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What's new in v8.0

Discover PD Pro 8 "Broomhead"




   


v9 new!  | v8 | v8.0 (Broomhead) | Showcase | PD Artist | PD Howler | other versions new!    
watch me howl on youtube Tweet woof howl waffle!
let's
                howl





Want to help kids
who need help?
Support ARTS:

A Reason To Survive

A Reason To Survive




New!

Foliage brushes

new foliage system










































Presets of the new
Foliage system:


Foliage presets




























































































































































































adjust
                slider values in small increments
slider adjustments



























new foliage system!

foliage interface







































































































Autumn
painted with the new
rules-based foliage system

Autumn picture
                painted with new rules-based Foliage system
Here's a somewhat updated look at what's been brewing in the Dogwaffle kitchen. 

leaftracker - old stackhouse farm

"old stackhouse farm" by leaftracker




A message from Dan Ritchie, creator of Project Dogwaffle


update: We have completed and released the new version of PD Pro Howler, codenamed Broomhead. 

Back in version 5, we started a concerted effort to modernize and revamp the program with new techniques, technologies and algorithms. Here we are almost to version 8, and we're hoping to hit a plateau of sorts with what we can do with existing technologies (we hope we even changed the world a little -- even if nobody noticed -- as the word “realtime” catches on :) We're also laying the groundwork for the new, with GPU support expected sometime in the v8 life cycle (though it likely won't be quite ready up front in the first v8.0).

Version 6 introduced a new name, Howler, and massive speed improvements across the board. We also continued to improve the user experience with changes that streamlined the interface, especially for small profile machines, looking forward to tablets based on Windows 8. A 3D API was also added that is even now showing up in a lot of new features.

In the version 7 life cycle, we introduced a lot of pet features we've been wanting to do for years that would benefit the special effects crowd, i.e. visual FX artists, 3D animators and video types. (We still have a little of that flowing through our veins, you know.)  But we recognize that it's is a little esoteric for most people. So we also package a version named the Artist edition, without too much of the animation stuff.

Now, in version 8, we're coming full circle and getting back to basics: let's paint! We're updating our brush system with more speed and new features. There will be more on this later, but for now, we can talk about a few things.

The image above by leaftracker was done by one of our beta testers shortly before 7.2 was out and we started work on Broomhead. Does the word 'Inspiration" come to mind? You bet!

If you think this is already awesome, just you wait till you see what's coming soon with the additional effect controls for even more realistic watercolor, gouache and such.

The “Post FX” tab is just called the “FX” now. That's because it's now realtime, no longer a post-operation the way it was before. There are also a lot of new possibilities, and a much more comprehensive set of watercolor tools including wet edges and "lifting".

There are also a couple of new timeline features. One of them is the ability to fly through a Z-axis version of your painting using the 3d designer. No, we're not going to take over for the big guns anytime soon, but you can do some fun stuff with height maps, everything from terrain to 3d logos disappearing into space - in just a few clicks and seconds.

Just know that our focus this time has been on improving some of our fundamental features to make the program more user friendly and fun than ever before.

Thanks for waffling and howling!

-Dan Ritchie & Team Dogwaffle



New showcase image or animation:   Landscape    [ more showcases ]

Landscape



So What's New in "Broomhead"?




Here's a brief summary - and it's not in order of importance. If anything, it's a semi-chronological list... . We've kept adding new developments at the bottom of the ever growing long list, so please take the time to scroll down and read through it :-)


