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Morph is an animation software title from Gryphon Software Corporation.

Gryphon Software’s Morph is named to fit its function. This software is suitable for beginners just starting to learn to manipulate the magic worlds of warping and morphing, as well as it is a challenge to experienced professionals who think they’ve seen it all. The advanced morphing, warping and “caricaturing” options that this software possesses allow you to produce extremely complex still and animated graphics. Using only a few simple tools, Morph is capable of generating startling high-end results.

Morph has a small movable toolbox with seven tools: Selection Arrow, Point Tool, Connecting Line Tool, Scissors (Cut), magnifying Glass (Zooms), Hand (Move Image), and Rotation Tool. The editing screen looks like a Storyboard, which is exactly what it’s called. In fact, images in a Morph sequence may be printed out as a true storyboard. A source and a target space inhabit the storyboard, areas where you place source and target graphics. Still images can also be imported for viewing, and finished movies may be played on the Morph screens.

Morph operates in a classic morphing software fashion. Points and lines are placed around important elements of the source image, and show up over the target image. The points and lines are moved on the target image to reflect important elements. Once placed, a preview can be generated that shows how the outlined elements will move from source to target shapes. When points and connecting lines are where they should be, a movie is made that allows the source image to transform into the target. This is how all basic morphing programs work, but Morph has tools that take its possibilities far beyond the basic expectations.

In addition to being able to generate a sequence of morphing images between two graphics, Morph allows you to continue with as many internal graphics as your computer’s memory will support. New source/target pairs can be added to the sequence, points and connecting lines placed around their important shapes, and the whole process repeated again. Default images of seven American presidents are included with the program to allow you to experiment with an elongated sequence, transforming one to the next in a series. All of this is accomplished without making the process any more difficult than it is in working with only two images. The final quality of the images can be selected from low, good and better.

Warping: Morph can generate quality warps. All aspects of the image can be altered by deft placement of the control points and their associated lines. Previews can be generated before you commit to the final renders. By placing control point and lines guides around the elements to be altered, background elements of the image can be prevented from moving. Any warped graphic can be exported as a PICT, Tiff or Photoshop image.

Morphing: As part of the previewing process, still images can be generated from any intermediate frame in a morphing sequence, and you might select to export these previews as a still image. The final quality and magic of a morphing sequence depends entirely upon how carefully the points and connecting lines are placed. The connecting lines have bezier-like controls, so they can be shaped to follow the conforms of the selected graphic very closely. Morph also allows you to create a morphic movie or series of images from two animated sequences, the difference being that points and lines will require more movement as the animations progress. Birds in flight can become airplanes in flight, and running pigs can become bounding dogs. All it takes is a little practice and some dedicated time.

Caricatures: Unique to Gryphon’s Morph is the possibility of creating photo-realistic caricatures, images that have exaggerated elements that transform them into photo-cartoons. A reference image is used to apply its features to a target image, and the resulting rendering is previewed and (if you like it) saved. No other morphing package offers this direct capability.

Animation: Gryphon’s Morph has all of the expected controllers for generating animated morphs of any size and frame rate. Compression choices, size, key frame placement, image quality, time code options and keytime elements are all configurable by the user. Multiple morphs can be moved around and displaced by one another as if the software were an Edit Decision List processor (EDL), an advanced function that allows maximum control over the final animation.

Save / Load Conventions: Movies can be exported as QuickTime, PICS, PICT, Photoshop and TIFF, and single images as PICT, TIFF and Photoshop. You can also save and load the setup files for any sequence, warp or caricature.

Documentation: The documentation is complete and easy to understand, and is peppered with adequate tutorials and images. Better yet, the software is so intuitively designed, you probably won’t need to reference the documentation at all after a few sessions of exploration. Because of its capability to generate warps, morphs and caricatures, Gryphon’s Morph is recommended for beginners, intermediate learners and seasoned pros.