Axel from MindAvenue

I have to admit that at first I was put off by Axel. It sounded like a cool product. I installed it and the first thing I noticed was that my processor was really working. It was running at about 100% in authoring mode and I wasn't doing anything yet. I've not encountered a program that operated in that fashion before. However, tech support was quick to answer email to let me know that was normal. I was still a little nervous about it thinking about what was going on while authoring but I got over it.

When you first open Axel the CPU runs at an average between 50-70%. As soon as you start authoring it goes to 100%. Taking tech supports' answer that it is normal I went ahead and started playing with Axel. All I can say is...well not all I can say as this is going to be quite a long review...Axel is totally cool. 

There is the drawback for the web of having your surfers download yet another plug-in/player but it is a minimal download. For the return you get in web power and creativity it is more than worth it. 

At the end of this review is a link to a finished product of one of the tutorials included with Axel. You will need the player to see it. The Fish Swimming example is a simple example but you will probably get some ideas from it. There are many other tutorials in a wholly separate book from the Axel manual. In working through some of those tutorials I found some totally unique things that Axel helps you to do on web pages. For instance in one of the examples you could create a 3D world and the surfer can use their mouse to move the "world" to get a 360 degree view of it.

You can make interactive productions and more. The .axs streaming files that are embedded in web pages are extremely small and I can't stress enough how small considering these are three dimensional productions. The Fish Swimming example at the end of this review is 14kb in size.

Let's get on with the review. What exactly is Axel? Axel is a 3D interactive web authoring tool that let's you model and animate 3D for web pages.

Key Features:

• Intuitive interface
• Complete modeling capabilities
• Interactivity
• Animation
• Performance tuning
• Conversion capabilities
• Axel player
• and more...

Below is a screenshot of the main Axel interface when you first open it. I am a little annoyed that when you first open Axel, in an empty project the animator is running so I always have to hit the play button to stop that and return the cursor to the first frame. It's really a minor annoyance and with what I have learned using Axel, and what I can do with Axel, I got over that.

I feel the interface is well organized and quite efficient.

With Axel, creating 3D web sites and presentations couldn't be easier. Menus are predictable so you won't be groping around looking for the basic items you need and can spend more time learning and enjoying Axel.

 

You can import VRML models allowing you to create 3D models in another application and import them into Axel. Those VRML models have to be polygonal and must be exported as VRML 97.

You can import materials and textures. Supported files types are:

• BMP

• JPG

• GIF

You can merge your Axel files making Axel very powerful in that you can reuse objects between projects.

There are four viewports in Axel each showing your project from a different angle much like other 3D modeling software. There are Top, Front, Right and WebCam viewports. The WebCam viewport gives a simulation of what your project will look like on a web page.

There are many helpful viewpoints to choose from.

• Frame Selection (fills the view with the selected object)

• Frame All (all objects are visible in all viewports)

• Look at Selection (centers the selected object in the viewports)

• Look at Origin (center of the project world is the center of the viewport)

• Reset Viewpoint

You use the Display option the display additional information in the viewports.

• Points (shows the points of the selected object)

• Constraints (shows the relation between objects)

• Clipbox (used to improve performance on web pages)

• Stats (shows the time and refresh rate)

• Selection Only (hides everything but the selected object)

Set grid size, show or hide the grid and make objects snap to the grid.

Show or hide the corresponding windows. 

You use the World Explorer to select objects in your world. It has a list of all the objects in your project and looks similar to a tree view. You can expand and collapse items in the world view.

World Explorer

The Sequencer window shows a graphical view of the animation and interactions in your project. You can view and edit animation, keys and animation curves from this window.

Sequencer

The Interaction Editor shows you a chart view of the interactions in your project.

Interaction Editor

The Parameter Editor lets you set the parameters for a selected object, group, animation sequence or just about anything else in your project.

Parameter Editor

Toolbars:

Modeling:

Preset Curves are what are normally called primitives in most 3D software that I have seen.

As you can see there are many options for editing or modifying curves.

The Create Surface options lets you easily create 3D objects from shapes. For instance, you can draw the outline of an object say a drinking glass and using the Create Surface option can turn that line drawing into a full 3D object using Revolution from Curve.

Now for some really serious fun. You can create characters and animate them using bones. Very exciting stuff. I am thinking cartooning here and so easy it would be with Axel.

Relations:

Constraints are when objects are linked together. For instance, if you have two objects and they are linked together, one is the main object or leader and the other is a sub object or follower. An example would be your shoulder and arm. Your shoulder is the leader and your arm is the follower. If you move your shoulder, your arm always follows. Your hip and your leg, your leg and your foot, etc., are all examples of constraints with a leader and a follower.

