Is this spectacular, or what?
   To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the description of Font F/X. For one thing, 3D programs seem to be a dime-a-dozen these days and I have spent a great deal of time trying to manipulate graphics, fonts and other stuff in 3D space. All that stuff with X, Y and Z axes is not easy.
   But Font F/X came in the door and I decided to see what was what. Coming from a company I honestly had not heard of, DCSi of Boulder, Colorado, I was ready for most anything – including seeing my computer crash.
   This program is wonderful! I was really impressed with the opening splash screen, although I admit I was a little anxious as the program loaded all 303 of the fonts I use "every day." And then it came up with an interface which looked a bit intimidating, to say the least. Lots of balls, colors and stuff. Heck, I decided to look at the tutorial.
   It took no time at all to get through the first eight lessons of the tutorial (the last two were on saving and printing) and, in less than an hour, I was a whiz at Font F/X. Not only that, I was absolutely, seriously impressed.
   Elsewhere here, you'll read our review of Bryce for Windows. I had created a pretty neat landscape in Bryce for my Windows wallpaper. I "personalized" that by opening it up as a background and placing a font of my handwriting I made one time over the top.

things? You can do it with Font F/X in three dimensions. You can layer things, too, so that if you want to put your name on a shield, you just print the text with your name on top of the shield. Cool.
   The trackballs you see below are, essentially, what makes Font F/X so easy to operate. There are others, but these control the movement of one object in the 3D universe and the positioning of the lights. The third little box is a color picker. How do you place color in your object? Believe it or not, you click on one of these little balls and drag it to the part of the object (side, front, bevel) you want to color.

   The little arrows move your element in and out, the triangles move it up and down and side to side within the 3D universe. This is so easy it is almost unbelievable.
   The most nifty thing about moving things around is that there are two

trackballs like the one on the left. One of them moves the element you have selected. The other moves every object in the universe. When you want to get just the right juxtaposition of things, you select and move. When you want to adjust the whole scene, you use the other trackball.
   If you think I like Font F/X, you are right. Moreover, you will like it too. It adds a major dimension – one could almost say three dimensions if one wanted to make an awful play on words – to your graphic abilities. Font F/X is simply super.

You can link to DCSi's web site by clicking here.