Here is a list of questions and answers I keep seeing over and over and over and over again on various news groups, bbses, and mailing lists. So look here before you ask the same thing that's been asked several hundred times before, concerning Macintosh graphics files.

How do I make progressively loading JPEGs for web pages?

If you don't have Photoshop, you can go to the InTouch web site and download either a Photoshop Plug-In for it or the stand alone application, or you can use GraphicConverter. You can use them to convert to and from the progressive format.

http://www.in-touch.com/pjpeg.html
http://www.boxtopsoft.com/
http://www.lemkesoft.com/us_gcdownload.html

How do I make transparent and progressively loading (transparent) GIFs for the web?

Use one of the shareware viewer/converter programs that support these features (like GraphicConverter, Clip2Gif, GifConverter, etc.), use the one that comes with Photoshop 3 to 6 or get the Plug-In called PhotoGIF to have the most control over file size and appearance.

http://www.lemkesoft.com/us_gcdownload.html
http://www.kamit.com/gifconverter/
http://www.boxtopsoft.com/

How do I get Quicktime movies to play on the web?

You can either have them as links or embedded elements. Either way you have to have them 'flattened' so other operating systems can deal with them. Most commercial programs have the flatten option when you save them, and if you don't have one you can use MoviePlayer (you may need to use an older version, like 2.5) to do that. Then you can either link them as a regular download kind of link, or use one of the many browser plug-ins that play movies inline in the window. The best for new browsers is the one that finally came out from Apple. The best plug-in for older netscapes is ViewMovie.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

How do I play and/or make those ibm style animation files?

Quicktime can now play most AVI files directly, though for some you will have to download the codec (if possible) from which ever vendor supplies it. The other formats (GL, DL, etc.) can be played either with Quicktime again, Mac Animation Viewer (though GLs often play a little schizophrenically), or Graphic Converter.

Mac-Anim-Viewer-1.1.sit
http://www.lemkesoft.com/us_gcdownload.html

What do I need to play and/or make MPEG-I movies?

Quicktime is now the best method of playing MPEGs (as long as your computer is fast enough). For making MPEGs, there are now a lot of commercial converters. On the free side, there is Movie2MPEG and there is still Sparkle (look for it on version tracker or somewhere) though it won't do sound.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
http://www.win.ne.jp/~juan/misc/mpg/index_e.html

How can I view and make VRML documents?

VRML has kind of fallen on its face as far as I can tell. There are a couple more browsers for the Mac (Cosmo, Cortona, MacLookAt) than there were, but I think more development is going to go into several other formats which have sprung up. Cult3d and Metastream work pretty well, and the Cyberworld browser should be coming to the Mac sometime soon.

http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac
http://home.enitel.no/mlouka/vr/mac/maclookat/
http://www.cai.com/cosmo/

http://www.cult3d.com/
http://www.metastream.com/
http://www.cyberworldcorp.com/

What are the best 3d programs for the Mac?

Well, that depends on how much money you have. If you don't want to pay anything but feel you can just never type enough, download POV go nuts. If you have so much money that you don't know where to spend it all, then go buy Electric Image, Maya or some equally over-priced program. Somewhere in between those two are some commercial programs named Infinity-D, Strata Pro, Amapi, Animation Master, Pixel Putty, and Pixels 3D. To offer some kind of help in deciding which one is for you, here is a list of extremely biased commentary info:

Cinema 4D XL
http://www.maxon.net/usa/
Interface is a bit less daunting with the latest version and grows on you. Unclear but very advanced modeling. Very cool interactive animation. Rendering is good and EXTREAMLY FAST. So far it looks stable. Demos of 4D XL, Go, and the Bodypaint 3D add-on available on web site.

Pixels 3D Studio
http://www.pixels.net/
Interface is not terribly intuitive. Modeling is very good but difficult. Animation capabilities are very good. Rendering is good. Hardware requirements fairly reasonable. Seems to be stable. No demo on the site.

Lightwave
http://www.newtek.com/main.html
Interface is very un-Mac. Modeler is good but strange. Animation is pretty powerful. Rendering is also prett good. Hardware requirements reasonable for these days. Stability I'm not sure of. No demo on the site.