  • In the past, many filters were implemented as external plugins and have now been internalized. In many cases this resulted in better performance, sometimes much better (depending on whether the time was mostly spent on sending the data to the plugin or on actual number crunching (the kind of stuff we sometimes like to call "computer stuff happening"). Those internalized external plugin files having been removed from the distributable, making it a little simpler and smaller. Another benefit: In some rare cases, randomly launching those files from the plugin panel may also have been a way to destabilize the program under some circumstances. Problem solved.
  • The custom brush system in now multithreaded for more speed on multi-core machines.
  • There's a new smoothing mode to smooth out the motion of the mouse or tablet. Drawing is less gittery and more refined looking with this option.
  • Brush rotation now no longer jumps when cycling between 360-0.
  • The watercolor FX mode now more correctly supports dryout
  • The last used color tab is now remembered when you restart the application
  • The color compact has been reduced in size to make it more compact, since it was basically a duplicate of the one on the color tab.
  • Rotoscoping now supports motion blur.
  • It's now possible to zoom out to 10% instead of 25%, which should help with large images.
  • There's a new Clone fill feature.  You can use it to replace a selection with another portion of the image.
  • Certain rubber band drawing while using fill tools and circular gradient mode did not work correctly when zoomed.  Fixed.
  • The circular gradient fill mode now centers to the shape that's being drawn until the user specifically sets a new center with the rubber band.
  • Fixed drag and drop bug on color swatches.  You can now shift-click to edit a color on the swatch.
  • The motion module makes better utilization of multiple cores.
  • Possible crash fixed if brush accessed before being initialized.
  • new brush resample panel.
  • Attempt to address problem when using the pan and zoom with tablet.  The pan and zoom tools work by changing the pointer coordinates to the center of the working window.  This caused problems with tablet devices that work in absolute coordinates.
  • The "Build palette from wells" plugin is internalized.  This tool would sometimes experience automation errors.
  • Addressed browser issue.  The browser has been identified as a component that could keep a part of the Dogwaffle.exe in memory if shutdown while still scanning a folder.  This could result in future instances of dogwaffle being seen as a second instance, causing plugins to behave incorrectly.
  • Several areas of bottlenecks regarding interactivity have been addressed on the browser, including switching folders more quickly.
  • Speed improvement to the browser.  The browser now uses GDI+ to read certain file types more quickly (about 5 formats including jpegs, bmps, tiffs, and etc.)  If they can't be read by GDI+, the older reader is used.
  • The browser was formerly implemented as a plugin and has now been internalized, including new multiple instances.
  • Algorithm and speed improvements to Soft contrast filter.
  • Timeline:  You can now move keyframes on the timeline after they are created.
  • Fixed a slight inaccuracy in the timeline related to selecting the current frame.
  • Fixed several bugs in curve interpolation on the timeline.  Previously, when the linear setting was active, the lines were drawn with a curve instead of a straight line, so they looked a little non-linear, though the were linear internally.
  • Faster onion skin.
  • Not huge, but drawing a lasso no longer flickers when selected (which has accrued into a minor annoyance over the years)
  • Eliminated possible division by zero in ColorFX.
  • Smear mode is reimplemented.  Fixed bug in when Custom brushes in smear or clone mode would incorrectly change orientation.
  • Fixed a bug in value noise filter.  It is now 2x faster.
  • Fixed bug with text rendering after changing settings in the settings panel.
  • We have a new "optional" policy on .net framework.  We originally added it for several reasons.  For one, we wanted to support plugin creation on a modern and freely available program language.  Users didn't like having to install it, so we've reduced our use of it.  It is now considered optional at the expense of just a few features, including the batch browser and picture framer. There were some problems however.  For one, many users just didn't want to install it (although increasingly, you may find that it will be installed as part of other applications too).
  • Layers:  Toggling the view state of a layer no longer selects that layer. This means that if you have multiple layers enabled and you are working on a specific layer, you can hide other layers without loosing 'focus' of the current layer. The current layer remains the same.
  • The alpha marquee ('marching ants' when there's a selection) is no longer refreshed while an animation is playing. Looks cleaner, faster.
  • Plugins that have previously been internalized in some cases still used automation instead of internal classes, which is valid, but not ideal.
  • Migration away from the .net framework related (features that no longer use the .net framework:
    • The gradient editor is internalized and ported from the .net framework.
    • Wigglewarp is internalized and ported from the .net framework.
  • Create animated brush is internalized
  • The .net framework is no longer an official requirement.  It's been downgraded to "a requirement for certain plugins if you wish to use them, including the Batch Browser, Picture Framer, and several others."
  • There is a new menu item to check if the right version of the .net framework is installed (should you want to use it). Look for it in the Window menu.
  • Fixed a buffer overrun in calculation of normal map that affected 3d designer, lighting tool, wax filter.  It's not clear if this was a beta issue or if it affected version 7.2 (carrot juice)
  • Allowed larger lasso selection buffer.
  • Fieldpack has been deprecated in favor of the newer motion prediction module and built in interlace support, and has thus been removed.
  • Brick texture filter is internalized.
  • Functions that previously used Lua or GUI server that have been integrated:
    • Sunset filter.
    • Fog filter.
    • Star filter (photographic filters menu)
    • Duotone.
    • Multicolor, renamed tritone.
    • Gamma.
    • Brick texture.
  • FX tab related - There have been many small corrections and tweaks to the FX tab on the brush settings ('o' for options) panel.
  • Emboss, or "impasto" mode now can work in negative values.  This can be used with grime sets for battle damage, or to create dents or impact graters. Great stuff for cool game artists, or was that cool stuff for great game artists?...
  • Dryout is now correctly rendered in watercolor modes
  • Paper bump was incorrectly treated the same as the dry brush option.  The emboss mode now correctly handles paper bump where it previously only rendered the shape of the brush.
  • There's a new gouache option for more of an opaque and single color effect.
  • There is also a new gel mode which is similar to impasto.
  • There's a new pigment parameter to make the paint color lighter or darker.  It can also be used with lifting to create watery effects.
  • The fx tab rendering now more resembles that of the penny pluggin.
  • the watercolor mode now supports a 'lift' setting that causes color to be diffused under the brush stroke.
  • General speed improvements.
  • fixed a gui rendering bug on the mosaic panel.
  • Additional features that have received threading:
    • bycubic resampling.
    • Motion module additional threading.  Previously only the refinement pass was threaded.
    • Lens flares now thread on more than 2 threads.
    • linear and circular gradient tools
    • rendering animation with the 3d designer.
    • Twirl
    • Apply paper
    • tint
    • Jitter
    • certain things that use box filtering.
    • Auto adjust.
    • Fisheye
    • Custom blur
    • Tritone
  • A lot more functions are internal, there are fewer externalized plugins, so the distributable has shrunk to around 24 megs. That also means a number of features are faster now (and have new options as well)
  • The Z-rings and marble filters have been combined into one (and with new options)
  • Filter/Render/noises/Fractal noise has been internalized.
  • We're experimenting with GPU. On the cool side, our GPU shading code now supports more realistic shading, including specular.
  • Jitter blur plus was one of the latest to be ported. There are a number of filters that have changed, from sunset, fog, duotone, tritone (previously multicolor), etc, etc.
  • 3D Designer is now accessible in the Timeline! See the Landscape animation as an example
  • New options in Spherize panel: Bump textures, Size,...  See details
  • Filter: Render > Cellular  and Render > Checkerboard have been updated.
  • Filter: Adjust > Value is now multithreaded
  • Filter: Transform > Crystalize is multi threaded and has new options including 3D lighting (shading) and a few more controls for parameters similar to the Render>Cellular filter. See details
  • Slider Controls: Sliders now have additional clickable buttons to fine-tune their values in small increments. See details
  • Use of twist parameter for tablets that support it. (such as Wacom Intuos)
  • fixed TGA file sequence loading crash if not using "use external loader" in the load sequence dialog box.
  • Working on fixing possible 'blob' that may appear at beginning of drawn line when using tablet with custom brushes.




