• Category Archives JWildfire releases
  • JWildfire 3.20 release: point-cloud export

    Just released JWildfire V3.20 – which is another community release, thanks to Brad, Rick and Luca for your contributions!

    This is a major release featuring a new kind of mesh-export: point-clouds. Point-clouds basically are meshes with 1-point-polygons.
    In contrast to the solid meshes, the “points” of the generated point-clouds may have also an individual color and an alpha channel
    (which may be used in rendering).

    3D-Packages like Houdini can render point-clouds in the way that each point is represented by a little sphere
    (you usually can adjust the size of those spheres), generating a “solid” shape.
    You can apply materials to point-clouds like to any regular mesh. Especially in Houdini, the points keep their individual
    (diffuse) color.

    You can also generate “solid” meshes from point-clouds, for example using the ball-pivoting-algorithm inside
    MeshLab.

    Important Parameters for point-cloud-generation in JWildfire (use “Output type” POINTCLOUD to enable it):

    • CELL-SIZE: the program uses an octree to quantize the space into little small cubes. All samples inside a cube
      are later condensed into one point of the point-cloud. So, this setting basically affects the
      “resolution” of the generated mesh. But beware, please make it only smaller in small steps,
      otherwise memory consumption may grow in an “explosive” way
    • RENDER QUALITY: overall number of samples, increase it only if your mesh has noise/holes in it
    • OUTPUT FORMAT: you may either use *.ply or *.obj. But beware, this option has also an impact on the generation
      of the point-cloud:

      • PLY-Format: only vertices (“points”), with color and alpha channel (works good for Houdini)
      • OBJ-Format: vertices and 1-point-polygons, NO color and NO alpha channel (works good for Lightwave Hypervoxels)

    Complete list of changes (you can also see this list inside the program at the any time, see Help->List of changes ):

    • New “POINTCLOUD”-generator inside the Mesh-Generator.
    • New Variations – Thanks to dark-beam (Luca) and Brad Stefanov for conversions
      • Spirograph3D by Rick Sidwell.
      • Hypershift, Helicoid, Helix by Zy0rg.
      • Atan by FractalDesire.
      • Chunk, Erf, Erf3D, Gamma, XErf by zephyrtronium.
      • Circular, DSpherical, Shift by Tatyana Zabanova.
      • Circular2 by Tatyana Zabanova variables added by Brad Stefanov.
      • Pressure_wave by timothy-vincent.
    • Fixes
      • Fixed issue reading apo parameters in GlynnSim variations. By Rick Sidwell
      • Fix bug reading repeated variations in a transform. By Rick Sidwell
      • Added lgamma to Math.lib for gamma variation to work.
      • Fixed some performance problem in solid rendering
      • fixed a problem with calculation of normals in solid rendering

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 3.11 release: many new variations

    Just released JWildfire V3.11 – most work was done by Brad Stefanov and Rick Sidwell this time – thanks guys!

    Complete list of changes (you can also see this list inside the program at the any time, see Help->List of changes ):

    • New Variations:
      • Cot2_BS,Csc2_BS,Tan2_BS,Sec2_BS,Exp2_BS,Sin2_BS,Csch2_BS,Cosh2_BS,Sech2_BS,Coth2_BS,Sinh2_BS,andTanh2_BS complex variations by cothe with added variables by Brad Stefanov
      • Cosq,Sinq,Tanq,Tanhq,Coshq,Sinhq,Cotq,Cothq,Cscq,Cschq,Estiq,Secq,Sechq from the Quaternion Apo Plugin Pack by zephyrtronium implemented into JWF by Brad Stefanov
    • Fixes
      • Fixed bug in TileHlp. by Brad Stefanov
      • Fixed Log_tile with new variation Tile_log for keeping compatibility … will keep both variations since they work in different ways. By Brad Stefanov
      • Fixed bugs in XTrb by Rick Sidwell
      • Changed getCoeffxy to getXYCoeffxy for variations that use them. By Rick Sidwell
      • Fixed bugs with the Falloff3 variations. By Rick Sidwell
      • Fix misc. variation bugs. Most pre and post variations should assign, not add their results. Fixed this in multiple variations to match the original apo plugins. By Rick Sidwell
    • Misc
      • rendering/processor-usage is more smooth now, avoids blocking (may slightly decrease render speed, but is more responsive on most systems.
        If max render speed is extremely important for you, than keep the old version) – by Andreas Maschke
      • “subflame_wf” – variation now also supports flame-sequences as input (to animate the subflame) – by Andreas Maschke

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 3.10 release: improved image-quality and much other fun

    Just released JWildfire V3.10.

    Among a lot of different changes, two major features stand out: improved image-quality (sharpening and anti-aliasing) and an easy-to-use background-gradient-function.

