100 s long battery life We shot and viewed hun dreds of pictures before needing preference panel can simulate surround sound even with just two speakers as well as enhance dialogue and bass reproduction but these settings won t necessar ily improve sound quality Macworld s Buying Advice The Sonica s digital output greatly improves the sound qual ity you can get from your Mac even in higher end setups If you want to expand your digital hub to include your stereo setup the Sonica is your best bet RATING PROS Solid drivers good manual good tech support clear sound improvement great design CONS Analog output not loud enough for headphone use Dolby Dig ital AC 3 playback available in OS X 10 1 5 only with freeware DVD player PRICE 89 OS COMPATIBILITY Mac OS 9 Mac OS X COMPANY M Audio 800 969 6434 www m audio com to recharge its lithium ion bat tery It s worth noting that the D60 is also an excellent camera in this regard Macworld s Buying Advice Overall the D100 is a solid light easy to use camera that offers excellent controls and long battery life supports a range of lenses and takes great pictures Although we prefer the Canon
12. ate after some experimenta tion we weren t able to edit its placeholders or customize its Manuscript wizard to request specific information New on the Menu In addition to a pleasing Aqua interface EndNote 6 sports revamped more logically arranged menus For example the commands in version 5 s Text Terms and Paper menus have been incorporated into the Edit menu and the new Tools menu Alas EndNote veterans will also note that the Scan Paper menu which allowed you to format WordPerfect Nisus AppleWorks and plain text documents is missing End Note 6 supports only Word X Until ISI delivers on its promise to restore the Scan Paper function in a future update you can use EndNote 5 with these other word proces sors in OS 9 or in OS X s Clas sic mode EndNote 6 ships with a version 5 CD Macworld s Buying Advice Despite its minor limitations EndNote 6 s ability to import and organize text references and figures will save hours of frustrating work Whether you use version 5 or still enter and format references by hand EndNote 6 will be a worth while investment RATING 666 PROS Automatically inserts figures in manuscripts templates simplify document formatting CONS Doesn t handle tables or multipart figures limited ability to customize manuscript templates supports only Word X PRICE 300 download 240 upgrade 100 upgrade download 90 OS COMPATIBILITY Mac OS X COMPANY ISI
13. c based DSP optimization which 32 MACWORLD January 2003 means that you can work with more simultaneous tracks and plug ins on PowerPC G4 machines than on other Macs Logic s Audio Engine also has enables you to output master ing quality recordings two per sonal favorites are DeEsser used to reduce harsh S sounds in vocals and Multipressor a highly customizable multiband compressor And you can now monitor plug ins on a track yow re recording without affect ing the sound that s captured from a musician s standpoint you get to hear the sound you Hand Maer Oat See Pies Your Main Axe Logic s Track Mixer mirrors a studio mixing console to let you record as well as choose input sources signal paths and effects plug ins been significantly beefed up and can now handle 128 audio chan nels with 64 auxiliary channels for 128 stereo tracks 15 inserts per track and bus and 64 buses enough signal routing control to satisfy even a seasoned studio professional New timesaving features include the ability to control real time track based auto mation within Logic s main Arrange window the old process of moving between windows was tedious especially as tracks stacked up and the addition of multiple undos and redos which can be lifesavers Logic s new series of plug ins want and from an editor s or producer s standpoint you get a clean track for sub
14. ed on multiple snapping points Also new is a set of Align tools and many added constraints in the Transformation tools such as the ability to scale an object on two axes while locking its third axis Also to improve ease of use Maya now ships with a nicely designed set of ready made Shelves Maya s customizable tool palettes and its Marking Menus pop up menus that give you access to commands offer many new options and features The Mac version of Maya has reached parity with Maya s Windows Irix and Linux ver sions this will be of major importance in production envi aa ee Double Feature Maya Complete 4 5 supports dual processors and readily crosses platforms but subdivision surface modeling is the star of this release by building a simple polygonal model right you can easily create smooth detailed characters left 34 MACWORLD January 2003 oe APP PA cheek tes Pee x a Dynamic Dynamite Maya s Dynamics engine is among the best In this OpenGL shaded preview shapes attached to the rear wheels emit dust clouds the size and trans parency of the sphere shaped dust particles are driven by their randomized life spans ronments where Macs and PCs share studio space We had no trouble either sharing files or working and rendering inter changeably on Windows sys tems and Macs however negotiating the differences in keyboard layouts for standard key commands was
