RISC OS software publisher R-Comp is taking over development of the Image Animator series and Touch Type from Iota Software with the hope of rolling out new updates as soon as possible. New versions could be shipped as early as April's Wakefield 2008 show, according to R-Comp today.The packages were originally aimed at the RISC OS market but are now also available for Microsoft Windows users. Image Animator is, as you'd expect, a program that allows people to create simple animations by importing graphics or by drawing straight onto a digital film's frames. Touch Type is a typing tutor package. A more feature-rich version of Image Animator also exists called the Complete Animator.
Iota, which initially developed the programs before quitting the RISC OS scene a while back, voluntarily ceased trading at the end of January this year. Today's announcement marks the transfer of Iota's website, email and other remaining assets into R-Comp's mitts.
In a statement released this evening, R-Comp's Andrew Rawnsley said, "We are pleased to welcome these products into our lineup and hope to release new, updated versions as soon as possible - ideally the Wakefield show later this month.
"We are very excited to be able to update these excellent products."
Andrew added to drobe.co.uk: "Work to make the software 32bit compatible has already started, but there's a lot of assembly code to wade through and some nasty stuff that needs to be made hardware-neutral as well.
"Right now I have 26bit protection-free versions of Complete Animator with mostly 32bit-safe support modules. It doesn't help that the source code seems to be 'work in progress' so it needs to be bug-fixed before it even compiles."
He continued: "Compared to Complete Animator, Image Animator is an older product with significantly fewer features. It is still useful and may be easier to make 32bit compatible. Most people, myself included, tend to confuse the two. Image Animator does, of course, allow the creation of animations but has fewer artistic tools and no support for sound, as far as I can see, unlike the Complete Animator. At this stage, we're still exploring what's there.
"We have both the rights to the RISC OS and Windows versions, so we're hoping to bring some of the later Windows features back into the RISC OS applications where there's a difference."
A timescale for the availability of the software has yet to be confirmed and Andrew said more details will be disclosed once work on the programs has completed. He declined to name the programmer tasked with carrying out said work.
Links
R-Comp website
Iota website