Graphics on the Macintosh: Then and Now

Years ago, back in the Eighties, there was only MacDraw and MacPaint for the Macintosh. Primitive tool they were, but serviceable for almost anyone! For those of us in Graphics as a profession, the first serious professional Graphics drawing program to come out for the Mac was Altsys FreeHand. It was a revelation, because it made use of an intuitive Bezier Tool, which meant you could now draw complex shapes easily. Layering was also intuitive, meaning you could color and shade elaborate illustrations very quickly. MacDraw did not have a Bezier tool of any consequence, and MacPaint could only produce low resolution Bitmapped graphics, which were not suitable for publication. FreeHand also worked with Adobe PostScript, which was the language our Mac laser printers used to produce beautiful vector-based prints. Finally, I could leave my old drafting board, and the hundreds of years old paradigm behind! Industrial drawing and publication art would never be the same again.

Soon, Adobe got into professional Graphics on the Mac, since they already had the another tool for Desktop Publishing, FrameMaker. Their new drawing app was called Illustrator. It was not as intuitive to me as FreeHand, so I did not use it. Illustrator soon got a bigger following with most Graphics houses because of the installed base of Adobe users who already had their all fonts and postscript software. In the late Eighties, there was a big race between Aldus (who bought the rights to FreeHand) and Adobe to add features to their apps, and generally outdo each other. Graphics and Publications companies usually hired their Illustrators based on which program they could use, rather than their talent! There really were few crossover graphics companies in the famous graphics war between Aldus and Adobe. Adobe still has a much larger installed base. MacWorld, in one of its yearly shootoffs, pegged Adobe over FreeHand at 60/40 %. But even they would not always give Illustrator kudos as being easier to use than FreeHand. Guess it depended on who did the review each year.

During this time, in Los Angeles, I worked in Aerospace, at both Rockewell and Northrop. These were crossover companies which used both Illustrator and FreeHand apps in their graphics departments. They were two of the rare companies who allowed their artists to use either app. I remember we had long “chats” at the water cooler and at lunch, between our two camps, over who had the superior program! Because of our competition, we were all fabulously productive, which was of great benefit to our companies. Using either program, our graphics files were saved as EPS for placement in FrameMaker (Ugh! A very hard page layout program to use because of its non-intuitive interface and buggy code!)

Other independent graphic houses where I worked required one of these two programs, and did not allow the other to be used. Most of those places required Adobe software. People tended to be very snobbish about their excellent choice in software! Those of us who did overnight work for those places usually worked from our homes. We would pick up the roughs at 4 PM , go home and work all night, and bring back our finished work on floppies at 8 AM. Some of us worked in FreeHand. We usually converted our drawing files to Illustrator before turning them in, so as to keep peace with our bosses. (Did we tell ’em what we used? Nah!) I used FreeHand because it was more productive for me. (I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way!) More drawings completed each night meant more pay on Friday. I got through those drawings and charts much faster than I could have using Adobe Illustrator. This also meant that I got more of the work that there was to do, because I was more productive to those graphics houses, and THAT kept their aerospace customers happy.

To be fair about this whole FreeHand/Illustrator thing, we did have a graphics shootout once, at Interactive Publications and Graphics, in Fulterton, back in 1996. Three top artists from both camps were given the same 12 line drawings, charts and IPBs to do overnight, in house. We worked our butts off to prove our program was the best. We just knew we would win this one! The early morning light revealed that competition to be a DRAW, to the frustration of all concerned!

I am beginning to suspect that the same “right brain/left brain” paradigm somehow applies to our art, as it does with whether we prefer the Mac or the PC. Both groups will swear that their software is much more capable, easier to use, etc, etc. But because in our shootout, no one WAS faster, I assume that it was the perception and ability of the USER that made either one of the two graphics applications so productive. People did say, afterward, that our two groups approached the creation of their drawings much differently than the others. For instance, I used the freehanding tool and did all the parallel lines in the drawing first and then morphed my corners. Others used only the pen tool to draw continuous lines as they traced over their roughs.

