Cars: Hitting the Mother Road – Part 1

In part one of AWN’s in-depth Cars coverage, Bill Desowitz focuses on the character and lighting innovations at Pixar Animation Studios.

Cars: Hitting the Mother Road – Part 1

Bare Bones Software Releases BBEdit 8.2.6

Bare Bones Software, developer of leading-edge power tools for Mac OS X, today announced the release and immediate availability of BBEdit 8.2.6. BBEdit 8.2.6 is a maintenance release that fixes reported issues and adds minor refinements to this award-winning HTML and text editor. The BBEdit 8.2.6 update package is available free of charge to all registered BBEdit 8 customers from the Bare Bones Software web site:

http://www.barebones.com/support/bbedit/updates.shtml

Mindjet Brings Industry-Leading MindManager Software to the Mac

The power of mapping has finally reached the Mac! Think, plan and work more efficiently with Mindjet MindManager 6 Mac. Our solution is the market leader that empowers you to organize your ideas and information into plans for action–all with a Mac-friendly interface.
MindManager software…

  • Enhances quality of your creative and strategic thinking
  • Helps you establish processes and meet project deadlines
  • Boosts individual and team productivity

With MindManager’s unique mapping software, you’ll be able to develop ideas, understand complex issues and relationships, and identify next steps in record time.

Ideas generated in planning and brainstorming sessions, meetings, and classrooms can be quickly be enhanced with graphics, related documents, and links from the Internet.

Download a free trial

QuickTime 7.1.1 fixes Mactel installer freeze

John Nack on Adobe: QuickTime 7.1.1 available, fixes Mactel installer freeze

Good news: Apple has updated QuickTime to version 7.1.1, addressing the issue that caused the Photoshop and Creative Suite installers to freeze on Mactel systems. You can download the update from the QuickTime download page, or via the Software Update utility.

SONAR PowerStudio 660 review from Digital Producer

Integrated software and hardware packages for audio recording take all the mystery out of setting up a digital audio workstation. With a software application and an audio interface that are tuned for each other, all a user has to do is install the software and plug in the hardware. That’s the experience I had with Cakewalk’s new PowerStudio 660, a six-channel portable FireWire audio interface bundled with Cakewalk’s SONAR 5 Studio Edition DAW application. This is a great package for home studios looking for a no-hassle approach to quality recording.

SONAR PowerStudio 660 review from Digital Producer

PCWorld.com – The 100 Best Products of the Year

PCWorld.com – The 100 Best Products of the Year

Five items from the top 100 available from Creation Engine:

7. Adobe Premiere Elements 2

11. Adobe Photoshop Elements 4

22. Adobe Photoshop CS2

72. EMC Retrospect Professional 7.5

88. Mindjet MindManager Pro 6

John Bruno tells how he coordinated the VFX on X-Men III: The Last Stand

John Bruno’s credit roll reads like an honor roll of amazing visual effects films. He received six visual effects Oscar nominations, for Ghost Busters, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, The Abyss, Batman Return, Cliffhanger, and True Lies. He won an Oscar for The Abyss. He was a visual effects consultant on Titanic, and he directedT2 3-D: Battle Across Time, Virus, and two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager.

We talked with him about his latest work as visual effects supervisor for Twentieth Century Fox’s ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’, directed by Brett Ratner.

Read more at CG Society

Photoshop install problems on Intel Macs

John Nack on Adobe: Can’t install Photoshop? Here’s some info.

Late last week, customers began reporting that once they’d applied Apple’s QuickTime 7.1 update, they were unable to install Photoshop or the Creative Suite on Mactel systems. Apple and Adobe engineers have been working together* since then to diagnose the problem.

The tech docs for the installer freeze and activation failure are being pushed live now

Adobe: Get More from Your Ajax Applications

Adobe: Get More from Your Ajax Applications

by Jason Williams
Adobe’s Ajax-related open source libraries can help you overcome chronic browser limitations to provide a richer Ajax application experience for your users.

If you are an Ajax developer, you can leverage the Flash platform by incrementally adding Flex or Flash elements that are scriptable directly from your Ajax application.

Create an impressive portfolio flick book in Macromedia Flash

Create an impressive portfolio flick book in Macromedia Flash and give your work that little extra attention-grabbing edge

Just imagine the situation: you need to create a portfolio flick book, you’re up against the clock, and you’re regretting not having given the Flash manual a thorough reading. In the following tutorial we show you how you can bring all the elements together, learn the basics of Flash and produce a finished movie in a little under an afternoon’s work.

Read more