New features highlight - Dogwaffle 1.6 particle brushes: New features in Optipustics
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Particle Physics
There are two new features in Optipustics, Dogwaffle's particle system. As you may remember from earlier versions, optipustics are used to generate particles along the mouse path, which can split into more trails over time. They can also change color according to the Gradient seetings.
This is a great feature for making foliage effects of many kinds, as well as grass, bushes, hair, fur, water fountains, fireworks and such.
Particles can have mass and be subject to gravity, causing the branches to show weight and bend down. Or up depending on the value of gravity.
Terminal velocity is the maximum speed a particle can travel - when a particle reaches a state of zero acceleration due perhaps to air resistance.
Split angles and other values don't have to be identical and look too perfect or mathematical. The 'randomize' factor can give a more natural, wilder look to it.
So what's new in 1.6 with Optipustics?
More Presets
More optipustics presets have been included in v1.6.
Here is a list of presets, each of which can of course be further customized and tailored to your needs for a sheer infinite collection of foliage effects, fountains, fireworks, etc.
You can easily save your experimental settings into new presets of your own.
Shading
There's a new checkbox at the bottom of the controls, called "Shading". It mimics the presence of ceiling light (skies, sun from above) to provide a darker faded appearance on the bottom side.
This can be useful in fantasy art creations against dark backgrounds particularly.
Opacity Control
Another great enhancement comes from the Opacity channel in the Gradient. In the past, only the color components (R,G,B) of such gradients would be used by optipustics. The Opacity (the opposite of transparency) channel was being ignored. In this example at right we see the opacity of the Dogwillow presets.
With version 1.6, and when in the default Style named "Line", you can now also make use of the opacity channel of gradients. In other words, when you use optipustics for grass and fine foliage effects like needles on a cactus, which tend to fade to very thin at the tip, you can further enhance that effect by adding progressive transparency to it.
In some cases you'll use it to actually make the bushes become semi-transparent to see through them. In other instances it will convey the impression of extremely fine fair or fur. Perhaps a broken spider web?
In the examples below we have combined opacity with shading.
More Examples
Here are other examples of things created straight out of the presets, or after changing just a few parameters and/or applying some filters.
These first two are "Broccoli Trail" and "Dogwillow". On Dogwillow we increased the opacity towards the end from its default which would make it fade thinner.
In the next one we started from "Garland" preset and changed the number of splits from 4 up to 9 to create a more dense, bushy look.
In the following example, we set the split angle to 60 so that it forms into hexagons.(Hively).
Here's something which started similarly, but we also added several filters (color emboss, edge detect, wet paint)
Finally, here's an example where we combined various features, including the sky system, several optipustic styles, etc.
You can also combine the use of optipustics with the stroke player into frames of an animation to create animated waterfalls, fireworks and smoke trails, magic rainbows and more.
The waterfall animation above was initially saved into AVI and then converted to an animated Gif with another application.
Click the image below for a larger view of the first frame.
Click the movie to see a FlashMX version.
Some of the free wallpapers were also done with optipustics.
