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HOT!
>>> Order PD Howler 2019 here!
Welcome!
(10/28/2018) - This marks the beginning of a new era.
HOT! Read the announcement in the Newsletter #151 - Early Adopters release: alpha 0006
The prior major release was v11, around 2 years ago (early 2017) - ending with several free updates, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, and even a second edition of 11.4 (RC157) just recently in Fall of 2018. Should have called it 11.5 or 11.4b, but we were in a rush.... Life is short, there's time for only a few things, barely.
On to the new year! This is 2019. Well almost. But yay!, we're releasing a new major build, and there will be subsequent updates, surprises, awesomenesses (if that's a word). If you never got v11, it's a great time to jump in. If you had v10 or earlier, please consider upgrading. Check for occasional promotions at super savings.
But please do yourself a big favor - don't wait forever. Before you know it, it'll be 2020. Yap, we see it coming, with perfect vision. Dogwaffle is here to get you there faster. With our own vision. Is it perfect? You decide.
We hope you'll like and enjoy Dogwaffle for years to come.
Are you new to Dogwaffle? Never heard of PD Howler or PD Artist? Check what was new in earlier releases: v11, v10, v9.6,...
or check the history of all builds as far as we remember
Please note: the installer is not available through this website. If you ordered from the bmtmicro store, re-use your download links that came with your order delivery email. If your links have expired, contact Philip at thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/about - if you had ordered from Dan directly, contact Dan via the order support info you got then.
This build is not yet available on Steam or Daz.
Look for special promos at www.thebest3d.com/sales
Slideshow | DOTM | Newsletter | 3D Designer | Puppy Ray | Landscapes | Free demo for Trial | Chillax
(11/03/2018) - And we're live! with the early adopter's Alpha build RC0006
But don't you worry, the download also includes v11.4 final build RC159. Use that if you encounter problems with the newest, until the next update. Free download for a year.
What's new
Too many things to mention them all, so we'll mention a few. It's a short list at first, with plans for great new features as we imagine them.
Changes in the Quicker Color Picker
The quick picker now uses a transparency gag.
Visual Preview in MRUDS list
visual dropdown for most recently used documents
Mip Map Scaling in GUI
Watch this video on YouTube
We adjusted the scaling of the media on the sidebar, so it's mipmap scaled, but not quite as blurry as before. We think it looks better.
3D Rendering OBJ files - Trees, Sharks and more
Watch this video on YouTube
We had introduced a 3D widget in around v11.3, and further improved in 11.4. It was initially focused on rendering 3D trees from OBJ file, created with the help of TreeIt. We are gradually, slowly but surely adding more capabilities to this OBJ renderer, adding Mipmap treatment and other features that will make it a great utility in Howler and Artist. Here's an example of a rendering of a shark. This is from a free model found at Digital Life - www.digitallife3d.org - creating accurate 3D models for life on earth - specifically: http://digitallife3d.org/?fbclid=IwAR32l8kb3fT9BISRn0euefGqmMQhYPM8xdFJYEVsVgbeDTUJeNe3m7l_s0gLet's see..... what else is new or improved?
The shark is a Blacktip Shark, available at Sketchfab: https://sketchfab.com/models/3bdfcf9c47134d4b9dc9888963622be9
Please read the license info: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ - If you are an artist who wants to experiment with the model, even render some creative work, you should likely find that you can do so at no cost. If you make a very successful piece of artwork that sells a lot, such as in a game or printed on mass-produced clothing, you may want to contact DigitalLife3D to ensure that you're operating within the intended framework of their license.
About the shark: The rendering in our OBJ Renderer is still in its infancy, and has a lot of areas that can be further enhanced. Still, it helps to visualize and use 3D trees. It also can load other objects, such as the shark above. The shark was originally downloaded from DigitalLife3D's website via the sketchfab viewer's options. The model comes in as a .blend file, created in Blender, and includes a bones- based animation. It can be loaded into Blender and exported as Wavefront .obj file, which is how we got it eventually into Dogwaffle. With OBJ files, there is usually a set of two files: the geometry file (the object, i.e. the .obj file) and the materials (mtl) file, which in turn may nominate various images used for textures, if any, and bump maps, clipping masks and more..... When Howler parses a MTL file, it loads all the images that it finds references to into a 'VBPyramid' object, which generates all the mip levels automatically. We render with mipmapping, which improves quality when textures are moving from far away to up close, or if they are mapped on a large object that comes close and reaches far in a perspective view.
Here's more: 3D Pumpkin! An OBJ file that came from Michel Agullo, from Funny Wall Stickers at ETSY, also at Couleur Enfants sur Stickersmalin.com (clever sneaky stickers) - you've seen the 3D stickers, have you not? Those come included with your purchase of Dogwaffle. Or have you used the Stickaboo pumpkin stickers on your iPhone or iPad?