15. h as digital photographers designers and prepress technicians The entire package is beautifully designed from the neutral gray monitor case and its padded hood to the software s look and feel to the sensor s exquisite industrial design Developed by Dr Karl Lang father of the Radius Pressview the system acts like a Pressview manufactured start to finish by Sony with the benefit of five years of hindsight rather than one put together by Radius Start with a Monitor The heart of the Artisan system is the Sony GDM C520K monitor a state of the art 21 inch flat screen Trinitron with a low 0 24mm aperture grille pitch that supports horizontal scan fre quencies from 30kHz to 130kHz and vertical refresh rates from 48Hz to 170Hz all of which adds up to sharp flicker free per formance even at high resolu tions It has all the advanced controls you d expect from a high end monitor including www macworld com individual red green and blue gain and bias controls and sepa rate convergence controls for top center and bottom conve niently accessible through a joy sticklike control on the front gain and bias to the desired color and luminance of white and black instead of simply adjusting levels in the video card s lookup table Some third party calibra tors let you do this manually but with the Artisan it s automatic Moreover it s extremely accu rate After calibrating the moni tor we
16. l It with Software The Artisan Color Reference System is also easy to use Setup is a breeze the only part that s even slightly tricky is that one end of the monitor cable has both a D Sub 15 and a USB connector and you have to make sure to plug that end into both the video card and one of the USB ports on the Mac Unlike many com peting CRTs such as the LaCie electron22blue III and NEC Mitsubishi s 22 inch SpectraView models the Artisan monitor doesn t have a built in USB hub The software s interface has a modern look and feel that matches the rest of the product If you use one of the default set tings calibration and profiling really are a one button process but if you think defaults are for the timid you ll find that you have complete control over defining new aim points for color temperature black and white luminance and gamma A unique Artisan feature is the ability to save calibration data for different monitor resolutions once you ve calibrated the monitor at two dif ferent resolutions you can switch freely between them without having to recalibrate A full calibration takes about ten minutes and is good for 30 days after that the software forces you to recalibrate While some competing systems allow you to set a warning for a user selectable calibration period Sony takes the same approach as Barco But the software also offers a quick Update Calibra tion Data feature that revalida
17. le This is fine but if you lose it you ll be not only out of a dongle but also out the 349 it costs to replace it After this hassle though it s a pleasure to finally reach Logic s home base the straightforward Arrange window where you can record audio and MIDI tracks quickly You can also import files including Sound Designer TI AIFF and WAV and standard MIDI files that were recorded in another program If you ve used a music sequencer or even a VCR the interface will be reas suringly familiar You can also record tracks in the Track Mixer window where you can add any of Logic s nearly 60 on board plug ins either dur ing the take or in subsequent editing until you find the right sound And as your track load increases you can group tracks that you want to affect in the same way with the same amount of reverb for example and apply the plug in there this will help reduce the load on your CPU as tracks mount up www macworld com 32 Music production application Logic Platinum 5 3 ABSplus 33 3 D graphics package software 42 Network troubleshooting Maya Complete 4 5 iListen 1 5 and management program 35 CRT calibration system 40 Bibliography program LANsurveyor 7 0 Sony Artisan Color Reference EndNote 6 44 Removable media System 37 Compression utility StuffIt Deluxe 7 OUTSTANDING 666 VERY GOOD 6666 X Time The release of Logic Platinum 5 3 is indeed great news and Logic u
18. nd Universe How ever the vast majority of users will be quite pleased with Maya s out of the box rendering capa bilities which include a rich selection of lighting types as well as an impressive tool set for working with and managing shades and textures There is at least one major problem that has not been addressed though Maya s so called Batch Renderer which can neither queue more than one animation on a single machine nor manage rendering over multiple networked com puters These functions are essential in environments where renderings are measured in many minutes or hours per frame and where productivity calls for offloading the process from the artist s workstation as much as possible But much to the relief of artists who have an eye for nuances a Mac compatible ver sion of Mental Image s Mental Ray plug in rendering engine is in the works We anticipate that it will address the majority of Maya s rendering issues Fur thermore Alias Wavefront will offer this 3 995 plug in nearly double the price of Maya alone for free to all version 4 5 users According to Mental Image the Mac version of Mental Ray is expected to ship this winter Smooth Sailing Overall Maya is now much eas ier to use thanks to a number of minor additions and interface enhancements throughout the program For example it offers many new snapping options including the ability to snap objects to one another bas