Therefore, ask any veteran graphics designer, artist or publication expert. They will tell you that either Illustrator or FreeHand is still king of the 2D graphics applications! “My program (add your favorite here) is great for both speed of drawing, and for print color faithfulness. Our Publishers really love (fill in your favorite here) because it is so Productive! All real Artists love only (fill in your favorite here) because the app is so transparent! Its learning curve is moderate, and is much better to use than that other one, and because it “gets out of your way” when you draw with it, so you can concentrate on being creative, rather than fighting the poor interface that that other graphics app has!” (Come to think of it, the above quote probably applies to any software program you use, and in which you excel at producing something! But you’re not predjudiced about your apps, are you?)

FreeHand changed hands a few times, even as it was being continually upgraded. Adobe briefly get FreeHand. Aldus, who created PageMaker, aquired the Marketing rights to FreeHand from Altsys. Years later, Adobe aquired Aldus, thus getting both PageMaker and FreeHand. Altsys then sued Adobe over the use of FreeHand, and won! Then Altsys was bought by Macromedia, and thus FreeHand became their product.

During the early years, even MacDraw was upgraded and got to be popular with a lot of graphics houses, especially in Aerospace. It was very easy to train people on, but not very powerful. For the multitude of simple charts and graphs, it did not need to be! Even the United States Air Force was big on MacDraw. Others graphics applications tried to compete with the Big Two. There was briefly MacDraft, eternally buggy, but it is still around someplace.

There were also paint programs. The very first was MacPaint. Silicon Beach’s SuperPaint came next, which many of its users swore by. After that came Canvas, which was and still is, much like MacDraw in its tool set. These were the biggest paint apps, which complimented FreeHand and Illustrator on the Mac in the late Eighties.

Some of those paint programs survive today with many added page layout features, photo tools and filters, and even 3D tools and features. We call the newer versions of these apps Bloatware, which is software that takes a lot of hard drive space and is slow to load all its special features and tools! Bloatware happens for two reasons. First you got a software staff, who needs to justify their continuing to work. Therefore, they invent “improvements” to the software or its interface (while you might like your version just fine). Second, these software companies compete with each other, and they also want more market share. Therefore, they try to add new features, such as page layout or photo manipulation. Before these apps were just an elegant drawing program. Now they have become the Swiss Army Knife of all graphics apps! Therefore, many people, although they own the latest version of an app, may still use an earier version because it is smaller and faster than the newer Bloatware version. The older one is just simple in comparison. This is true of most applications, from PageMaker to Illustrator to MSWord. Do you still use an older version of something?

Some of the paint and graphics apps, alas, are no more! MacPaint hung on for a long time till Apple gave up on it. Fractile Painter was one of the more popular paint apps that came along to take its place. However, THE one awesome program that ruled from the day it came out was Adobe PhotoShop! PhotoShop is still the king of painting, rendering and photo touch-up in the majority of Graphics production houses and departments today.

To speak of some of the page layout programs, such as PageMaker and Quark Express, (lets not get into the war between PageMaker and Quark! We got enough to cover here with the graphics applications!) PageMaker was Aldus’ very first product, and it saved the Macintosh! This is because it became the Killer App of the new Desktop Publishing Trend of the Eighties! Adobe had FrameMaker for desktop publishing. Quark came along afterward and was soon adopted by most Graphics and Publications houses because of its formidible precision with text. Quark was non-intuitive, and hard to learn. But if you wanted to work for the best places, you learned it! Which of these is better? I’d say for ease of use, PageMaker, of course! But understand that I am predjudiced here as well. However, either Quark or PageMaker are lightyears ahead of FrameMaker, or Microsoft Word, or WordPerfect, or anything else in text and page layout applications! Then there is the “New Kid on the Block,” Adobe InDesign! Easy to use like PageMaker, but as powerful (or more powerful) than Quark Express! It should be interesting to see who wins this shootout!

To get back to our subject, both Illustrator and FreeHand are also lightyears ahead of apps like Corel, (in any form, version, or platform)! I know. I had to teach a course in it at school, on the PC! In the early Nineties, on the PC side, Corel stood alone above the competition of Arts and Letters, and Harvard Graphics. Specifically, Corel was much harder to use than Illustrator, but offered fewer tools and features than MacDraw in its earlier versions. It also was terribly buggy, often freezing to screen and keyboard for no apparent reason. Yet, there are many people who swear by it (and I suppose, many who swear at it).

Also about the same time, Microsoft got into a little graphics with their famous MSWorks, and PowerPoint. MSWorks for the Mac had excellent MacDraw-like drawing tools. Those same drawing tools were not offered on the PC, although there were extremely primitive drawing tools on later versions of MSWord for both platforms.

The major reason why most “productive” Graphics houses shunned the PC and its graphics software is that the PCs, even with their Mac-like graphics applications were not productive! All through the Eighties and Nineties, almost every one of the magazine, newspaper, graphics houses, and most movie and television production companies used the Macintosh to be both productive and competitive in meeting their deadlines and making cost effective art. I call this the “90/10” business model. Ninety percent of businesses in this country use the PC and Microsoft applications for routine business graphics, charts, presentations, etc. Ten percent of businesses, (all involving high-level graphics) used the Macintosh. Nothing was as productive, or cost effective for publishing, advertising, technical illustration, or graphic art production as the Macintosh was, in both Desktop Publishing and Commercial and Professional Graphics! I maintain that even today, nothing is as cost effective and productive as a Mac in any area! Wanna do a shootout?

2D Animation followed a similar history, Studio 8 was the forerunner to MacroMind Director (now MacroMedia Director). HyperCard was its chief competitor in the Eighties. There was also Astound, which was similar to PowerPoint. Most all of us on the Mac had PowerPoint along with MSWord and Excel programs, although few of us liked it. Powerpoint on the PC is still the one presentation application used in mainstream business, regardless of the fact that it is still not a reliable application! Today on the Mac or the PC, the 2D animation program MacroMedia Director stands alone as the preferred 2D software used by Graphics departments to produce everything from CDs, to games, to high level presentations and kiosks. Nothing touched its productivity and creativity. If you remember Space Pirates and Myst, these excellent CDs were both produced using Director, as well as countless thousands of business demos and promos.

By the late Nineties, Graphics production on the PC was changing, largely due to Adobe porting their Illustrator to the PC, along with PageMaker. This did little to erode the hold the Mac has in the graphics field. Even though you can do the same work with the same applications on the PC today, people that do graphics for a living use the Mac. They do this because they can make money doing their graphics. They are productive on the Mac. That is something that may not yet be possible on the PC, largely because of the buggyness of the PC’s Windows interface, and because the necessary production standards for color, print, and film are not yet completely in place on the PC platform.

Interestingly, there was almost no 3D software for the Macintosh until the mid Nineties. 3D apps are very different than 2D drawing and animation programs. Their chief difference is in their ability to make virtual three dimensional models of any product or object, and to animate that precisely over time and space. 3D in the early years of the personal computer was done almost exclusively on Unix workstations and their expensive variations. Alias was the best of the 3D lot, although there were a number of up and coming software competitors, all of whom were incompatible with each other, and all required a long learning curve.

There are a ton of cheap and easy to learn 2D graphics and drawing programs on the market today. as well as many page layout apps that do drawings too. Illustrator and FreeHand are just older than the others. Some of these new apps also include photo manipulation tools and filters like PhotoShop does, (a few of them even use PhotoShop filters) You have a rich heritage, and a great selection to choose from with all these graphics apps, whether or not you consider yourself a professional artist!

We have covered most of the graphics applications for the Mac, both then and now. Almost all of the graphics apps today share a common feature set, and work nearly the same way. This is great for you, because if you learned one of these, chancer are, you can work in any of them! It is your preference! Today, in the professional field, there is Adobe Illustrator, MacroMedia FreeHand, Deneba Canvas graphics apps for the Mac. These are the ones used in professional Graphics Production and Publications.

If you are going to do drawings and illustrations for a living, learn any or all of these apps. However, if you are in Production Graphics, and making a living at it, you know things are rapidly changing, so read on!

In fact, you might want to consider learning something else entirely!

The 2D apps are all going away soon (in the professional Graphics field)! This is according to most of the bigger Graphics houses. This includes 2D animation programs, such as Director. Even venerable PhotoShop might be forsaken by what is coming next.

3D modeling applications are taking their place for Static Art production! This is simply because in the time that an artist can create a 2D rendering, a 3D modeler can build a virtual model of whatever the product is that is to be published. The advantage is apparent. You can take a 3D model and rotate it, recolor it, modify it, explode it into its various parts, and add very sophisticated lighting and shading; all in a few minutes. Then you can render as many different views as you wish. With any 2D apps, you would have to draw your drawing all over again to make just one more view.

Productivity drives the graphics! It is much more cost effective to train 3D modelers to create illustrations and publication graphics, than to employ 2D graphics people to do the same thing.

A smart person, starting out, should learn one of these 3D programs before looking for work. The best of the 3D apps are MetaCreations Infini-D, Strata Studio, NewTek Lightwave, Maya, FormZ, and Animation Studio.

These programs are listed in order of ease of learning and cost of owning:

Infini-D. You can purchase Infini-D for about $300 and learn it in a few hours. This is a great starting program for learning how to do modeling. Their tutorials are weak, so take a class, or get online support, or find a buddy who knows how to use it.

Lightwave is a commercial grade modeling and animation application. It costs about $1500 and takes a good couple of weeks to learn. I recommend taking a college or tech school class, which also might include a copy of the software and all the books.

Animation Studio costs thousands of dollars, as does its competitors, Maya, FormZ, Alias WaveFront, and POV. Their learning curve is steep, as is their hardware requirements, not all of which are for the Macintosh. However, once you go to college and learn one of these programs, you will almost always find steady employment in one of the fast growing high level video, film or gaming studios on the West Coast or the Pacific Rim.

For Static Art Publications and Graphics houses, the majority are beginning to use either Strata Studio or NewTek Lightwave to generate their best Static Art production (art used in publications and books).

Most independent illustrators prefer MetaCreations Infini-D for Web Animation. It is cheap and fast, and perfect for 72 dpi output (which is what your monitor displays your desktop in).

Also for the Web is MacroMedia Flash and ShockWave Vector-based Graphics. This is a new app that does not produce Bitmapped graphics. Vector-based graphics are so fast rendering because they are not Bitmapped. Therefore, the computer can render them very fast as they load in your Browser. However, Flash has a clunky, primitive interface and is also hard to learn and not so intuitive, so take a class!

The most powerful of the3D applications are used in high end video and film, and they run on either Unix platforms, or on proprietary hardware. They have not been ported yet to the Macintosh. Pixar is a good example of such a company using these 3D apps in making movies. Interestingly, Pixar is Apple iCEO Steve Jobs’ other turf! Perhaps therefore, it is possible that the Mac will soon have ported a few of the most powerful 3D software applications, which should give Apple an additional boost in the field it has always reigned in: Commercial and Professional Graphics.

You can get a good sampling of MetaCreations Infini-D, along with some Lightwave samples, at their respective websites, or at Roger’s whole site was animated with Infini-D in a few hours. Most of the more sophisticated animations and graphics were created with Lightwave for commercial production. Roger teaches Computer Graphics and Forensic Animation at several Universities in Orange County, California.


Roger Born
roger@mymac.com

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