We can load some OBJ files (not all yet) and render them, to build a custom brush, a stamp, or other assets. Stay tuned for tutorials and more samples. In some cases, an OBJ file may contain facets that are alternating between clockwise and counter-clockwise ordering of the vertices. In such cases, you may be seing only every other facet, such as the front facing ones, while the back facing ones are dropped in rendering.This can easily be fixed in Lightwave and other 3D tools, if you encounter this issue. In the future, who knows, perhaps we'll even have an option to render the backfacing ones too. We'll see. For now:
![]()
Stay tuned for a tutorial on this soon.
tablet pressure dropdown
brush key dropdown
symmetry dropdown
post adjustment dropdown
Brush stroke preview
Howler now features a brush stroke preview that changes as you change brush settings. You will see the preview for the brush stroke in the side bar. There are several places where a change to the brush can be made. You might pick a totally different brush from the media collection or right there in the sidebar. You might pick a brush from right-clicking the brush tool icon. You might use spacebar for the quicker picker, which offers colors and brushes. And you might use the brush settings panel to fine-tune some options such as dryout, random position or size, etc... You might alos have stored a brush, and change some of the parameters of the stored brush. The preview will give you an idea of the impact from the changes you made to the brush.
Overhauled the Text tool
We made a few changes to improve the text tool. If you make titles, annotated illustrations, or otherwise have had a use for the text tool, this is for you.Ok, as mentioned, this is work in process, so be prepared for more to come.
There's now a + and - button to change font size quickly.
(Nov 09, 2018 - we're now shipping build 2019.0010 for PD Howler)
New Digital Timer filter in Filter > Animated category
Imagine this... animated!
Fixing a crash that could occur after using the text tool, while clicking while the text box is invisible.
This build improves the experience when selecting media from the dropdown menu next to the "Browse Media" button.
Rendering tests - high AA in Puppy Ray GPU
Here are two renderings with very high numbers for Anti-Aliasing (AA) passes in Puppy Ray GPU rendering: Yes, we did 320 and 1600 passes
We were just testing the point at which you couldn't see noise in the water plane anymore. Seems to be around 400 AA passes, but I usually use max 120 or so.
![]()
Full HD - High definition renderings (1920x1080).
![]()
More images for large landscapes coming soon to www.thebest3d.com/landscapes/large
The Brush Stamp Tool new! - Build 11 added the brush stamp tool. It can be found under the Brush menu. Your currently loaded brush image can thus be positioned neatly and previewed, transformed and adjusted before it is committed and stamped.
Build 12
- Added initial support for loading much larger images. Tested up to 8k x 8k. It's still a good idea also to configure the undo image stack to use the disk instead of RAM.
Fixed crash in array to animation
Build 13
- improved GUI speed when working on large images, but broke the curve tool. Build 14 fixes it.
Build 15
- This is a refresh build to test the build process on a new machine.
- However, there may also be several bug fixes.
- This version is shipping as of 12/16/18 - check and re-use your download links. Contact us if any problems.
.....coming with next release: (not out yet)
Build 16
- This build focuses on removing the flash when selecting certain types of media.
Build 17
More bug fixes and performance improvements involving media selection and preview in build 17
Media preview was inappropriately affected by zoom level.
Build 19
- The effect of paper textures is now shown in the media preview.
- Other various bug fixes.
Build 20
- Build 20 adds the media name on the media preview.
You too may like having the media name in the preview, it's one of the things that kept some of us from using the side media preview. On lighter media, it tends to disappear, but there is not much that can be done with that. That was predicted. We just hadn't had time to engineer the perfect solution for everything. Just throwing things in there and seeing if they stick.
You can hover over the medias and get the name in a tooltip, too.
Well, it got cut a little short, guess we could roll out version / build 21, ....
Here's the features:
- A number of bug fixes and performances improvements related to media preview
- media preview now shows the effect of paper texture
- media preview was incorrectly affected by zoom and pen color
- media preview is about 2x faster
- preview now shows the name of the media
- media preview could occasionally show corrupted results
Build 23 focuses on flood fill.
Rebuilding The Flood - Fill (Library) with more stack memory. Tested in up to 4k.Not sure if this affects (preferably benefits) magic wand selections, or just flood fill.Let's test some more.
Build 24
- increases stack size for flood fill so it shouldn't crash in higher resolutions.
Build 25 - release it, babiiiie!
Fixed a crash in Quick Color Picker if media was different than the one selected on the sidebar
Hi to all our Howler users!
Today's build includes a slew of bug fixes and refinements. Here's a recap:
Today, we are releasing build 25 of Howler 2019.
Media preview now shows media name
Media preview is about 2x faster
Addressed issue with flood fill and selection stick running out of stack space on larger images
Addressed issue with corrupt scanline showing occasionally when zoomed
The effect of paper texture is now shown in the media preview
Fixed corrupt media preview showing with certain media
Fixed issue with media preview incorrectly scaled
Fixed the occasional flash when selecting certain kinds of media
Fixed a potential crash if the selected media category was different from the quick color picker
Fixed a potential crash if image was smaller than the media preview
--- early March 2019 ---
Build 26 - some Madness in Early March
In this one, we think all of the buttons on the foliage tab are now working, leaving the rules library and loading/saving to complete.
