Multimedia tools are nothing new to Corel, a company now responsible for titles in the Ulead family and Video Studio Pro. But the particular combination of features in Corel Digital Studio 2010 (Windows) is something new. Or rather, a it's a fresh take on Corel's existing technology.
The software suite marries editing and project creation tools for photos and videos, giving the application interfaces a tinted look and rounded corners that share the philosophy of Apple's iPhoto and iMovie. Corel's goal was to provide an entry-level media manipulation package for home users that is also appealing to look at and natural to get around, and the company has largely succeeded.
Corel Digital Studio 2010 is comprised of main four applications: the photo studio, video studio, DVD burning app, and WinDVD, Corel's video player. (There's also a desktop gadget with its shortcut buttons to each of the four programs.) With them you can open media from just about anywhere, edit videos and photos, and fashion a whole lot of fun photo and video projects. The video studio, known formally as Corel VideoStudio 2010, has a built-in movie maker that looks good and is approachable for novices looking to get their feet wet. There are a few templates (but a few more wouldn't hurt), for automatically creating videos out of video clips or photos, or both of them together--you'll have an opportunity to tweak transitions and other details later.
The photo app harbors a creation workshop for collages, cards, calendars, and photo books, all of which you can print from your home computer or order from Corel online, if you'd like to turn your digital media into physical form. As with the movie maker, there are templates for getting started (the same ones, in fact.) The limited templates may get old pretty soon.
GrowFX - a new system of modeling and animating plants for 3D Studio Max. Now you can recreate digitally a lifelike 3D model of any plant, from grass and trees to woodland using a refreshingly simple interface and an essential set of parameters that you can set up yourself. GrowFX lets you create broadleaf trees, conifers, palm trees, flowers and many other vegetational compositions. Its unique model building tools will help you create creeping plants, entwining scene objects, and shearing plants of any shape. Plants may bend around different objects. GrowFX is fully compatible with 3D Studio MAX. All parameters can be animated. You can, for example, create a wind animation, plant growth animation and other kinds of animation you can imagine. There is also an opportunity to edit the parameters using MAXScript.
