For those who purchased the "Pro" version, the software unlocked a keyframe animation timeline. You weren't stuck with presets; you could manipulate camera angles, light sources, and the geometry of the transformation. This allowed advanced users to create flying logos and complex 3D motion graphics long before After Effects became mainstream.
To open a .HFX project file today is to stare into a digital amber tomb. The resolutions (720x480), the pixel aspect ratios (0.9 for NTSC), the reliance on DirectX 7—none of it translates to a 4K timeline.
Provided complete control over the X, Y, and Z spatial coordinates of any object.
But the killer feature was the Unlike After Effects, which required a timeline and layers, HFX used a nodal, object-oriented approach. You dragged "primitives" (cubes, cylinders, spheres) into a scene, assigned video textures to their faces, and then animated their positions, rotations, and lighting.
Whether you want to (like the 3D page peel or particle shatter)