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IN! REVIEWS
Cranking it up a few more notches, Big Top's Cartoon Toolbox Starring Felix the Cat
(Big Top Productions, ages 7 and up) is the most sophisticated animation program of
the three. You can begin with the tutorial which shows a short cartoon and then helps
the user reproduce it step-by-step. Once you've done it, you're totally prepared to
create your own masterpiece. Starting with six main characers, you have a vast array
of options. Each characters has 20 to 30 different poses and/or affectations and the
program lets you morph smoothly from one to another as your cartoon progresses. There
are terrific sound effects, great music, good voices, and lots of props and background.
You can't record your own soundtrack here, but with everything else you can do, you'll
barely notice the oversight. Editing is one of the strongest features. To begin with,
when you click an icon, a big screen appears smack-dab in the center of the work field,
giving you access to many options. This keeps the interface nice and clean without
sacrificing any versatility or power. At screen left, you have a "layer manager" which
lets you, at any time, move any character or prop forward or back on the stage. This
is necessary for complex editing. The edit bars allows you to work sequentially or in
any order you choose. You can always go back to fix a mistake. A brilliant addition is
the inclusion of editing buttons that deal with time. Take any element of your cartoon,
be it a character, prop, music, etc. and make it a permanent addition in the scene, or
make it present before or after such and such a time, or erase it before or after a
specific time, etc. This title has just about everything you need to turn out first-rate
cartoons.
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