There are quite a number of drawing / art utilities for the classic Amiga, including D.T.P.'s. Here I've found one that bears features of most, in Draw Studio. The G.U.I. has been deliberately designed in the familiar manner of P. Paint / D. Paint to ease use by those unfamiliar with the program, but additional effects abound, which are most pleasing.
The complete package is neatly presented; though not an artist myself, I can perceive a powerful package which, in the right hands, would be an extremely versatile tool. In all, Draw Studio is a veritable concoction of D.T.P., C.A.D., and paint program, all thrown into one !
What we have is a programme which is nicely intuitive, and flexible enough to meet a range of applications from the drawing office to instructional presentations, and anything in between. The Warp facility can be used to great effect on fonts, giving an "Easy Page-maker" facility for posters or magazines, and at this stage, it's the demo that I'm reporting about, which we couldn't resist a look at ! For those curious to try before buying, there is a demo available from http://www.haage-partner.de/download/DrawStudio/ which is the one we viewed whilst waiting for the full package to arrive. The full program looks like being awesome !
With the full program finally in hand, I found the package nicely presented, on CD- ROM with CD, Registration Document, Registration Card with the registration number on it (important to keep this safe, as Draw Studio will not run without it), and, most importantly, a 96-page manual to enable the user to (hopefully) create images. In short, very much like Amiga applications in the past, when purchased off the shelf - remember those days? The only difference being, it had no fancy box. Which is good as it saves unnecessary expense, and the box, in our house certainly, either gets committed to the cobwebby recesses of the attic or the dustbin.
Installation was a breeze - a simple drag-and-drop exercise onto the hard-drive. As Draw Studio requires you to enter the registration number, it cannot be used directly from CD. There was no clash with OS3.9 on this system, considering this software was written in 1997. On the CD also were support programs. MUI, which Draw Studio uses as it's GUI (the chances are you will already have a more up-to- date MUI installed, but useful if you have not), Image Studio, MetaView, Texture Studio (for those with a FPU - not reviewed here as there is no FPU on this system) and X-Trace, all shareware, and will need to be registered if you like them and wish to use them to their full potential. Including these in your installation gives the facility to import/export creations to and from other software already on your system, such as Wordworth, ProPage, etc. A thoughtful touch was to include drawers with demonstration images to show the possibilities of Draw Studio.
This is a very powerful and complex piece of software, and one which may take many months of experimentation to master.
Draw Studio can be installed on 68000 CPUs upwards. The only restriction being a minimum of 3Meg free memory after running Workbench and it's associated software (backdrops, tool daemons, etc.). The more memory you are lucky to have, the more flexible it is, and the quicker you will be able to run the program. This is the first application I have ever had that makes me want to upgrade the miggy to explore all its possibilities.
Graphics cards are supported, and those with FPUs have greater opportunities for creativity available to them.
Effects, as I've observed earlier, are quite pleasing to use with professional results to the modified fonts. Warp is most effective when used for video titling or loader pages, giving a possible 3D perspective of fonts. Wire frame drawing is a familiar feature of C.A.D. programs, allowing for a good 3D effect on drawings, but one can't specify a flexible graduation for individual areas of a drawing.
Brush facilities don't seem to be supported, which could be of benefit to the program. In preference, the program gives a quantity of shapes which can be moved and resized to one's requirements, hence creating an illustration in sections.
This method is not, however, one that I'm totally familiar with, so a sharp learning curve has been required here. Curved and shadowed text also does what it says beautifully, the nicest touch being re-scalable graphics and fonts wherever you click on screen.
Ease of use is, to us, a mixture of familiarity and thumbing through the manual at the moment. No doubt, as we get more familiar with Draw Studio, the manual will figure less in the equation. In conclusion, Draw Studio seems to be a fine tool for those with a high degree of "artistic bent", or C.A.D. knowledge, and well worth a look at; not so much if you're a new-comer to computer drawing, which, though unlikely, is not impossible. The first example is a hand-drawn self portrait of myself, for lack of a better subject, showing stages of development. The second is an example of DTP, utilizing a photo image and font warping, with further examples and screen shots as applicable.
The Data-types supported by the program are as follows :- IFF-ILBM, GIF, TIFF, JPEG, BMP, and PCG, allowing a wide variety of images to be imported, and modified, including titling for convenience.
Saving formats are evidently in DSDG-IFF only, requiring a conversion program to change to the above "import" formats (Image Studio - supplied) This makes the program slightly less agreeable, but Draw Studio is still a superb package in our esteem.
Importation Exportation integration is hence a little disjointed, but only a slight drawback to an amazingly flexible program - possibly the shape of things to come !
Available from Fore-Matt- Draw Studio 2 CD version is in stock now and retails at £45 - more details can be found on the online shop at www.forematt.co.uk
Also you can download the demo from Haage-Partner
Albeit slightly "technical" in it's approach to studio work, Draw Studio is an extremely fine graphics package, and well worth consideration if art, C.A.D. or other graphics programs are your forte. We like it - lots ! Presumably better suited to higher - end machines with Graphics cards and FPU's, but with care useable on a basic accelerated machine, as Graphics Mem is a bit low otherwise.
Value for money? With the supporting programs included on the C.D., at about a six pounds for each program, I couldn't complain. Now, where's my cheque book?
