Product Reviews

Multimedia Fusion is a repackaged touched-up version of Corel's half-forgotten authoring tool Click & Create, itself an upgraded version of Europress' games creator Klik & Play. Its roots in games creation are still very evident, but that legacy doesn't necessarily mean that the new version can't be considered alongside mainstream tools.

Multimedia Fusion is a codeless visual authoring tool and, as such, can be compared to the likes of Mediator (reviewed issue 41, p208) and Illuminatus (reviewed issue 46, p196). It's intended to be simple enough for beginners to use while also having the depth required by professionals.

The first major improvement over Click & Create is the interface. Multimedia Fusion looks more like the professional authoring tool it purports to be with application and project level windows alongside the existing content editors.

A Multimedia Fusion project can be made up of a number of applications, each of which is shown in the project window. At this level you can define an overall menu structure, global events and values. You're also able to specify how many lives the player has and the initial score value. The inclusion of such variables as lives betrays the fact that, hidden only a layer below the surface, is Klik & Play. Although it's capable of so much more, it still retains the feel of a lighter weight games creator.

Once you've got your project, you can then create its first application. As with projects, applications have properties such as window size, password access, events that take place when the application starts and transitions. Each application is created with a single untitled frame that also has properties. Double-clicking the frame opens the Frame Editor and it's here that you add objects.

Multimedia Fusion comes with a library of over 5,000 backgrounds, graphics and animated objects. To add an object from a library, you open it, then drag and drop. However, if you take a look at the screen shot you'll see that there are now four windows open. The interface can become cluttered and, as a result, it definitely benefits from being run in high-resolution modes on a large monitor.

Multimedia Fusion isn't complicated but, by way of explanation, imagine I've created a blank application containing a ball from the

ADVERTISEMENT

tutorial library. I'm going to create a simple screen saver that animates the ball around the screen. If you were to run the application now, the frame would appear but the ball would do nothing. To add behaviours to it, you must right-click and select Properties, New Movement and assign it bouncing ball, then go on to set properties such as speed and initial direction.

If you were to run this application, the screen would now show the ball moving off in a random direction but disappearing over the edge of the screen. I now need to tell it what should happen when it collides with the edge, and this is done in the Event Editor. Putting together a presentation in Multimedia Fusion is essentially a case of adding objects and assigning properties in the Frame Editor, then indicating what happens when they, for example, collide with other objects, reach certain positions or exceed values in the Event Editor.

You can create some powerful and highly interactive applications. However, due to its easy visual approach, Fusion's main strength still lies with creating screen savers and simple games, hence its popularity with educational software providers.

Multimedia Fusion adds MMX support, although, as is often the case, it's pretty hard to tell the difference. A number of new objects have been added, including a file manager, shared data array and the sub-application. Unfortunately, a few little glitches that existed in Click & Create are still evident. IMSI would have done better to eradicate these before adding new features.

Significantly, Multimedia Fusion supports Vitalize, a plug-in that allows browsers to play Fusion applications in the same way that ShockWave plays Director Movies. IMSI is touting this as a new feature, but Vitalize has been around for some time and the bug-fix updates to Click & Create added the ability to export in the appropriate format. Indeed, the only change I can find is that it actually works with Click & Create. Trying to run a Fusion application through a browser results in a message telling me that the Vitalize plug-in is out of date. Unfortunately, the Web page to which the Fusion manual directs me didn't exist and the official Vitalize Web site still contains the old version. This is a pity, because Vitalize can deliver quite stunning results and the old version is only 511Kb in size. I suspect that, by the time you read this, you'll be able to find the new version on IMSI's Web site.

So, how does it stack up against its competitors? The answer depends very much on the sort of multimedia you're looking to produce. Multimedia Fusion simply can't touch Mediator or Illuminatus for ease of use, productivity or all-round flexibility. However, for games-based educational software, high-impact presentations, multimedia portfolios or eye-catching demos, it makes a tempting Director substitute at a fraction of the price.