...and then they were Hundreds!


Here's a raw list of stuff that's finished so far, from our beta team, updated as of May 30:

  • Fixed movable keyframes feature limitation that was shown in pre-release video. (hard to pick the keyframes sometimes)
  • Added "emergency save" option to 'Store image' and 'store brush as image' plugins.  this can be used to save work if the main program should crash and one of these plugins is still open.
  • "selection/select by/color key" is updated.
  • hprop controls (scrollbars) generally swallow keyboard events, but it was inconvenient for the animation scrollbar not to work with the arrow keys.  fixed.
  • Tablet pressure is now on by default.
  • fixed a bug in "store brush as image"
  • Filmgrain internalized.
  • dropslider now has arrow buttons for finer tweaks.
  • Fx are now available for all 3 brush types.
  • The AA pen now goes up to 100 pixels to allow for larger brushes (it originally was the size of an internal brush)
  • Custom brushes sizing remains the same (1 to 100% scale of original brush)
  • Converting an internal brush to a custom brush now automatically sets the 'allow custom brush transforms' checkbox.  You can use this feature to make brushes that are larger than the standard size by scaling them up, and now they should behave almost exactly as they did as internal brushes.
  • The internal brush (id 43, internally) the single pixel brush, wasn't recognized when loading presets.  Fixed.
  • There's a new option to detect the current screen DPI.
  • Crystalize has been updated and real-timed, with some new options.
  • Curve tool: deleting the last curve point by pressing the right mouse button was semi-broken.  It didn't get a screen refresh.  fixed.
  • Batch browser may have been missing from the distributable.
  • There's a new version of the cellular filter with new options and speed improvements.
  • Checkerboard filter is rewritten and internalized.  We're not going to set the world on fire with a checkerboard filter, but you don't want a little thing like that to be annoying either.  We're writing the program like people are going to actually use it.
  • The return of localization:  This time it's more inclusive, not just menu items.  There's a option under utilities that saves out all the text strings from panels that are in memory (it won't save all the strings in the program at this point, but everything that has been opened and remains in memory). The file can then be edited (and saved as a unicode text file to do extended characters if desired) and put in the same folder with Howler. Be sure to keep a backup because the file will be overwritten if you reinstall the application. There are a few other advantages as well.  It will be easier to maintain the file as only new features will have to be translated, as they are added to the program in new versions.  The old translation file will continue to work for everything but the new items.
  • Zoom (both bi-linear and nearest neighbor sampling) now thread on more than two threads.
  • updated lighting tool now supports specular and other parameters for more realism.
  • The Spherize tool has gained a slew of new bump texture modes. 
  • Specular is now supported by either lighting type.
  • Spherize now has a size slider.
  • A number of plugins have been internalized and the external plugin versions have been removed from the distributable.  In the past, randomly launching these files from the plugin panel may have been a good way to destabilize the program.
  • The custom brush system in now multithreaded for more speed un multi-core machines.
  • There's a new smoothing mode to smooth out the motion of the mouse or tablet.  Drawing is less jittery and more refined looking with this option.
  • Brush rotation now no longer jumps when cycling between 360-0.
  • The watercolor FX mode now more correctly supports dryout
  • The last used color tab is now remembered when you restart the application
  • The color compact has been reduced in size to make it more compact, since it was basically a duplicate of the one on the color tab.
  • Rotoscoping now supports motion blur.
  • Extended the zooming range: It's now possible to zoom out to 10% instead of 25%, which should help with large images.