Short and sweet:
- Animate using drawing tools such as line and circles
- Easing (ease in/ease out) functions for animations
- Improved feature replacement / inpainting
- Match the palette of one image to another
- Open Simplex noise
- One-click enhance
When we're chatty:
- Rendering should now be fully functional.
- simplified the foliage GUI a bit.
- added alpha channel blending (in post pass).
- added ability to create new alpha channel.
- the 'rnd' button should be working now.
Say you wanted to repeat a stroke with the brush recorder or "shift-a" you would get an exact copy of what you drew. Use "Rnd" to force it to randomize and then to "Shift-A"
- Changed "depth cue" now called "Color cue" to use right or left mouse button colors.
- globally speaking, brush playback with "Shift-a" now has an hourglass.
- on the lighting tool, "smoothness" now uses a dither pattern because it got really quantized looking.
There may be more.
Check this video walk-through: https://youtu.be/zoJ514ZongU
--- mid March 2019 ---
Build 30 - some more Madness in mid-MarchSummary:
The update adds a new object- and blemish-removal system with automated colour matching for photographic images; support for Poisson blending in the Stamp tool; and OpenSimplex noise.There are also new 2D animation features, including the option to set up simple animation paths with the line and circle tools, with a range of easing functions.
Natural media painter with a slant toward VFX, Howler 2019 is updated to build 30 with new Poisson blending tools.
The Howler 2019 build 30 is now available to registered users. This build includes tools that dramatically improve compositing with gradient domain Poisson blending. Also the animation capability is updated through animating with drawing tools such as line and circle paths, and easing in/out functions.
- Gradient domain Poisson blending stamp tool
- Improved blemish / feature removal with color matching
- Match the palette of one image to that of another image
- Easing functions for animation
- Animate with the line and circle tools
- Open simplex noise
- One click enhance
Visit http://squirreldome.com/WhatsNew.htm1 to see what’s new.
For orders, see http://squirreldome.com/Cart.htm
and https://thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/salesLearn more with this video intro: https://youtu.be/mUUHBiIvVdQ
--- Mid April 2019 ---
Build 42 - Easter SurpriseSummary:
We'll have details later. For now, just enjoy!
New stuff.
--- Mid May 2019 ---
Build 49 - Artist
Build 51 - Howler
Summary of changes/enhancements/fixes recently done and now available:
- Brush style dropdown selector was broken, fixed.
- Fixed small gap showing sometimes in circle tool
- Menu layout improvements
- Menus no longer open in unexpected places
- Visual theme improvements and changes
- Menus now always remain flat and borderless, because they are menus and not buttons
- "Colors" on the settings panel is now named "Themes"
- "Flat look toolbar" now turns off borders on the toolbar as well
- Multiple spelling corrections
- Fixed checkbox appearing incorrectly in vbscripts when system look style is applied
- Color tweaks to system look style
- Several corrections on the selection settings panel
- Visual mrud list opens a bit larger
- New exporter for H264 and WMV video
- New freehand dotted painting mode simplifies painting individual splats, and improves anim-brush painting
- Extends gradient domain Poisson blending to the feature removal tool, in addition to the stamp tool
- Improvements to the experimental one click feature removal tool
- Improved feature removal / replacement. Fix blemishes or remove unwanted features
- Match the palette of one image to that of another image
- Easing functions for animation. New line tool animation option
- Open Perlin noise
- One click enhance
--- Early June 2019: build 58 ---
- GUI improvements such as color pen and trapped white space fixes, menu rationalizing, and such.
- Integrated brush timeline with various improvements.
- Fixed Brush Timeline glitch when setting keyframe on last frame.
- Improved interactivity on Brush Timeline.
- Brush Timeline is now out in the open on the brush menu.
- Brush Timeline now offers to create an animated brush if one does not exist.
- Demo version updated to a much more recent build - check it here
--- Late June 2019: build 66 ---
- Integrated Exposure Sheet plugin
- Split the Exposure Sheet and Frame Painter into two tools to make Frame Painter more visible
- Performance and usability improvements to Exposure Sheet
- Fixed performance and quality when scrubbing audio
- Fixed aliasing issue in Frame Painter wiggle hold
- Fixed filmstrip thumbnail not updating correctly
- Deprecated a number of old plugins that didn't do much
- Tweaks to Create Animation panel to remove trapped white space
- Demo updated to a more recent build
Checksums:
Name: Howler_2019_0066.exe
Size: 109472779 bytes (104 MiB)
CRC32: 619E56B7
CRC64: DC60BE8FA979D49F
SHA256: DFDF506ACA2D2344E5079CC185F2CEE7D785927750FCCCA12B9BD28E1000E33C
SHA1: D693C49943CD02BC504142B113295CA19D83B760
BLAKE2sp: F494955C70EE3F04B60015FC4FC052DA16B64D2E699902C505BA37DB1DC2A45D
More new features coming:
What next, what Now? Order PD Howler (or PD Artist) version 2019 (also known as v12)
Wow me: www.thebest3d.com/wow - the slideshow
Teach me: