New from Anark is version 2.0 of its Studio software, a program for creating Web-based animations, presentations, and interactive applications. The program is basically quite similar to version 1.0, which I reviewed in the 11 March 2002 edition of Spectrum. I'll avoid repeating most of that material, so I recommend you read it first at http://www.3dlinks.com/spectrum/issues/spectrum-mar-11-02.cfm.

One of the most important aspects of Anark Studio is the behavior library. You can add animation and interactivity to your presentation simply by dragging a scripted behavior onto an element, such as an object. The new version offers a number of additiona l behaviors, and, just as importantly, a vastly improved online reference for the behaviors. One nice aspect of the reference in Anark Studio 1, however, was that it was available separately from the Start > Programs menu, so that you could Alt-Tab between its window and the program; in Anark Studio 2, it's available only from the program Help menu, and its window overlays the Project window, where the content and action of the scene appear. Fortunately, because it's HTML based, there's a workaround: After opening the Behavior Reference, just right-click the Behavior Index button, choose Open Link In New Window, and then close the original window.

The behavior reference in Anark Studio1 was a simple one-page list containing a description of each behavior with links to the script and an example. One of the nicest enhancements to the new reference, besides its spiffy layout, is a row of icons above e ach behavior description that show what types of elements it can be applied to: model, material, group, layer, image, behavior, light/camera, and scene. The front page of the reference offers not only links to each category of behavior, but to lists of be haviors by the types of elements they can be attached to. However, each list provides links only to the category pages, which list all of the behaviors. It'd be nice if each behavior listed here were also linked to its description. On the plus side, Anark has expanded the usage instructions for the behaviors, although in some cases they're still not as detailed as they could be.

The behaviors in Anark Studio 2 are organized by category:

• Action
• Events - General
• Events - Animation
• Events - Timeline
• Interactive
• Miscellaneous
• Standalone Player

The latter is the only new category; its two behaviors are Exit, which kills the player, and Launch, which runs an executable. New behaviors in the Action category include BoundingBox, which places positional limits on objects, PointConstraint, which constrains an object's position to that of another object in the scene, and Strobe, which periodically turns an object on and off.

The Events category contains behaviors whose actions are triggered by user input or a scene event. New behaviors here include MovePivot, which lets you change the point about which an object rotates, and Pulse, an interesting one that lets you move, rotate, or scale an item and then slowly (or quickly) return it to its original position, etc. The sole new timeline behavior is one that goes to a specified point in the presentation (typically the start) after a set idle time, which is useful for kiosks and standalone presentations.

Among the new behaviors in the Interactive category is the useful OrbitCamera, which lets the user rotate the camera about the scene, with a nice inertial option; ProximityScale, which scales an object by an amount that depends on the mouse is to the object; and Scroller, which Increases or decreases a value based on the position of the mouse from the center of the presentation window.

Finally, in the Miscellaneous category, new behaviors include Fly, which lets you control an object's motion from the keyboard; its Forward, Back, Left, and Right parameters make it obvious that this was designed for camera walkthroughs. There's also Rainbow, which lets you apply multicolor effects and color gradients to objects, and SubDivideImage, which breaks an image-mapped object up into smaller pieces.

Another big new workflow improvement since the original version is the Storage palette, which greatly eases access to resources for building presentations. This is a tabbed window each of whose tabs represents a disk directory. When you click a tab, the window shows the directory contents, including any subdirectories, which you can expand, as with Windows Explorer. You can add tabs by specifying directories; the program monitors its contents and automatically refreshes the listing if they change. Among the default tabs is one for the behavior library, which makes it much faster to add behaviors to a presentation; the original version required using a file dialog and navigating disk structures.

Another new feature is the component; essentially, this lets you convert an object or group into a black box, whose internal animation can be set to loop or ping-pong. For example, you could animate one flap of a butterfly's wings, combine its body and wings into a component, and then have the butterfly flit about the scene while flapping its wings. I was unable to get this to work, but I probably missed something. Unfortunately, none of the tutorials (several new since version 1) covers this particular aspect.

Also, existing tools have been improved; both the Inspector palette and Timeline dialog have received makeovers, with easier-to-use controls, colorful icons, and more. However, fields could be better labeled; for example, the transform axes (X, Y, Z) are listed horizontally after each transform name, rather than next to their respective fields in the Inspector palette, which are arranged vertically. And last but not least, you can now export a presentation as an AVI-format movie, a Windows screensaver, and a self-contained executable that doesn't need an external projector program.

The new version of Anark Studio is a significant improvement of an already impressive program. It's still constrained to the timeline model, with all the limitations that entails, but as the examples on Anark Website prove, there's a lot you can do with it. Because much of the setup work is done in the timeline, I'd like to see a bit more functionality in this area, like the ability to region-select multiple keyframes, and a dynamic display of exact time positioning as you drag keyframes. On the plus side, the new ability to zoom the timeline in and out is a real boon, although Reset Zoom and Fit Extents commands would be useful.

While I'm in wishlist mode: It's nice that you can combine images in a single material, each with different UV settings, plus texture mapping and type options. But it would be even nicer if you could set a blending mode for each, as you can with materials.

Minor quibbles aside, I like Anark Studio, and recommend it as a lower-cost alternative to Macromedia Director with some distinct advantages, particularly in the 3D area. Add a wide range of useful behaviors and the ability to add custom interactivity with Javascript, and you've got a real winner.

www.anark.com