Original author(s) | Creature House (up to 3), P&A., Inc. (3J) |
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Developer(s) | Creature House, now acquired by Microsoft |
Stable release | 3.3.372 / Nov 2003 |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X |
Type | Vector graphics editor with skeletal stroke capability |
License | Freeware Proprietary EULA |
Website | www.microsoft.com |
Creature House Expression was an award-winning vector graphics editor developed by Creature House in Hong Kong, founded by Alex S.C. Hsu and Irene H. H. Lee. It was initially marketed through a developer/publisher agreement with Ray Dream Inc. subsequently Fractal Design Corporation and later MetaCreations under the trade name Fractal Design Expression. [1] The software was positioned as a companion to then-Fractal Design/MetaCreations Painter. Creature House regained full marketing rights from MetaCreations Corp. in late 2000 and published version 2 of the software under its own name as Creature House Expression. [2] [3] [4] The latest version of Creature House Expression published by Creature House Ltd is version 3.3.
In Sep 2003, Microsoft acquired the software product together with all related trademarks and titles and hired Dr. Alex S. C. Hsu as an architect. Eventually, Alex S. C. Hsu led a new Microsoft team to continue the development of the software under the code name Acrylic [5] as part of a new Expression Suite Project initiated by Alex S. C. Hsu and others. In 2007, the original Expression application became part of Microsoft's Expression Studio suite of applications, rebranded and rewritten in WPF as Microsoft Expression Design. Windows XP and Vista versions are available, although Mac OS X support was officially discontinued.
Expression uses a unique technology called skeletal stroke. There have been a few research papers on this technology, including the work of Alex S. C. Hsu and Irene H. H. Lee, [6] who are the original developers of Expression.
Along with Expression, Create House also developed animation software called LivingCels, featuring the same technology, including skeletal strokes, as in Expression. [7] LivingCels was released as a public preview, [8] but never made it to final release after Creature House was purchased by Microsoft.
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design program developed and marketed by Adobe Inc. Originally designed for the Apple Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began in 1985. Along with Creative Cloud, Illustrator CC was released. The latest version, Illustrator 2022, was released on October 26, 2021, and is the 25th generation in the product line. Adobe Illustrator was reviewed as the best vector graphics editing program in 2018 by PC Magazine.
Corel Painter is a raster-based digital art application created to simulate as accurately as possible the appearance and behavior of traditional media associated with drawing, painting, and printmaking. It is intended to be used in real-time by professional digital artists as a functional creative tool.
Bryce, also often referred to colloquially as Bryce3D, is a 3D modeling, rendering and animation program specializing in fractal landscapes. The name is taken from Bryce Canyon—a rugged region with many of the same landscapes that were first simulated with the software.
A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a comparison of vector graphics editors based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the software license, the feature set, the merits of the user interface (UI) and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable for artistic work while others are better for technical drawings. Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.
Raster graphics editors can be compared by many variables, including availability.
Microsoft Expression Studio is a discontinued suite of tools for designing and building Web and Windows client applications and rich digital media content.
MetaCreations was a computer software company that was best known for its graphics applications, notably Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce, and Kai's Power Tools.
Carrara is a full-featured 3D computer graphics application featuring figure posing and editing, as well as nature modeling, in addition to traditional modeling, animation, texturing and rendering. The software is also capable of dynamic hair and fur simulations, particle effects, soft body and rigid body dynamics. Carrara is now owned and developed by Daz 3D. Carrara is compatible with Poser and Daz Studio formats of 3D figures and props. It is further supported by a number of 3rd party plug-ins and add-ons.
This article deals with productivity software created for the Amiga line of computers and covers the AmigaOS operating system and its derivates AROS and MorphOS and is a split of main article Amiga software. See also related articles Amiga Internet and communications software, Amiga music software, Amiga programming languages, and Amiga support and maintenance software for other information regarding software that run on Amiga.
RETAS is a 2D animation software bundle developed and sold by Celsys that is available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It handles the entire animation production from digitally drawing or tracing to exporting in Flash and QuickTime, and is considered to be a leader in Japan's anime industry including Toei Animation. RETAS was later succeeded by Clip Studio Paint.
Dabbler is natural media drawing software aimed at beginners. It was initially developed by Fractal Design Corporation. It is a simplified version of Fractal Design Painter, and included multimedia tutorials and a fullscreen interface. Dabbler was released as "Art Dabbler" after the MetaCreations merger, and rights were eventually transferred to Corel. Dabbler operating system is Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows.
Fractal-generating software is any type of graphics software that generates images of fractals. There are many fractal generating programs available, both free and commercial. Mobile apps are available to play or tinker with fractals. Some programmers create fractal software for themselves because of the novelty and because of the challenge in understanding the related mathematics. The generation of fractals has led to some very large problems for pure mathematics.
GrafX2 is a bitmap graphics editor inspired by the Amiga programs Deluxe Paint and Brilliance. It is free software and distributed under the GPL-2.0-or-later license.
Serif have a range of software products, which are listed below.
CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation. It is also the name of the Corel graphics suite, which includes the bitmap-image editor Corel Photo-Paint as well as other graphics-related programs. The latest version is marketed as CorelDraw Graphics Suite, and was released for Windows and macOS on March 8, 2022. It is designed to edit two-dimensional images such as logos and posters. Reduced-feature Standard and Essentials versions are also offered.
Microsoft Expression Design was Microsoft's commercial professional illustration vector and raster graphic design tool for web images based on Creature House Expression, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2003. It is available free of charge from Microsoft and is component of the discontinued Microsoft Expression Studio suite. Expression Design is more oriented towards editing XAML and web graphics rather than print graphics and does not incorporate all of the raster image editing features of the original Creature House Expression.
DigiCel FlipBook is 2D animation software that runs on Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. It is intended to closely replicate the traditional animation process, very similar to the likes of TVPaint and Toon Boom Harmony.
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor developed by Serif for macOS, iPadOS, and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the "Affinity trinity" alongside Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Designer is available for purchase directly from the company website and in the Mac App Store, iOS App Store, and the Microsoft Store.