MetaTools "Making Faces" Power GOO for the iPhone and iPod touch

metatools-making-faces

Every now and then you happen across Apps on the App Store that neatly span the divide between being fun, priced correctly, and in an odd way, also productive. At least that’s how I felt using “Making Faces”, from MetaTools Inc.!

Making Faces allows every iPhone/iPod touch owner the ability to take or import photos and literally put a smile on anyone’s face, lift their eyebrows, pinch their nose and a host of other imaginative treatments, all in real time. Users can produce new images with a few simple strokes of the GOO brushes and other tools that can, for instance, bulge, pinch or twirl the photo into funnier versions of the original. Then you click on the Movie icon and can get a real time animation of what’s been done to the image. Users can also share all their GOO’d images via popular social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook using their respective upload applications.

I have to say, using Making Faces is great fun – an intuitive UI, and those all-important real-time FX take care of that. There’s a massive range of FX you apply too, which is another plus point for the App. Once a photo is selected, it’s easy to zoom in and out, rotate the photo to the perfect angle and finally crop the desired portion of the image. Making Faces always works on a copy of an image, so the original image is saved separately.

Once the perfect angle and size is selected users can “GOO” the image with the powerful GOO brushes and 10 built-in effects. All brushes and effects can be scaled and moved around in real time and become part of your image’s history. Making Faces’ history palette also shows each effect used and allows the user to go back and edit at anytime or use saved combinations on other images.

Additionally, the headline features for the App are:

-Making Faces works in portrait or landscape mode

-Special Effects include pinch, bulge, spike, twirl, wave and ripple

-Making Faces provides full GOO effects animation

-Editable effects history

Overall, and in summary then, I think the App is keenly-priced, is easy to use, and with good FX. If you are looking for that sort of party game type of App, you could do far worse than this App!

Making Faces allows every iPhone/iPod touch owner the ability to take or import photos and literally put a smile on anyone’s face, lift their eyebrows, pinch their nose and a host of other imaginative treatments, all in real time. Users can produce new images with a few simple strokes of the GOO brushes and other tools that can, for instance, bulge, pinch or twirl the photo into funnier versions of the original. Then you click on the Movie icon and can get a real time animation of what’s been done to the image. Users can also share all their GOO’d images via popular social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook using their respective upload applications.

Once the perfect angle and size is selected you can “GOO” the image with the powerful GOO brushes and 10 built-in effects. All brushes and effects can be scaled and moved around in real time and become part of your image’s history. Making Faces’ history palette also shows each effect used and allows the user to go back and edit at anytime or use saved combinations on other images.

Additionally, the headline features for the App are:

Making Faces works in portrait or landscape mode
Special Effects include pinch, bulge, spike, twirl, wave and ripple
Making Faces provides full GOO effects animation
Editable effects history

Overall, and in summary then, I think the App is keenly-priced, is easy to use, and with good FX. If you are looking for that sort of party game type of App, you could do far worse than this App!

About The Author

Ben Robinson

Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.