Maya
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/WhatWeDo/maya/mac/mac.shtml
If all will be as it is reported to be, the interface is un-Mac but identicle to the other versions. Modeler should be very powerful and not horribly difficult. Animation should be quite powerful. Rendering should also powerful. Hardware requirements are what they are. Stability I'm not sure of. No demo on the site.

Electric Image Animation System
http://www.electricimage.com/
Interface isn't entirely intuitive. Now has a separate modeler. Animation is very powerful indeed. Rendering is not RayTraced, but is good and very fast. Hardware requirements fairly reasonable. Pretty stable. No demo on the site.

FormZ
http://www.newtek.com/main.html
Interface is a little odd, but prett cool. Modeler is pretty good. Animation? This is a solid modeler. Defualt Rendering not really for output. Hardware requirements are okay I guess. Stability I'm not sure of. Demos are in fact available on the site.

Strata Pro
http://www.strata.com/
Interface is too plug-in based. Quirky, but advanced modeling. Animation controls are a bit lacking. Rendering quality is great. Needs a lot of machine to run very smoothly if you get the newest version. Known to be quite buggy. No demos anymore, but there is a relatively cool FREE version that they're puting out that you can use with an open net connection as well as their commercial version.

Animation Master
http://www.hash.com/
Interface is often the reverse of rational thought. Extremely malleable modeling, but no automated creation or deformation tools. Animation controls are very powerful, but not as flexible as they could be. Rendering is good. Hardware requirements are pretty reasonable. Frequently unstable. No demo.

Pixel Putty Solo
http://www.valisgroup.com/mac-pixelputty.htm
Interface is simple, but it works. Modeling is great. Animation controls are good. Rendering is handled with Renderman, so that can be good or bad depending on your shaders. Hardware requirements are reasonable. Pretty stable. No demo.

Amapi
http://www.yonowat.com/
Interface is really hard to figure out. Powerful and fast, but strangely implemented polygon modeling. No animation. Rendering is basic. Hardware requirements are very reasonable. Pretty stable. Demo available on the site.

Dead?

Infinity-D
http://www.metacreations.com/
Interface is easy to use and very Mac-ish, but limited in a few areas. Good but not great modeling. Animation controls are very good. Rendering is good. Hardware requirements are pretty reasonable. Pretty stable most of the time. It currently has no web site and will I guess be folded into Carrara, to be owned by an as yet unkown company.

Sketch
http://www.alias.com/Product/Misc/Alias_Sketch!.html
Interface is well laid out, but confining. Modeling is powerful but lossy when creating objects from 2D to 3D. No animation, which is is especially disappointing with this program. Rendering is very good, especially for placing rendered objects in real scenes. Hardware requirements are fairly reasonable. Apparently still stable. No demo. No longer supported by Alias...(frown).

Presenter Pro from VIDI
http://www.vidi.com/
Interface is great, but many tools are hard to figure out. Modeling is advanced. Animation is very good. Rendering is good. Hardware requirements fairly reasonable. Pretty stable. No more demo and no more versions. They're apparently working on a project called 3DJoy and I recommend everyone get involved with that, but I don't know how that's all going at this point.

Sculpt 3d from Byte by Byte
http://bytebybyte.com/sculpt/s3dhome.htm
Interface is a little restricting, but complete and most things make sense. Modeling is pretty powerful. Animation is pretty good. Rendering is very good. Hardware requirements are pretty reasonable. Mostly stable. Demos used to be available, site appears to be dead though.

Extreme 3D from Macromedia
http://www.macromedia.com/
Interface is okay, pretty macish. Modeling is pretty good. Animation is very good. Rendering is good but not raytraced. Hardware requirements aren't very great. Fairly stable. No demo or anything on the site, and it looks like it wasn't even sold off to another company..just, dead.

On the shareware/freeware side, the list is not as long.

POV
http://www.povray.org/
ftp://ftp.povray.org/pub/povray/Official/Macintosh/
Has no interface. Modeling is great if you love to type. Animation..no controls. Rendering is great, nothing like a good ray trace. As far as I know it runs on everything.