Visualization:

The Visualization tools allow you to add color and texture to the objects in your project. You link textures so that you can use a single texture on many objects so that the material only needs to be downloaded once.

Texture Projection is what I normally think of as texture mapping.

There are three types of lights in Axel. These are:

1. Spot light

2. Point light

3. Directional light

Animation:

You can do all kinds of animation with Axel and one I particularly like is animation on a path which gives me the power to easily animate objects and have total control of the animation. For example, animating along a curve.

Animation is cool and there is lots of software out there that animates but, Axel also includes particle effects which can really jazz up an animation.

With Axel you can set many properties of your particle effects:

• Active

• Emission rate

• Minimum age

• Maximum age

• Minimum speed

• Maximum speed

• Speed inheritance

• Spread angle

• Emission color

• Emission size

• Spin rate

• Gravity

• Particle shape

You can put obstacles in the way of your particle flow to divert them in another direction.

Interaction:

I know I keep saying this but here is another fun thing that can be done with Axel. Interaction allows you to create projects that your surfer can interact with. Interactive tests, games and navigation comes immediately to mind here.

Interaction Handles allow you to translate, rotate, scale, bend and push objects in browse mode.

There are many Interaction "Reactions" that you can create:

• Play Animation (converts an animation into a reaction which makes it not active until it is triggered by an event)

• Play Sound (plays a wav file)

• Set WebCam (switch to a different WebCam)

• Set Pose (revert to a saved position)

• Set Material (switch between materials on an object)

• Set Geometry (swap the geometry of an object)

• Set Parameter (set the parameters of an object)

• Toggle Parameter (switch an objects parameters)

• Tooltip text (creates a text box over an object)

• Download Axel Stream (downloads an Axel stream file - use this to replace one stream with another, merge streams files and much more)

• Hyperlink (create a hyperlink)

• Goto Time (move the animation to a specified time in the animation)

• Control Time (start or stop the projects clock)

• Call JavaScript (calls a javascript on the web page - Javascript and Hyperlink reactions supported are:

  • http

  • Javascript

  • file

  • ftp:download/upload files

  • mailto

  • news

  • gopher)

There are many sensors that trigger reactions:

• Mouse sensor (starts a reaction when a surfer clicks an object)

• Time sensor (starts a reaction at a specific time)

• Proximity (starts a reaction when one object comes close to another object)

• Position (starts a reaction when an object is in a specific position)

• Orientation (starts a reaction when an object is in a specific orientation)

• Parameter Change (starts a reaction when an objects parameters change by more than a certain value)

• Parameter Range (starts a reaction when an objects parameter value enters or exits a certain range)

• Time Pulse (specify a start/end time and frequency of occurrence)

• Download (starts a reaction when an object's geometry or a sound or texture file download is complete)

• Refresh Rate (starts a reaction when the refresh rates changes within a specified range)

• Keyboard sensor (starts a reaction when a key on the keyboard is pressed)

Web Integration:

More fun stuff - You've now finished up your project and you're ready to embed your project in a web page. From here you can set your publishing options, check how your project runs at several different internet connection speeds and even preview it in a browser.

Axel does all the work here. Click Publish and Axel creates your web page with your project embedded in it. It's a no brainer to get your web page created!

 

Example:

This is absolutely terrific software. The manual is extremely easy to read and understand and I loved having the separate tutorials book to work through. Once you work through that you shouldn't have too many questions about how Axel works and what you can do with it.

After my initial concerns, I found Axel easy to use and a lot of fun to play with. I can see a lot of commercial uses for professionals who need or want to wow their clients with fast downloading web animations, navigation and completely interactive 3D web sites.

I tested Axel with the following system:

• PIII 450

• 256 MB RAM

• 32 bit color

• 1024X768 resolution

• two button mouse

Modeling in Axel is similar to modeling in any other 3D software and is less complicated than some.

Animation in Axel is extremely easy.

Publishing a web page with an embedded Axel project couldn't be simpler.

I'm not going to say that Axel has no learning curve. If you are familiar with working with 3D and viewports you won't have any trouble and the learning curve will be small. If you don't have any experience with 3D modeling and viewports you'll have a medium learning curve. Learning to animate in Axel is so easy, that by using the manual, you should be animating in minutes so I won't assign a curve to that.

Visit MindAvenue.com and download the trial version to check out this terrific application.

Pricing

$950.00 (US)

Windows 98/Me/NT4(sp3)/2000
Pentium II, AMD, 200Mhz
64 MB RAM (128 recommended)
800x600 resolution, 256 colors
3 button mouse

Copyright Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved