Disney's Magic Artist 3D

by Disney

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004YUGH
• Item model number: 1997201
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 6, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,564 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #40 in Software > Children's Software > Art & Creativity
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

The problem with sculpting in clay is the mess, and if you're a parent, it takes nothing more than hearing excited voices shouting, "Play-Doh!" to raise the hairs on your neck and send you scrambling for the cheap tablecloth. The idea, then, of a virtual clay studio is appealing--all the creative freedom kids want, with none of the mess.

Disney's Magic Artist 3D satisfies that creative hunger, at least to a large degree. Designed for the younger set, this basic 3-D modeling tool lets kids build shapes of their own, apply textures, group objects, and manipulate them onscreen. It also includes a modest library of such prebuilt shapes as a cow, dog, couch, doghouse, fence, wagon, etc. Any shape can be added to any scene, and then colored in a variety of ways--by using a paint bucket and a color of your choice, or by selecting a predefined pattern. Adding a striped design to a 3-D cow is always fun, especially when it's standing on a cow-patterned couch.

The highlight of the program comes by adding Mickey Mouse himself to a scene. While this isn't an animation program, Mickey has some animated actions of his own--adding him to your creations and pressing the play button makes him do things like throw sparkles into the air.

The soundtrack and sound effects are first rate--good speakers make a nice difference, too. Interesting and fun sounds reinforce the selected tool, helping you to remember which tool does what by differentiating it both visually and audibly.

If you've got a little one that's dying to make things with his or her hands, Disney's Magic Artist 3D may be just the creative outlet you're all looking for. (All ages) --Mike Caputo

Amazon.com Product Description

Disney's Magic Artist 3D is an entertaining, fun, and easy 3-D art tool for the kid in everyone. Create your own 3-D characters, scenery, or objects and morph them any way you like. Choose the color, the texture, the camera angle, and set your creation in motion. You can save your masterpiece as a movie, greeting card, or postcard--or even export them to your home page. Just pick a shape or draw your own freehand in real 3-D. Twist, squash, splash, spatter, and smooth your shapes into amazing 3-D objects. Resize, spin, pull, and push, like using your fingers to shape putty. Scan in photographs and mold them onto objects. Change their textures into wood, clay, and metal. Pick patterns such as translucent stars or huge polka dots. Animate your creation simply by dragging the mouse across your 3-D objects. You can save it as a movie, a greeting card, or a postcard--or post your creations on your Web page.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Go for the 2D version instead, January 22, 2001

By 

GVlog "GV" (Northern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disney's Magic Artist 3D (CD-ROM)

My daughter was a veteran of Disney's Magic Artist Classic and the current Disney's Magic Artist. She unfortunately had problems with this program and the problem is translating the user-interface into something kids can understand. The 2D versions of Magic Artist followed the lead of programs like Kai's Power Tools by using image metaphors for the tools. Want to spray-paint your canvass? Pick up a can of spray paint. Want to have a crayon-like texture? Pick up a crayon. Alas, there are no metaphors which work well in 3D artistry so the buttons and tools in this program are not immediately intuitive. You REALLY have to read the manual to understand how to use the program. 3D Artist is also a bit of a resource hog. Even with 128MB of RAM, the program will stop us in the middle of a creation to tell us that we've run out of memory (Yikes!). You can also add only 1 color and 1 texture to each element of an object. You can color Mickey's head and his nose but you can't paint eyes on him or draw his face-mask. Animation of objects is also limited to a few sets of actions (spinning, hopping, zig-zagging, etc.). I should note that my daughter and I managed to deal with these problems and limitations because I've done 3D PC art before. My advice to you is to wait until Disney Interactive comes out with version 2 of this program.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disney has some problems, December 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Disney's Magic Artist 3D (CD-ROM)

After installing this software, an error occured. After about 2 hours of searching Disney's website for some answers, the best they could come up with was "return it for a refund". Apparently, this software doesn't work with certain sound cards and video cards. The website of course couldn't tell you which ones. What major disappointment. My children were so excited to make Mickey and I had to explain to them that there was no way to make it work. Thanks for nothing Disney.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars not the best for the money, December 2, 2002

By 

J & M's mom (Northville, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disney's Magic Artist 3D (CD-ROM)

Like many of the previous reviewers, this software is interesting but not worth the money. After playing with it for alittle while, you'll want to move on. I accidentally bought it thinking it was Magic Artist Classic or Magic Artist Studio (which I still plan to get). Like someone else wrote, wait until they come out with a future version (#2 or #3...).