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I found proDAD's hieroglyph Rapid 2.6 to be a very capable tool for animated text effects. With minimal effort, I was able to create a number of complicated animated graphics that would have been difficult to produce in other tools. While the interface will take some getting used to, you can leam to work with it fairly quickly, hieroglyph is definitely worth a look if you haven't purchased or mastered After Effects; even if you have, you'll still find uses for it. With the time it saves you, you'll recoup your $99 investment after a single job.
PRICE: $99
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
proDAD
www.prodad.com
proDAD is a newcomer to the American video software market. Andreas Huber, a managing director for proDAD, tells me that the German company's software is quite popular in Europe, and proDAD is just now trying to break into the North American market. The company has launched two products in the United States: Adorage and Heroglyph. Adorage is a rich transition effects tool. Heroglyph Rapid 2.6 is best described as a plug-in titler on steroids. Heroglyph comes in two flavors, regular full (MSRP $289) and Rapid, which is a limited version (MSRP $99).
Heroglyph Rapid 2.6 is different from the regular titler that is built in to Premiere Pro, Vegas, EDIUS, or Xpress Pro, in that it allows users to apply a number of useful animated effects and preview them before going back into the host program. What makes it easy to use is a number of templates in which you choose the desired effect and replace the template text with your text.
The number of effects you can apply easily with Heroglyph is staggering. In an effort to learn new ways to create eye-catching text graphics, I've committed to learning After Effects with Total Training's DVD tutorials (www.totaltraining.com) and Luisa Winters' tips tutorials in EventDV. But it has been an uphill climb. If you've found yourself in a similar situation, proDAD's Heroglyph gives you another excuse to put off learning After Effects-at least where text effects are concerned. That said, it will never replace After Effects; you can do much more with text and a zillion other non-text effects within that program. But for text animation, Heroglyph is a...