Illuminatus 4 review

Slightly confusingly, the Frame object is implemented as a container for any other objects. This allows objects to be treated as groups and displayed or animated together. Illuminatus now includes a Browser object as well, to act as a viewport for HTML files situated either locally or on the Internet.

Lastly, Illuminatus now includes the Slideshow object. This is an impressive object that allows a series of images to be selected and then displayed in sequence. It can be used in the traditional way to create a full-screen slideshow, but is more useful for cel animation. You can specify a transparent colour, the length of time each image is displayed, and even a transition effect. As an alternative to using the Slideshow, Illuminatus is one of the few authoring tools to directly support Animated GIFs.

To see how Illuminatus works in practice, I put together a product catalogue. The main reason for splitting a publication into chapters is to add pages with different sizes and styles. For example, I want a help page and a pop-up, so I need a chapter for each of these. The main window is made up of three customised buttons that show a different picture when the mouse moves over them.

Illuminatus handles picture selection in a similar way to its sister product Paint Shop Pro's Browser, by creating a thumbnail of each picture. Although this makes selection simple, Illuminatus doesn't seem to be able to recognise when a picture has changed. In fact, I had to rename the picture file to have it appear correctly. If you're looking for pictures, two CDs are included with PCX format photographs.

You can add actions to pages as well as objects. In this case, I've specified that the page will play a background sound when loaded. Unfortunately, Illuminatus doesn't support DirectSound, so you can't have, for example, a voice-over playing over background music; you're effectively limited to one channel.

Clicking on my Help button jumps to the help screen. It's smaller than the main screen, so it appears on top. I've used a variable to specify what help text I want to appear: this allows me to have a single help screen with several hidden textboxes.

You have two main options when it comes to packaging your presentation. In most cases, you'll want it to run from a CD-ROM, requiring that no files be added to the host PC. Otherwise, you can specify that Illuminatus creates a set of distributable files and a setup application. Illuminatus does include an HTML output option, but this will be of use for only very basic presentations. Indeed, improved HTML output, along with various bug fixes, is the main feature of the upgrade to 4.1 available for free download from Digital Workshop's site. Illuminatus comes with its own plug-in, weighing in at over 600K, which will allow publications to be viewed within Internet Explorer, but there are no useful instructions on how to implement it.

So, how does it stack up against the competition? Well, at this price, its main competition is Mediator Pro 4 (reviewed issue 41, p208) and I have to admit that the choice is a difficult one. Mediator has reusable template pages, the excellent Timeline object and an easy-to-use Internet plug-in. Illuminatus has cel animation, the best interface I've seen, user-definable windows, lots of extras, and it's £50 cheaper, too. Both use high-productivity authoring tools, with a range and depth of features to rival their higher priced cousins, and they're both easy to learn. If you're looking to get into the multimedia authoring field, either of these packages will suit. Ultimately it will be down to the extras included, such as Illuminatus' clip-art that may sway your decision.

Author: Kevin Partner