Anybody working with Microsofts' Expression family of grahic, web and program design tools? Any comments on any of them?
Their graphic designer is an updated version of Creature House Expression, an Illustrator type program with natural looking brushstrokes in a vector system. Very cool.
I worked with a beta of the paint illustrator software. It left me a little annoyed, but I have a great deal of time inside analogous Adobe software, so I am somewhat biased.
But, it is likely that the usefulness of the software will actually be within development teams as it is supposedly very coordinated with Visual Studio. Particularly the 3d elements of Sparkle, which is yet to be out on beta...
We'll see.
Judging by the overwhelming responses, MS has a long way to go in terms of getting a user base. I understand the Adobe bias, it'sa little different to get around in but once you get the UI, it's actually pretty fast.
I'm fairly fluent in PS, Premiere Pro and AFter Effects, but could never get used to Illustrator. The raster part of Acrylic is just not a s good as PS, but the vector part I like so much more than lllustrator. Just my 2 cents.
But Creature House, who originally developed it, also came up with Living Cels, similar to the Vector part of the program but with animation capabilities. It was offered as a beta download for mayybe a week or two, then MS bought the company and Living Cels disappeared. Damn!
Living Cels truly rocked...