    Complete list of changes (you can also see this list inside the program at the any time, see Help->List of changes ):

    • Image-quality:
      • new “Filtering”-option at the Anti-Aliasing/Filtering-tab to distinguish between the various types of filtering:
        GLOBAL_SHARPENING, GLOBAL_SMOOTHING, ADAPTIVE. The “Filter kernel” option is populated accordingly.
      • new MITCHELL_SMOOTH-filter kernel (derived from MITCHELL), which is now the default
      • improved the behaviour of sharpening filters (causing less artifacts)
      • “Sharpness indicator” and “Low density”-parameters at the “Anti-Aliasing/Filter”-tab (affects only adaptive filtering)
      • new experimental adaptive MITCHELL_SINEPOW-filter (sharpenung details, smoothing “unsharp” areas as well as areas with low density)
      • new “low brightness”-property to show/hide areas with lower density, increasing this value usually leads to more detail, while decreasing
        this value may help to hide unwanted border areas
      • increased default oversampling to 2 in order to increase default quality
    • Editing:
      • reimplemented the preview-cache (all options at the coloring-tab do not need a recalculation do show changes). In general, all properties
        which do not need a re-render are indicated by a star at the label, e.g. “Brightness*”. Is is recommended to do a quickrender before adjusting them,
        so can apply changes in almsot realtime to a decent image.
      • improved the quality of the preview in the main editor
      • the channel-mixer also works in “realtime-mode” now
      • new color-balancing options at the “Coloring”-tab
    • Flame-saving/flame-thumbnail-selection
      • new SaveAll-button which saves all selected flames into a single file (thanks to Michael Bourne for the suggestion)
      • new checkbox at each flame-thumbnail to (de)select it
      • new popup-menus at the flame-thumbnails (press the right mouse-button over a button to display the menu):
        • remove-button: new popup-menu to remove all or remove selected flames
        • checkbox (sometimes referred as “select-button”: new popoup-menu to toggle selection or deselect all
      • added confirmation dialog to the thumbnail-delete button
    • Background-gradients:
      • new 2×2 gradient-type for the background of fractals , may also be changed in “realtime mode”
      • new 2×2+c gradient-type for the background of fractals (which is the new default)
    • Mesh-Generator:
      • optional post-smooth (Taubin-smooth) in the mesh generator
      • removed the parameters “Thickness mod” and “Thickness samples” (just fix your model if is has “holes”) in the mesh generator
      • improved the rotation-behaviour of the mesh-preview in the Mesh-Generator
      • improved the heuristics to calculate “depth” when creating a mesh from a voxelstack
      • fixed (again) a serious bug in the Mesh-Generator: when rendering image-stacks
    • Misc:
      • new “Machine”-random-flame-generator
      • detect flames with invalid (xaos) settings and stop to render them
      • indicator-mode for adapative filtering (i. e. showing sharp/smooth regions)
      • fixed some labels which were not scale accordingly the global “tinaFontScale”-property
      • rearranged some controls at the coloring-tab
      • new variations, provided by Brad Stefanov (“waves2_radial”, “spliptic_bs”, “circlesplit”, “log_tile2”, “mobiq”, “tile_hlp”)
      • lots of new presets for the “isosfplot3d_wf”-variation, provided by Frank Baumann and Brad Stefanov
      • some performance increase on some of the DOF-blur-shapes
      • increased quality of DOF in 3D-mode, but needs much more time to compute
      • removed the color-oversampling/jittering-option

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 3.01 release: major bugfix in MeshGen

    Just released JWildfire V3.01.

    List of changes:

    • Fixed a serious bug in the Mesh-Generator: when rendering image-stacks
      each image inside a slice was the same. This was causing meshes to be very
      “chunky”, depending on slice-size.
      The only workaround was to set slice-size to 1, i. e. rendering one image
      per slice, which causes a major slowdown.
    • minor improvement in rendering speed
    • new “isosfplot3d_wf”-variation for plotting iso-surfaces (may be very slow on old machines)
    • new “dc_color”-parameter for the “colormap_wf” and “post_colormap_wf”-variations
      to turn coloring off (in case you want only use the image as heightmap)
    • new “blend_colormap” -parameter for the “colormap_wf” and “post_colormap_wf”-variations
      to improve quality

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 3.00 release: 3D rendering, improved UI and Mac OS X support

    It has been a while since the last release, but sometimes things just need time 🙂
    I can’t remember exactly, but I think we had in the end 6 ALPHA versions and 9 BETA versions to finally finish
    what is now simply called “JWildfire 3.0“.

    I know, most people never read notes, and I hope I will still have your attention. In short:
    new version = 3d rendering + new UI + experimental GPU rendering + Mac OS X support + endless list of changes

    endless list of changes = integrated in the UI, so no need to read too much at once, it will be still there
    when you start the app the next time 😀

    The complete list of changes is tremendous, I will post only a little excerpt:
    3D SOLID RENDERING
    – completely new 3d (solid) rendering mode for flame fractals, featuring
    – ambient shadows
    – distant light-sources
    – specular lighting, several diffuse-response functions
    – reflection-mapping
    – hard and soft shadows
    – z-buffer-output

