Here's a
somewhat updated look at what's been brewing in the
Dogwaffle kitchen.
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
]
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.
- 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)
...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"
- 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.
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.
- Star filter (photographic filters menu)
- Multicolor, renamed tritone.
- 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.
- Zrings and marble texture are internalized and
combined into one filter with additional tweaks.
- 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)
- 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.
- certain things that use box filtering.
Cosmetic changes:
- 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.
- 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:
|