clone
                          fill used to remove a shadow on the ground
There's a new Clone fill feature
.  You can use it to replace a selection with another portion of the same image.




  • Certain rubber band drawing while using fill tools and circular gradient mode did not work correctly when zoomed.  Fixed.
  • The circular gradient fill mode now centers to the shape that's being drawn until the user specifically sets a new center with the rubber band.
  • Fixed drag and drop bug on color swatches.  you can now shift-click to edit a color on the swatch.
  • The motion module makes better utilization of multiple cores.
  • Possible crash fixed if brush accessed before being initialized.
  • New brush resample panel.
  • Attempt to address problem when using the pan and zoom with tablet. 
  • The pan and zoom tools work by changing the pointer coordinates to the center of the working window.  This caused problems with tablet devices that work in absolute coordinates.
  • "build palette from wells" plugin is internalized.  This tool would sometimes experience 'automation errors'
  • Addressed browser issue.  The browser has been identified as a component that could keep a part of the Dogwaffle.exe in memory if shutdown while still scanning a folder.  This could result in future instances of dogwaffle being seen as a second instance, causing plugins to behave incorrectly.
  • Several areas of bottlenecks regarding interactivity have been addressed on the browser, including switching folders more quickly.
  • Speed improvement to the browser.  The browser now uses GDI+ to read certain file types more quickly (about 5 formats including jpegs, bmps, tiffs, and etc.)  If they can't be read by GDI+, the older reader is used.
  • The browser was formerly implemented as a plugin and has now been internalized, including support for new multiple(!) instances.
  • Algorithm and speed improvements to Soft contrast filter.
  • Timeline:  You can now move keyframes on the timeline after they are created.
  • Fixed a slight inaccuracy in the timeline related to selecting the current frame.
  • Fixed several bugs in curve interpolation on the timeline.  Previously, when the linear setting was active, the lines were drawn with a curve instead of a straight line, so they looked a little non-linear, though the were linear internally.
  • Faster onion skin. (for animators)
  • Not huge, but drawing a lasso no longer flickers when selected (which has accrued into a minor annoyance over the years)
  • Eliminated possible division by zero in ColorFX.
  • Smear mode is reimplemented.  Fixed bug when Custom brushes in smear or clone mode would incorrectly change orientation.
  • Fixed a bug in value noise filter.  2x faster.
  • fixed bug with text rendering after changing settings in the settings panel.
  • fixed a gui rendering bug on the mosaic panel.
  • Plugins that have previously been internalized in some cases still used automation instead of internal classes, which is valid, but not ideal.  Fixed.
  • Layers:  Toggling the view state of a layer no longer selects that layer.
  • The alpha marquee is no longer refreshed while an animation is playing.
  • Specular on the spherize filter was previously distorted due to approximations in rendering.  Also, the algorithm now adds the spec color after the light color has been determined so the spec can be a different color than the light.
  • Both light types (directional/point) now support specular.

We have a new "optional" policy on .net framework.  We originally added it for several reasons.  For one, we wanted to support plugin creation on a modern and freely available program language.  Users didn't like having to install it, so we've reduced our use of it.  It is now considered optional at the expense of just a few features, including the batch browser and picture framer.

There were some problems however.  For one, many users just didn't want to install it.

migration away from the .net framework related (features that no longer use or need the .net framework:
The gradient editor is internalized and ported from the .net framework.