19. nd act like 35mm film cameras They have many of the advanced controls found in their film based counterparts www macworld com cable and select the Sonica as your sound output device then you re ready to experience sur round sound audio via your Mac This ease of installation has a flip side however M Audio doesn t include the TOSLink optical cable you ll need to connect the Sonica to your receiver and at approximately 20 this cable is expensive If your receiver doesn t have digital inputs you can hook up the Sonica s analog output to your receiver using a standard inch minijack cable The sup plied drivers worked without a glitch and M Audio s tech sup port responded promptly to our test call Sound Quality The sound quality is signifi cantly better via the optical and best of all accept off the shelf lenses that offer much bet ter optical performance than the lenses in point and shoot digital cameras As is the case with most digital SLR cameras the D100 doesn t come with a lens Anyone familiar with Nikon s 35mm cameras will feel right at home with the D100 its controls are for the most part very simi lar And it incorporates many of Nikon s excellent features including the 3 D Matrix meter ing system a high powered built in flash and support for Nikon s high quality Nikkor AF lenses cable than it is through either the Sonica s analog output or the Mac
20. nks an EndNote reference to any type of file it s handy for cataloging PDF documents and other files that Insert Image doesn t support B86 Ajam E Refercece Ty Figure Crested by Aira E WESI heres R Birmingham Ph Thar Tithe Ruen fron IAAF i TIAA mage Saare Program Pascoe laal 3 Dane wuare 1 Ceveurds Graph Bullet Motes TLE hall Caption wi uari Westavia ZUUI F GC Peres of apin gA of e ATADA reat Aone arl Pepi Lee ares patuka Pea Trea a7 ri be 1558 nad Gor fubmacueariiky the 40 MACWORLD January 2003 The Best Image The EndNote 6 library displays a thumbnail view of graphics inked to text references in EndNote s new Image field To insert a figure into a Word document you use a new tool called Find Figures to search the library for references that contain images and other graphics End Note 6 copies the contents of the linked file into your manuscript along with the file s caption and generates a figure citation at your chosen insertion point If you later move or delete a figure EndNote 6 can renumber the fig ures and rearrange them and their captions accordingly The only limitation is EndNote s inability to handle multiple part figures for example one consisting of fig ure 2a and figure 2b It s unfortunate that End Note doesn t provide a tool for managing tables If you re writing for a journal that requires independent number
21. s Combined with Maya s top of the line character animation tools including a new Jiggle Deformer for realistic flab this feature allows artists who use Macs to readily create charac ters with the same type of detail and lifelike movement seen in animated films such as Dream Works Shrek or television pro grams such as ABC s Dinotopia Character modelers will par ticularly appreciate a new Cut Faces tool that makes polygonal modeling and by extension subdivision modeling much easier to do Furthermore this release introduces simple one continues RATING 6662 PROS Timesaving subdivision surface modeling incredibly flexible dynamic simulations lifelike character animation improved performance and interface cross platform compatibility low price CONS No rendering queue or net work rendering speed and quality of rendering needs improvement PRICE 1 999 upgrade from 3 5 node locked license 699 upgrade from 3 5 floating license 839 OS COMPATIBILITY Mac OS X COMPANY Alias Wavefront 877 405 6645 www aliaswavefront com January 2003 MACWORLD 33 REVIEWS step conversion of subdivision models to NURBS patches so even studios that need NURBS in their pipelines have a power ful timesaving alternative to patch modeling Maya s renderer lacks some advanced effects such as global illumination and caustics and its speed is sometimes criticized when compared with Light Wave 3D a
22. sequent pro cessing This is invaluable One more new feature merits mention real time sample rate conversion which lets you move high resolution audio files between your desktop and your laptop and get excellent sound on either Making Tracks While Logic Platinum 5 3 makes it easy to record your tracks it s a complicated program with enough power and control to allow you to express even your most complex sonic visions Reviews you can trust Macworld rates only final shipping products not prototypes What we review is what you can actually buy LOGIC PLATINUM 5 3 Veteran Program Brings Professional Music Production You ll begin to appreciate what the phrase tough learning curve means as you work with the menus that appear in the editing windows Be prepared to spend some quality time with the man ual and the help section to get the most from your investment Logic s installation process fol lows the standard double click and choose your drive or par tition method but it s followed by a bout with Emagic s latest copy protection system which at best is a double edged sword It requires going back and forth via e mail with Emagic for your XSKey Authorization number and it requires that you to use a small USB key or dongle for storing the access code Since your authorization resides in the dongle not in the computer you can install Logic on any USB enabled Mac and activate it by inserting the dong
