Eovia’s Designer 7.0 is an odd program. This isn’t due to its quirky interface (a feature shared by just about every 3D application on the market) but because, rather than indulging in traditional feature-bloat, it drops many of the program’s non-critical functions — and is the better for it.
Previous versions of Designer tried to cater for every 3D need, without fully succeeding. Designer 7.0 signals a new approach by concentrating on the program’s core strength — modelling — and abandoning add-on features such as animation effects.
Designer 7.0’s potency lies in its excellent polygon modelling features, which have been enhanced this time around with the arrival of dynamic geometry modelling. This tracks changes made to a model’s lines so that you can return and re-edit points later. Equally impressive is a new feature, Symmetry Clone, which lets you build and edit models so that changes on one side are automatically reflected on the other (see here for a screenshot).
Significantly, Designer 7.0 at last allows split-frame views rather than cluttered floating windows. Although Designer’s rendering and surfacing options are comparatively limited, Eovia has added native Carrara Studio export and boosted the reliability of 3DS and OBJ format exports.
Although not a complete 3D solution, Designer 7 is one of the most usable, inexpensive yet powerful modellers on the market. – Tom Gorham
Eovia Amapi Designer 7.0
Price: $869
Distributor: Intellitron
Phone: (07) 3257 3211
URL: www.intellitron.com.au