  • Wigglewarp is internalized and ported from the .net framework.
  • Create animated brush is internalized.
  • The .net framework is no longer an official requirement.  It's been downgraded to "a requirement for certain plugins if you wish to use them, including the Batch Browser, Picture Framer, and several others."
  • There is a new menu item to check if the right version of the .net framework is installed (should you want to use it)
  • fixed a buffer overrun in calculation of normal map that affected 3d designer, lighting tool, wax filter.  It's not clear if this was a beta issue or if it affected version 7.2 (carrot juice)
  • Allowed larger lasso selection buffer.
  • Fieldpack has been deprecated in favor of the newer motion prediction module and built in interlace support, and has thus been removed.
  • Brick texture is internalized.
  • functions that previously used Lua or GUI server that have been integrated.
  • Sunset filter.
  • Fog filter.
  • Star filter (photographic filters menu)
  • Duotone.
  • Multicolor, renamed tritone.
  • Gamma.
  • Brick texture.  Mortar thickness is now added to the brick size so the brick size stays the same when changing mortar.
  • Grid.  Grid now has a thickness parameter.
  • halftone plus.
  • jitter blur plus.
  • Zrings and marble texture are internalized and combined into one filter with additional tweaks.
  • noises/fractal noise

  • FX tab related - There have been many small corrections and tweaks to the FX tab on the brush settings panel:
  • Emboss, or "impasto" mode now can work in negative values.  This can be used with grime sets for battle damage, or to create dents or impact graters.
  • Dryout is now correctly rendered in watercolor modes
  • Paper bump was incorrectly treated the same as the drybrush option. 
  • The emboss mode now correctly handles paper bump where it previously only rendered the shape of the brush.
  • There's a new gouache option for more of an opaque and single color effect.
  • There is also a new gel mode which is similar to impasto.
  • There's a new pigment parameter to make the paint color lighter or darker.  It can also be used with lifting to create watery effects.
  • The fx tab rendering now more resembles that of the penny plugin.

  • The watercolor mode now supports a 'Lifting' setting that causes color to be diffused under the brush stroke. See more

  • General speed improvements.
Additional features that have received threading.
  • The Value adjustment filter
  • Zooming (now more than two threads)
  • Bycubic resampling.
  • Motion module additional threading.  previously only the refinement pass was threaded.
  • Lens flares now thread on more than 2 threads.  (oops, that just the final render right now, not preview)
  • linear and circular gradient tools.
  • rendering animation with the 3d designer.
  • Twirl.
  • Apply paper.
  • tint.
  • Jitter.
  • certain things that use box filtering.
  • Auto adjust.
  • Fisheye.
  • Custom blur.
  • Tritone.
  • Halftone plus.

Cosmetic changes:
  • "Open a new color mixer"
  • Store image
  • Store alpha
  • Store brush as image
  • store brush (store and manage)
More:
  • Custom brush preview is now disabled when particles, bristles, or orbicles are in use.
  • Layers: there is now an option in the right-click menu to erase a layer to one of several popular colors, including magic pink. Learn more
  • Fixed 'rescue offscreen windows' to also find the tool panel.
  • Tablet twist support
  • dithered smoothing on lighting tool to avoid quantization.
  • Stroke Player: Added hourglass to brush stroke playback.


Still reading? Congrats, you found one of the most exciting new features of v8....... so, drum roll please,....Last but certainly not least: the new Foliage particle system:

Introducing Optipustics Gen 2

Painting with new foliage brushes & particle brushes:

foliage
                          system


 
Project Dogwaffle
The Main Features List
PD Pro 8

Broomhead
  • What's new in 8.0
Oh Sassy!
Skyock's Egret

Broomhead showcase
Broomhead Dropbox

New Features

& New Videos:


custom
              brushes tutorial
custom brushes


various new
                tools
various new tools

new brush
                effects
new brush effects

3d tools and
                lighting effects
PD Pro 8: 3d tools & lighting FX


using clone
                fill for removing people from a photo, standing in front
                of a duck pond
Removing details from a Photo


lifting of
                pigments into another watercolor brush strke
lifting of water color pigments








Learn more:
Get ready to waffle!
System Requirements
I'm new to Dogwaffle
What was new in v6

I meant I'm a noob
What was new before
I want it now!
Ordering Info
As seen in the Newsletter
November TGE Newsletter
For Programmers:
the 3D SDK






See sample images and animations:

Broomhead showcases












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erase
                layer to magic pink and other colors
erase layer to magic pink and other useful colors for keying

 
 


































Render > Cellular
NewCellular6


















 





spherize - new
                options
new spherize options
 












































crystalize
                filter
new crystalize options






































































































































































































layer
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33 layer modes