shapes
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Pixelmator's Shapes interface coming soon
Pixelmator is one of my favorite apps on the Mac -- I've been following it for a long time, and whenever I want to do any photo editing beyond a quick resize (and sometimes even when I want to do that), I click the Pixelmator icon in my Dock. This week at Macworld/iWorld 2013, Pixelmator's Ausra Meskauskaite kindly stopped by the media room to visit with the TUAW team, and chat about what Pixelmator's Lithuania-based developers have been up to recently. It turns out they've been busy: The company is just about to introduce the long-awaited Shapes feature, allowing designers and artists to drag pre-created (or custom-made) shapes onto a digital canvas, and then edit various attributes of those shapes, like painting them with a color gradient, growing or shrinking them, and masking or layering them as needed. Pixelmator has planned to implement a shape element for a long time, and Photoshop users will know how useful dealing with shapes can be. But Meskauskaite told me that Pixelmator took its time working with the new feature, because they thought they could implement it better than Adobe did with Photoshop. The final interface certainly does seem simple -- you can just drag a shape out, and then drag a gradient onto it as needed. Clicking on the placed shape brings up a series of control points, and those can be dragged around to get the shape exactly where you need it. You can even convert text over to a shape, and then interact with it in the same way. I'm not a design expert, but the whole interface seemed very fluid and easy to use. Pixelmator is also working on an interface for layer styles, although I didn't get a chance to see that one in action just yet. Meskauskaite said that the company spent much of 2012 just making sure the app was running well and correctly, and now that 2013 has arrived, the focus will move to start putting new features in, like the shapes and upcoming layer styles interfaces. Unfortunately, not everything has gone smoothly with Pixelmator in the last year or so. Meskauskaite told me that whenever Apple offers a cool new feature in OS X, "we take it and place it in the app." Pixelmator saw Apple's Auto Save feature, and immediately decided to add it into the app, but that change ended up rubbing a lot of users the wrong way. The problem is that Auto Save automatically wrote over any changes users made to images, which means that "Save As..." no longer worked (since the original image was replaced by the image being worked on, rather than being separate from it). Instead of "Save As...", Pixelmator has implemented an "Export" screen, but the change in workflow has caused a lot of problems for users, admits Meskauskaite. She told me that "we had debates day and night" about how to deal with the Auto Save problem, and in the end, "we had to choose Auto Save." Users who understand how Auto Save works have dealt with the change better, she says, but Pixelmator also understands why users still attached to the old workflow would be frustrated, and the team is working on finding a solution that makes as many people happy as possible. Pixelmator famously moved exclusively on to the Mac App Store a little while ago, and Meskauskaite says they're very happy to be selling apps (a lot of apps) via Apple's platform. I asked what the company might want out of the App Store in the future, and Meskauskaite said the number one thing they're looking for is volume purchasing. That's a feature that came to the iOS store a while ago, but hasn't yet shown up on the Mac App Store yet, and Pixelmator believes they would do well with it. As for the future, Pixelmator certainly has plans, but couldn't share any of them just yet. Getting the 2.2 Blueberry "Shapes" update out is the current focus, and it should be available soon, and definitely in a beta form later on this month. As for the other updates, we'll just have to wait and see.
Daily iPad App: The Lost Shapes builds a puzzle connection
The Lost Shapes is a recently released puzzle game that's not a bad title. You have a queue of tiles with lines and corners on them on the side of the screen, and you're meant to tap them out in order to make certain shapes. It's like Tetris, sort of: You have to manage both the queue of pieces coming down, as well as try to switch around shapes on the board to try and line things up in as few moves as possible. There's both a survival mode and a shape mode. The first just asks you to put together as many shapes as you can for as long as possible, and the second gives you some target shapes to make. The game is well-polished, and the little in-game character ends up being relatively charming, even if at first, I just wanted him to get out of the way and let me play around with the game. The Lost Shapes is a quality title from dreamfab. The gameplay is definitely nice and deep, as you learn more and more about how to build shapes, both from your queue and from the tiles you've placed on the board, and with both the shape and survival mode "campaigns," there's plenty of content to explore and play with. If you're looking for a fun puzzle title to play around with, you can grab it in the store for $2.99.
Philips' OLED Lumiblade showcased in variety of shapes, sizes, and colors this month in Milan
If you're planning to be in Milan later this month, and we know a good lot of you are, we suggest stopping by Superstudio Piú in Zona Tortona between April 22 and 27 to check out Philips' OLED Lumiblade exhibit. The company's promising lighting with dozens of different shapes, sizes and colors will be on display. Can't say we'd necessarily call OLED a "magic material," as the press release does multiple times, but with illuminated designs like this, they're putting up a good argument. Now how about bringing some of these fancy designs to the mass market?[Via OLED-Display]
Fanswag: Get the ultimate Geometry Wars: Galaxies package
Like our brothers and sisters at DS Fanboy, we're providing you, dear reader, with the chance at getting your very own copy of Geometry Wars: Galaxies on both the Wii and DS. In order to unlock a special galaxy available in both versions of the game, you have to have both titles. So, we're making sure that one of you lucky readers receive both! To make things better, there's a sweet piece of swag up for grabs in the form of a branded neck pillow.Simple enough, right? Well, we wish it could be that simple. First, you'll need to read the official rules. Then, you're going to have to check your birth certificate and make sure you are at least 18 years of age. Finally, you're going to have to check your mail and make sure you're a legal resident of the United States. If none of this disqualifies you, then you can go ahead and leave a comment telling us what your favorite shape is. Only enter once, though, as multiple entries will get you disqualified.Get your comment in before 11:59PM EST, December 11th. We'll announce the winner that will get Geometry Wars: Galaxies DS (valued at $29.99), Geometry Wars: Galaxies Wii (valued at $39.99) and the neck pillow on the following day. Good luck and thanks for reading Wii Fanboy!%Gallery-4778%
ShapeOnYou - a basic 3D tool with lots of integration
ShapeOnYou is a 3D tool for drawing and rendering basic 3D objects that can play nicely with other 3D-friendly applications like Keynote and OmniGraffle 4. It features an iWork-like inspector to give you an intuitive interface right out of the box, and it comes with over 20 shapes, as well as the ability to create your own. ShapeOnYou also supports the LinkBack framework, so if you embed a ShapeOnYou project in other LinkBack-enabled apps (such as Nisus Writer Express, Curio, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner and more), the object will be updated in those apps if you make any changes from within ShapeOnYou (a genius framework, really). Finally, ShapeOnYou can export to a wide variety of formats such as PDF, EPS, SVG, VRML, X3D, TIFF, PNG and JPEG.However, since I'm really not that versed in the realm of 3D, I'll stop pretending and just let you check ShapeOnYou out for yourself. ShapeOnYou is a Universal Binary and is available as donationware here.