PatchDance
http://members.aol.com/PatchDance/index.html
This is a program with a lot of potential. With a bit more work it could be serious competition for the other patch-based modelling programs. The Quickdraw 3D interface is very quick, and the basic interface is pretty standard (easy to figure out, no manual needed for the most part).

Mechanisto
ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/gst/grf/mechanisto-20-demo.hqx
Interface is very hard to figure out. Modeling is okay. Animation is hard. Rendering is pretty good. Runs on Powermacs only. Big file to download.

Vision 3d
ftp://ftphost.auckland.ac.nz/pub/architec/Applications/vision3d.sea.hqx
This program is basically one step below a pretty good commercial program. Interface is more or less standard. Modeling is good but not flexible. Animation is basic. Rendering is okay. The first program I found that output to 3DMF files.

What are the best 2D (imaging, painting, etc.) programs?

2D image software is usually a bit more intuitive, and usually less expensive. There has already been a lot of discussion on this already and a ton of programs in comparison to the numbers available for 3d work, so I'll keep the list as short as I can.

Photoshop
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html
The main attraction in this realm, is of course, Photoshop (aka, the coolest program in the world). The Photoshop interface is based on the original cool app, MacPaint, but is a zillion times better. Industry standard for painting, retouching, correction, and anything else having to do with pixel-based images for web or print.

Painter
http://www.corel.com/
Closely related to Photoshop, is Painter. And like all relatives, they should stay together. Family values you know... Anyways, Painter is pretty much the standard for imitated physical media painting. It has tools with built-in settings for everything from crayons to brushes that mimic artist styles. It's super cool.

Fireworks
http://www.macromedia.com/software/fireworks/
Also closely related to Photoshop, is the web-centric Fireworks. This program seems to have a nice mix of paint and draw tools, focused on making web graphics for pages and Flash animations.

LiveMotion
http://www.adobe.com/products/livemotion/main.html
Extremely related to Photoshop, is the also web-centric LiveMotion. This program also has a mix of paint, draw, and animation tools focused on making web graphics for pages and Flash animations.

Live Picture and xRez
are both dead. Apparently no one cares about image proxy technology anymore since the computers are faster and not as much work is going into print these days.

ColorIt, ExpertColor Paint, and other littler programs
These require less computer, but don't do as much. Just the thing for smaller computers with less ram and lower bit depth graphics. But they won't allow you do make as cool of pictures. The interfaces are very friendly, and the prices are low.

What are the best drawing programs?

Since paint-type files aren't then only kind you have to deal with in the world, you're going to want a draw-type art program too.

Illustrator
http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/main.html
Another industry standard, it's just the thing for all things postscript. Interface is a lot like Photoshop, and is very easy once you figure it out.

Freehand
http://www.macromedia.com/software/freehand/
Functionally very similar to Illustrator, but the interface is more like PageMaker (which is good, and bad). So if you want someone to tell you whether you should get Freehand or Illustrator, you're probably not going to get a very straight answer. They'll both do the job, and they both have easy to use features.

Flash
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/
This isn't strictly a drawing program, it's supposed to be for animation. But you can draw in it, it's vector-based and a very cool program that Macromedia purchased.

Expression
http://www.corel.com/
This is just a bad-ass program. It allows for natural-media looking pictures to be made in a draw-type file and environment, with all the deformative benefits of having everything vector based. I hope it sticks around now that Corel owns it.

Canvas
http://www.deneba.com/products/
This is basically for if you want more technical style drawings. The interface is, well, different. Functionally a pretty good program. But not on the CAD scale of say, Vellum or anything. There are two versions now

SmartSketch
http://www.futurewave.com/smartsketch.htm
This is a really weird program, and it's really cool. It's not completely useful for many things, but it's mixture of draw-type, paint-type functions is unique..and should be more common. It's amazing no one made this program years ago, since people would be able to adapt to draw-type programs much easier with this kind of functionality.

Okay...that's about all I feel like writing, so I'll shut up now. If you want to add anything then email me here.
This document is broadcast on several universes. It will be posted to a couple Usenet groups on a hopefully regular basis, posted to any bbses that I notice would need it, and I'll keep it as a web page at:

http://www.hoby.net/tech/MacGraphicsFAQ.html