23. sers should download it if they ve moved to OS X Emagic recommends that you install the program on the boot volume but we ran it successfully across drives and partitions The appli cation didn t crash once during our testing and it certainly looks more attractive in Aqua We got snappier response in OS X 10 2 1 than in 10 1 5 but track counts for both ran just slightly behind OS 9s There s support for Apple s built in Sound Input and Output and most of Emagic s hardware and many developers have released OS X based driv ers for their gear Our M Audio Delta 1010LT seamlessly routed MIDI and audio data While the OS X version is fine for moderate usage you ll likely have to boot into OS 9 for final production Logic for OS X is an unfinished product missing a lot of OS and interapplication com munication And as of press time there was no OS X specific man ual a real pain After an hour of frustration with Jaguar s new Audio MIDI Setup utility a quick call to Emagic s excellent tech support revealed that it isn t sup ported yet It should be noted that Apple doesn t include a help section for the utility either Unsupported formats and pro tocols in version 5 3 include Rewire import and export Rex import and export OMF Open Media Framework OpenTL and Apple s own Audio Units technology for using plug ins and soft synths in OS X but the real kicker is the lack of VST support Many
24. soft Word X Reviews January 2002 EndNote 6 corrects this misstep by providing OS X and Word X compatibility in fact now it s for OS X only End Note 6 also has several new fea tures that can make academic writers even more productive than before More Than Text We ran EndNote 6 in OS X 10 1 5 without a hitch an OS X 10 2 compatible version should be shipping by the time you read this Like its predecessors End Note 6 stores text references in a specialized database called an EndNote 6 library As you write you copy selected references from the library into your docu ment EndNote formats the in text citations and bibliography to suit the publication for which you ve indicated you re writing as we discuss later in this review With version 6 you can export all the references embed ded in a formatted Word docu ment into a new or existing EndNote library Although the exported references don t con tain notes abstracts images or captions this is an easy way to share bibliographies with your colleagues without sending them your online EndNote library The program goes a step fur ther by also letting you create references that contain pictures artwork and other nontextual data and then insert them into your manuscript as figures With the Insert Image command you can add any JPEG TIFF GIF BMP or PNG file to a reference see The Best Image A simi lar command Insert Object li
25. tes the calibration in about three minutes if you run this once a week or so you can avoid the lengthier routine In dual moni tor setups you can calibrate the Artisan only when it s the main monitor but once it s calibrated you can move the menu bar to the second monitor if you wish Macworld s Buying Advice If you need accurate predictable color from your display day in and day out and you re willing to pay a premium price for it the Sony Artisan Color Reference System will give you your money s worth It s more expen sive than comparable solutions from competitors such as NEC Mitsubishi and LaCie but it provides shadow performance matched only by the considerably more expensive Barco Reference Calibrator V RATING 662 PROS Reliable one button accurate calibration and profiling great indus trial design CONS Takes up two USB ports and provides none must be your main monitor during calibration PRICE 1 729 OS COMPATIBILITY Mac OS 9 Mac OS X COMPANY Sony 877 865 7669 www sony com January 2003 MACWORLD 35 REVIEWS ENDNOTE 6 Citation Making Software Adds Mac OS X Support and New Productivity Features BY FRANKLIN N TESSLER For more than a decade ISI ResearchSoft s EndNote has made life easier for authors who need to include citations and bibliographies in their work Last year we chided ISI for releasing EndNote 5 without support for OS X or Micro
26. vefront shipped Maya for Mac OS X 3 5 late last year Reviews January 2002 we were delighted to see it running on the Mac for the first time despite concerns about the program s performance When we reviewed Maya again in June most of its bugs had been worked out and its price had dropped sig nificantly but the Mac version still hadn t caught up to its Win dows and Linux counterparts But with Maya Complete 4 5 the wait for a no compromises version of Maya is finally over Version 4 5 addresses nearly every criticism we had of version 3 5 What s more it s a smooth stable performer in OS X 10 2 it doesn t run in OS 9 Maya 4 5 borrowed its most significant feature addition subdivision surface modeling from Maya Unlimited 6 999 for Windows or Unix only And for animators and effects artists the Mac version offers vital new features of its own in addition to a much better inter face and performance improve ments that make it ready for prime time literally Maya s New Skin The headline feature in version 4 5 is subdivision surface mod eling a tool that has long been standard in LightWave 3D Subdivision surfaces let 3 D artists build lifelike characters as well as smoothly blended organic creatures and surfaces using simple polygonal model ing They often produce bet ter results in less time than NURBS nonuniform rational B splines which are also used for modeling organic surface
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