Matts Blog

I neglected to play the first Dawn Of War (DoW) games, they featured the usual base building and repetition that most RTS games manage to suffer from. But DoW2 managed to break the mold here when it attempts an RTS/RPG mixture and removes the base building from the main campaign.

I’ll be upfront here,  I haven’t finished the storyline, and the Dreadnought in the screenshot above was from a skirmish with AI… but it made for one nice screenshot – there is the biggest thing this game has to show off, the engine is quite marvellous really. Buildings, rocks, trees and all manner of things can be broken, crushed or blown apart as you progress through the map. And then the weapon effects strafing across the battlefield – yum!

Reading reviews it seems the missions are repetitive to people, but I suspect any MMO player will know the real meaning of repetition – this will seem minor in comparison. Cinematics are pretty good, and so I’m told that this has been an above average affair with the DoW series.

I find it very strange that Steam is required for installation, activation and patching – while Games For Windows LIVE manages all the achievements. Is there a reason achievements can only be gained on one of these platforms and not both? I find myself preferring Steam over GFWL on a regular basis, though I can understand it might tempt more XBox players off their consoles.

Stand by for a second review of stomping great mechs, jetpack shinanigans and heavy bolter action – I’ll have a second part review once I’ve finished the campaign.

I went about downloading the Release Candidate for Windows 7 last night, with a little bit of excitement but also some slight worries; the main one being that Microsoft has promised on OS that can run efficiently on laptops. The last time I heard Microsoft say efficient or “do better” in regards to past products was Internet Explorer 8, and that has some serious surf-breaking issues.

Back to Windows 7, the install went fine – including using Vista’s Disk Management tools to create an extra partition to keep my old OS’s in one piece. It even managed to pick up all the hardware on my system without so much as an wince. Even my more exotic Z-board was picked up and worked normally (though I still suspect I will require the full-drivers to get all functionality from it). The new Windows Media Player (if it is indeed new, it seemed so) is once again rearranged from previous versions – something I thought worked ok and people could get used to MS decides to change it again.

I’m still bothered by the loss of ability to turn a folder into a toolbar on the desktop, it was by far one of my most favourite features – and made a workspace out of what would otherwise be wasted sides of my screen. The overall feeling seems a little floaty, if not flakey; while they have this handy preview feature including the ability to close applications from them (Vista could see them, but not close them) I feel its adding a layer of unnecessary fluff.

Alternatively I look at it as adapting to an otherwise largely non-existent technology in-the-home such as touch-screen, large buttons and icons are suitable for that use – but otherwise seem useless for the accurate keyboard/mouse setup found most commonly on systems. My final gripe comes from the claim that they are making an operating system which is less resource hungry, for me they are struggling to prove this with a fresh install needing 1/4 of my RAM (1GB) – when my Vista on an old install is still only using 1.3GB.

Perhaps I am for once being resistant to change – it won’t stop me from experimenting and attempting to get used to a new operating system, its certainly different – but attempts to simplify through complication of tasks. As a side effect I even noted: “I can’t wait to get back to Vista”… even though I have admittedly fallen in love with the awkward beast.

I won’t go much into Serif as a company, after all its not a company I know much about except they produce such software as Drawplus and Photoplus – just to name a couple. But here I will be focusing on Serif’s newest release of the Drawplus application, Drawplus X3 to be precise. The application has certainly developed since the last Drawplus version I used (7).

So what is it?

Drawplus X3 is essentially a Vector drawing application (as opposed to bitmap applications such as Photoshop/MS Paint), but this version also boasts some ability to paint in a vector style using a set of brushes, and supports pressure sensitivity on tablets (I have no idea which tablets are supported).

Interface and Accessibility:

Upon starting the program the first thing I noticed was the Graphical User Interface, this is a common gripe I have with things like anti-virus and firewall programs. I would very much like the option to have a barebones skin using the Operating Systems interface (afterall its one of the redeeming qualities of Vista). This skin seems a little ‘hacky’ for my taste, but I’ll leave this gripe where it is.

They have this wonderful feature which allows the interface to be moved about depending on your intended task (such as artwork, graphical or technical drawings). Unfortunately changing the measurement units from inches to pixels permanently (as thats what I work with mostly) proved difficult, although a quick search found the answer I was looking for – the application now lets you save your settings permanently or just leave them unsaved for a single project (if you change them when needed). Regardless of the above fact, I still can’t find a way to change the pt measurement to px in other places (such as line width) – while I know a rough measurement of px to pt I would still rather have the accuracy of the application doing it.

I jumped with glee when I discovered a tiny tick-box, appearing underneath the layout measurement preference.

Features:

I still see a lot of similar features from Drawplus 7, but they have been made much more prominent and available from the main-screen rather than buried under a menu or two. And a very flexible user interface which seems to be pretty much ready to use, though I am already considering changing the workspace to suite my needs and logic a little more.

The two most prominent new features for myself include auto-trace, which essentially turns an image of your choice into a vector-able set of objects. The Autotrace feature seems to be highly malleable, allowing for some easy customization (this was lacking in earlier versions and it proved difficult to get right). The included live-preview makes it easier to assume what the overall outcome will finally look like; and even allows some tools to customise it slightly.

The other feature is the inclusion of overlays (and 3D Planes) – the former of the two allow the user to create aesthetically appealing images (the human eye/brain). Two overlays are included one is the divine proportions (seen often in instruments/fantasy) and the latter is the rule of thirds (often seen in photography/landscapes). 3D Planes seems to be aimed towards the technical artist which allows for easy drawing of 3D objects such as a cube.

Advanced Options:

After a little digging around I discovered the ability to change the renderer from software to a hardware renderer (such as DirectX or OpenGL), hopefully for myself this will improve performance when working on something complex. In terms of performance, I haven’t had a crash when the application is under a lot of load (for example a complex Autotrace), although Vista’s automatic end-program request did appear; which is ignorable.

Conclusion:

Overall Serif seem to have outdone themselves with this latest iteration of their Drawplus series, I so far haven’t had a catastrophic memory error wiping out any of my work (present in Serif Drawplus 7) – and generally it seems to be far better optimised. My only niggle would be the user interface skin, while the main window buttons and lists are fine, I would appreciate the option to show Vista’s window-frame. Otherwise this application is a sound investment for hobbyists who cannot afford the high price tag of many other solutions. Definitely recommended!