{rw_text}Giveaway of the day for October 21, 2009 is:

3D Text Commander 3.0

Version reviewed:

v3.0b

System Requirements:

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Software description as per GOTD:

Empower your Web site or software with realistic 3D text (static or animated). Generate impressive banners or navigation buttons with 3D text complete with shadows and reflections. Design flyers and brochures with innovative style with high-resolution 3D text. Insofta 3D Text Commander easily does all that, and more! No complex settings and no learning curve are involved thanks to the visual controls working in real-time.Reasons to Choose 3D Text Commander:

• Capture your reader’s attention with an animated 3D banner.
• Take advantage of the complimentary texture library.
• Shape up your text to meet your taste.
• Enjoy simplicity and confidence.
• Preview your final 3D text in the real-time preview window; turn it any way around by just dragging it with the mouse.
• Decorate your 3D text with realistic 3D shadow and reflection – by moving the light and playing with its intensity.
• Take your final high-resolution anti-aliased 3D-text banner of up to 4000 by 4000 pixels straight to the publisher; skip a countless number of conversion operations, and save it to the format you need directly.

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{rw_good}

• Very easy to use.
• Nice clean interface.
• Has predefined templates for you to use.
• Full control over the look of the text (size, look, shadow, light, angle, rotation etc.)
• “New Project Wizard” helps make creating 3D text very easy.
• Multiple language support (English, German, Russian, and more).

{/rw_good} –>

{rw_bad}

• Very, very computer resource intensive.
• “Render Preview”/”Render Image” is slow.
• Interface can become very laggy.
• No “Undo” or “Redo” features.

{/rw_bad} –>
{rw_score}
{for=”Ease of Use” value=”10″}Point and click.
{/for}
{for=”Performance” value=”7″}The text/image themselves are fine but 3D Text Commander uses up a lot of computer resources. While a user should expect relative high computer resouce usage with a 3D rendering application, it is still worth mentoring.
{/for}
{for=”Usefulness” value=”8″}I figure many people will have use for a program that allows them to create 3D text in an easy manner; however the few graphically talented may prefer a more grassroots/hands on approach that this program does not provide.
{/for}
{for=”Arbitrary Equalizer” value=”9″}This category reflects an arbitrary number that does not specifically stand for anything. Rather this number is used to reflect my overall rating/verdict of the program in which I considered all the features and free alternatives.
{/for}
{/rw_score} –>

{rw_verdict}[tupr]
{/rw_verdict} –>

3D Text Commander is an easy to use program that allows you to create 3D text quickly. No expert knowledge is needed to create 3D text w/ 3DTC (3D Text Commander). You have full control over how your text looks, including font style, font size, color, rotation, reflection, shadow, light effect, camera perspective, etc. Additionally, there are 11 predefined templates that you can use (in fact you must use a template – there no is “blank/create text from scratch” option).  If anyone has Insofta’s Cover Commander, 3D Text Commander works in almost the exact way as Cover Commander; the only difference is 3D Text Commander creates 3D Text while Cover Commander creates eCovers.

That being said, 3D Text Commander was given out on GOTD as v2.0 back in April. Today’s is v3.0. The differences between v2.0 and v3.0 as per the developer are:

– Added support for Windows 7.
– Added ability to specify font, color, texture for each character individually.
– On the “Camera & Position” tab, added the “Position” group and the “Y” parameter, which you can use for specifying the vertical position of your text.
– Few bugs fixed.

Update: an undocumented new feature in v3.0 which was not in v2.0 is 3D Text Commander can now create animated text in the form of SWF, AVI, and GIF. Thanks Harold for notifying me!

That being said, I wrote a full review on 3D Text Commander back in April; since the differences between v2.0 -> v3.0 are minimal, please read the earlier review I conducted to learn about 3D Text Commander in detail. I will post free alternatives and final verdict here for everyone’s convenience.

This review was conducted on a laptop running Windows 7 Professional 32-bit. The specs of the laptop are as follows: 3GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 2600 512MB graphics card, and an Intel T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor.

{rw_freea}

3DTextMaker.com

A nice service for being free. Not better than 3D Text Commander but still nice. However it is worth noting that 3DTextMaker.com can make animated text while 3D Text Commander cannot. New v3.0 of 3D Text Commander can now create animated text in the form of SWF, AVI, and GIF.

{/rw_freea} –>

{rw_verdict2}Thumbs up for 3D Text Commander. 3DTC is not a Photoshop killer; rather it is a tool for people, who are not talented artist, to create aesthetically pleasing 3D text in an easy manner. True 3D Text Commander is very computer resource intensive, so people with older computers may have some problems running it, but overall it is a good program: I recommend it.
{/rw_verdict2} –>