                                MetaMorf
                      Review by Jacci Howard Bear

    MetaMorf is a fun and inexpensive ($29.95) introduction to the magic
of morphing. It's a DOS program that performs basic morph and warp
functions.
    For the uninitiated, morphing is a special effect seen in movies and
television where two images--such as a person and an animal--transform
from one into the other in a smooth transition. Some familiar examples:
the villain in Terminator 3 who transforms from a blob of liquid into a
person,  and the shaving product commercial on TV where the men's faces
change smoothly from one face to another and another.
    The DOS version of MetaMorf won't run under Windows and requires a
great deal of conventional memory. You can use the images created by the
program in most DOS or Windows graphics programs. Morphing is a slow
process so be prepared to take a coffee break when executing 20 or 25
frame images.
    The main MetaMorf screen is fairly straight-forward. Load starting
and ending images into the upper left- and right-hand portions of the
screen. The bottom half of the screen controls how the program works.
Most choices are self-explanatory or easy to figure out without even
reading the book. The whole program is so easy to use that the manual
devotes most of its pages to describing the ways to get the best image
and ideas on how to use the images you create.
    You can create morphed images in two formats--an animation file in
FLI format, and individual graphic images of each frame (step) in the
morphing process (in GIF, BMP, PCX, or TGA formats). MetaMorf has its'
own built-in animation player for the FLI files. Within the main program
all images appear in black and white even though the original files and
the resulting morphed images may be in color.
    MetaMorf comes with a selection of GIF files of people and animals
and pre-configured matrices so you can start experimenting immediately.
A matrix is a series of lines that correspond to key points (such as
eyes, nose, and mouth) on each image that help make the transformation
smoother and the results more pleasing. I found the creation of a matrix
confusing at first but with practice it becomes simple.
    The Warp function is similar to the morphing process. With warping
you can change the shape of individual portions of an image--such as
enlarging the eyes or making an image of a car appear to wrap around a
spherical object.
    MetaMorf requires a 286 processor, 2MB of RAM, VGA, 2MB minimum free
space (not including the files you create), Mouse, and DOS 3.1. The
recommended configuration is a 386/20 and 4MB of RAM.
    MetaMorf does one thing--transform images--and the program itself
does most of the work. For the best results you should spend some time
selecting the best images to morph and creating a good matrix but,
beyond that MetaMorf does the hard stuff and you're left to have fun
with the resulting images.

                         Villa Crespo Software
                           1725 McGovern St.
                        Highland Park, IL 60035
                             (708) 433-0500

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