The interface

Open up 3D Edit (a free trial, fully functional version can be download, with a Tenomichi watermark the only small cost) and you'll be struck by the interface. 3D edit is true to its name - there's no 2D environment here. Gone are standard windows menus stuck at the top, in are textured, coloured buttons. A note to the technologically challenged amongst us: to experience the graphical user interface (GUI) in its full glory, you may need to crank up your graphics card settings. A simple read of the online manual and an adjustment to the Anti-aliasing setting of your graphics card will ensure you see a smooth user interface.

There's a few nice touches here: some buttons spin around to reveal hidden functions (either by clicking and dragging or using the scroll wheel on your mouse) and clicking on a window's magnify glass neatly expands the window to fill the screen. But this radical interface does seem a little cluttered, with the arrangement and design of some of the buttons making the text hard read. A minor detail that could be easily changed.

In fact it's likely this will happen, with the user interface being a skinners delight! Click on the skin button above the timeline and the browse window presents you with a selection of alternative designs.

I did notice however that if windows become overlapped, they tend to become transparent with the bottom window showing through. Not a problem if all windows are docked in their default positions, but may be an issue as you start using additional functionality and opening up more that the default number of windows. Additionally, the top line of text from the project window was missing on the version I used in this review, and as captured files aren't logged to the project (more on this later), it would perhaps have been an idea to filter non-multimedia or non-supported file formats from the browse window.