The Light Works - Amiga Tools 2 - TGV Animation CD - Meeting Pearls Vol. 2
The Light Works
Unlike most CD-ROMs for users of 3D programs, this disc is not just the usual assortment of Public Domain objects. In fact, a large number of the objects have been created by German 3D guru, Tobais Richter.
Those of you who are familiar with Tobais' work, will not be surprised to discover that most of the objects he has created are spaceships from popular sci-fi films and TV series. Among the objects you'll find such classic vessels as The Enterprise, the Deep Space 9 Station, The Deathstar, an imperial shuttle, all of the TIE fighter models, the X-wing and Y-wing, VRProbe from SeaQuest DSV, Darwin The Dolphin, a Correlian Corvette and the Millennium Falcon. The objects are supplied in three formats - Imagine, Cinema 4D and Reflections.
As well as these examples of Mr Richter's 3D prowess there are some PD models too. The subjects that these cover are a bit more varied, although the quality is not as high. Being a fan of the Battletech books and games I was pleased to discover several of the Mech robots in the copious robots directory.
However, this disc is not all robots and spaceships, there's an anatomy section, a collection of animals and errm... some Star Wars objects too.
As well as the objects, The Light Works disc includes some useful textures and several animations. It also features a demonstration version of the Maxon Cinema 4D rendering software, although it's all still in German.
This still from The Light Works CD is part of an animation that is still being created.
"An absolute must for all sci-fi fans and lovers of giant robots."
Amiga Tools 2
This interesting CD-ROM from Germany contains all manner of utilities that should be of interest to most serious Amiga users. You'll find a huge selection of useful things including CompuGraphic fonts, virus killers, networking tools, Internet software, pictures, crunchers, disk tools, demo versions of several commercial programs, databases, a copy of MUI and that demo version of Maxon Cinema 4D that makes an appearance on just about every German CD-ROM.
One of the fascinating finds on this disc is the demo version directory. Not only does it contain demonstration versions of programs it also has some example objects from the Light ROM CD, example images produced with ImageFX and a demo of DPaint V.
Another surprisingly interesting directory is the database drawer. It has all the usual video and CD cataloguing programs, but also includes some particularly innovative tools. For example, there's a useful route planing program and one called AmigaWorld that contains loads of information on just about every country on the planet.
On a related subject, the disc also features the Internet Database of films. The inclusion of this database is an excellent example of making good use of the storage capacity of CD-ROMs, because it is almost 27Mb in size.
This atmospheric image was created by Mark Thompson - probably in Real 3D 2.
"It's yet another brilliant CD-ROM from Germany."
After taking a look at the excellent Amiga Tools CD, I was expecting something special from this disc because it was compiled by the same people.
It will come as no surprise that the TGV Animation CD contains nothing but computer-generated animations. The files on the disc come from all over the world and some of them include the author's E-mail address. So if you want contact them to express your appreciation or to offer them work, you can.
The animations vary greatly in quality and, in all honesty, the majority of them really aren't that good. Most of the animations are raytraced, but there are a few digitised and hand-drawn ones and there are plenty of examples of what unimaginative people can do with 3D Studio - plenty of reflective balls and so on.
The animations are stored in several different formats including IFF anim, FLI and MPEG. The reason for this is that it's aimed at both the PC and Amiga markets. However, if you are willing to sit through a lot of poor animations, you will be rewarded by some real real gems. At just £15 you can't go far wrong.
This is a still from a fly-by animation that takes you through a gallery.
"There are some great animations, the trouble is finding them."
Meeting Pearls Vol. 2
Meeting Pearls Volume 2 is another CD from Germany. If you are wondering why there are so many German CDs, apparently a group of Amiga users get together there every now and again and to celebrate this they release a CD-ROM packed full of goodies.
The thing that distinguishes this collection of Amiga PD from most others is its front-end. It uses the HTML reading program Mosaic, which means it's possible to create documents that contain images, sounds and even links to other documents.
Putting this together must have taken a considerable amount of effort, but the result is worthwhile because you can easily search for files - and it looks good. But it means you really need Workbench 3.0 or greater to get the best out the interface.
The files on the disc cover pretty much every area of Amiga computing, including disktools, graphics utilities, pictures, Comms software, demos and games. The movie database makes another showing on this CD too, but this time it's a whopping 36Mb in size. The disc also contains a demo version of Real3D v2.
Eric Schwartz fans will be kept happy because all of his animations have been included in the animations directory - in fact, almost all of the animations in the directory are from Eric, which makes a change from 3D rendered spaceships. There's also 17Mb of fractal imagery and a substantial number of text, AmigaGuide and HTML-formatted documents covering everything from Amiga FAQs to humorous conversations.
Meeting Pearls 2 is the connoisseur's choice of PD CD-ROM. A lot of hard work has been put into the interface and its contents are well-balanced.
Here's a selection of icons that are available which can be used in MUI programs.
"The quite splendid front-end makes this collection a real joy to use"
