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THERE'S NOTHING like a zany Saturday morning cartoon for quality kid entertainment, unless of course you think there's more to the life of a 7- to 14-year-old than mindless couch surfing. With Cosmic Blobs 1.1 Lab Rat Edition (the first version available on the Mac), kids use—rather than snooze—their brains to create lifelike 3D action figures for animated fun.
With tools that poke, flatten, pull, pinch, bend and stretch, you may think that Cosmic Blobs promotes exercise dedicated to toning and tightening flabby abs, but no. It's an inspired 3D design tool outfitted with imaginative buttons and sliders for modeling, painting and animating colorful shapes called blobs. The terms used for tool actions actually describe 3D modeling effects. That's because the program's developers work for Dassault Systems, a company with roots in serious professional mechanical design and engineering. The inventive result is an exercise gym for the brain, where cursor tools help you move, rotate, pull, poke and sculpt blob-like vehicles, animals, people and any other combination of geometric shapes.
Blob creation takes place in three workspace areas—each one framed by a boisterous cast of both workspace-specific and program-wide buttons and blob design tools. Aspiring blob makers build their cosmic concoctions in the Modeling Zone—an electronic canvas framed by a crazy collection of bubbling beakers, curious sliders and tool-filled drops that clink, clank or tinkle when selected. Blobmeisters can dress up their 3D models in the Paint Shop, a workspace outfitted with a bevy of beautifying colors, dozens of decorative designer decals (such as stylish eyes, noses, mouths and ears) and a rich palette of patterned textures. When sculpting and paint tasks are complete, kids head for the Animation Lab to place their blob models on a virtual floor, designate an animation path for blob movement and direct their blobs to follow the path. They can record the movement in a short movie (complete with musical soundtrack) for on-screen playback or presentation on the web.
Creative types can easily fashion their own 3D designs. Alternatively, they can begin the design process with sample blobs from the content library that ships with the program, or visit the Cosmic Blob website to download new blob models (at no charge) and save them to the Cosmic Blob Content library. No matter where the initial blob originates, it's easy to modify. Add goofy-looking body parts, rotate the blob for entirely new views, zoom in or out to change perspective and apply stickers or imaginative decals and textures for visual pizzazz. There are tools that enable you to select a point anywhere on the blob, then extrude that contact surface. Work with the "belly" tool to alter the direction of the Point Pull shape. Apply the Sculpt tool to push a curve in any direction. Use the Flatten tool to level a designated blob side, then hitch up a pair of arms or legs. Get ambitious; add two pairs of limbs or use the Pinch Tool to squish a blob in a user-designated direction. Finally, check out the Mirror Plane. It's a real timesaving design tool, because whatever you do to one side of your blob automatically shows up on the other side.
Cosmic Blobs lacks pop-up tips to identify workspace tools, but novice Blobsters will appreciate the helpful Getting Started movie tutorials that provide video-based instructions for painting curves, moving and rotating objects, making figures walk and hop and creating fabulous faces using the Mirror Plane tool. Also, Help files explain the buttons, sliders and tools for each of the three work areas. Most youngsters will probably be happy to forego the video training in favor of getting right down to building and choreographing their own animated wonders. The program's wacky wonderland of clay-like design tools are sure to stretch the imagination and give kids hours of otherworldly delight.
–CAROL S. HOLZBERG, PhD
Cosmic Blobs 1.1, Lab Rat Edition: 
SolidWorks | www.cosmicblobs.com | 978-318-5418 | $50
Pros: Amazing artistic possibilities, boisterous interface, lots to do, open-ended, interactive help if you need it, blobs save automatically when you switch from one tool to another.
Cons: Busy interface, tools lack pop-up tips for easy identification, Help manual not as print-friendly as it could be.
Requires: OS 10.3 or higher, G4 1.25GHz, or faster, 256MB RAM, 200 MB free hard disk space
macHOME recommends: OS 10.4.x, G5 1.8 GHz or faster, 512 MB RAM
Issue reviewed: September 2005
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