    – new “obj_mesh_wf” and “obj_mesh_primitive_wf”-variations to allow you to integrate
    meshes as shapes into your fractals. While “obj_mesh_wf” allows you to load arbitrary
    meshes (e .g. found in the web, there are tons of free meshes out there), you may
    use “obj_mesh_primitive_wf” to use numerous predifined presets
    – both variations support:
    – uv-colormaps
    – uv-displacement-maps
    – geometry-smoothing (using the Taubin-smooth-algorithm)

    – new “yplot2d_wf”-, “yplot3d_wf”- and “parplot2d_wf”-variations to generate geometry
    by plotting arbitrary mathematical functions (e.g. “sin(x*x+z*z)”)
    – all of those variations contain many very cool presets, e.g. there are 35 presets
    included in the “parplot2d_wf”-variaton, just slide through them by changing the
    “preset_id”

    – new “plane_wf”-variation for easy creation of a textured plane
    – script-generator (which creates scripts from a flame) also creates solid-attributes
    for solid flames

    – support for invisible objects which can receive shadows. This way you can let
    fractals cast real-looking shadows on objects inside a background-image, inspired
    by Oak Fractal Sandbox by David Byrd (http://www.davidbyrd.io/)
    – this options is supported by the variations “obj_mesh_wf”, “obj_mesh_primitive_wf”
    and “plane_wf”

    – completely new DOF for solid rendering with bokeh-effects. This DOF is a post-effect
    (and works totally different than the regular DOF) and is not visible in the fast-preview(!).
    But, it also gives better results.
    One way to adjust the DOF is to turn solid rendering of in order to show the regular DOF
    in fast-preview, adjust it (position and strength),
    and then turn solid rendering on again

    – new “Solid Julia3D”-random-flame-generator to create random solid flames
    – new “Solid (experimental)”-random-flame-generator to create random solid flames
    – new “Solid (stunning)”-random-flame-generator to create random solid flames
    – new “Solid Labyrinth”-random-flame-generator
    – new option in the Prefrences to disable solid-flame-random-generators inside the global “All”-random-flame-generator

    IMPROVED UI
    – huge UI change: the main flame-window was broken into multiple smaller windows
    – new Navigator-window to make it easier to navigate between windows
    – window-state for all windows inside the desktoip is saved in the Preferences
    – new “Tips of the day”-window, may be turned off
    – the Welcome-window (still providing some useful links) is not show per default,
    but you can reach it in the menu
    – Customizable background and convenience-darkening effect (see
    desktopBackgroundImagePath and desktopBackgroundDarkenAmount in the Preferences)
    – supplied a background-image from my own library
    – removed the combobox to select the edit-plane, and added three buttons in the
    main editor area instead
    – new “List of changes”-window to display the list of changes made in the software
    – improved image-quality for scaled image-display on the desktop (e. g. after
    loading an image or displaying a rendered image)
    – option to auto-reload saved images from the interactive renderer (in order so be
    able to check them quickly), may be turned off in the Preferences
    – option to manually save a z-buffer-image in the interactive renderer
    – buttons to easily randomize light-position and light-color (for solid flames)
    – the params in the nonlinear-tab can now get “expanded” in order to access them
    all at one time, thanks to Martin Flink to the suggestion!
    – new parameter tinaDefaultExpandNonlinearParams in the Preferences to turn the
    expansion of the nonlinear-param-controls per default to on
    – exchanged some icons in the main editor
    – variations-editing: the controls use non-fractional step-size when changing a parameter having integer-values (like
    power of “julia3D”-variation)

    GPU RENDERING
    – experimental gpu-rendering by integration of FACLRender, and external GPU
    renderer, made by Steven Brodhead (see the integrated info-window for more
    details)
    – new info-window about GPU-rendering
    – new GPU-render window to interactively render flames, only available
    under Windows.
    Quick way to test out if a certain flame works, you would usually do this,
    before you animate it, and then finally use the batch-renderer with enabled
    GPU-renderer to render a sequence.
    – integrated the external OpenCL-renderer in the batch-renderer
    – new option tinaFACLRenderOptions in the Preferences to influence the options
    used to invoke the external GPU render

    MAC OS X SUPPORT
    – native installer for Mac OS
    – some optimizations for Mac OS X to improve user experience
    – made “System” the default theme under MacOS
    – renamed the main class to JWildfire in order to get “JWildfire” displayed as application on Mac
    – changed to initial directory for the directory-select-box in the flame-browser (works now on Mac)
    – set up default resolution- and quality-profiles when no preferences file could be found

    MISC
    – new “Orchids”-random-flame-generator

    – New local hue parameter at the Local Gamma tab (called “Gamma”), allowing much more variations in color than using only the default coloring
    – New randomizer-buttons at the Local Gamma tab, to randomize each parameter individually

    – added a quarter-render-size option in the Interactive Renderer

    – Removed the Shading-tab and all the options for Blur-Shading, Distance-Color-Shading and Pseudo3D-Shading.
    – the popular blur-shading was re-introduced as new option under the “DOF / Bokeh” – tab as “Post blur”
    – distance-color-shading was removed completely, if you liked it, please keep an old version
    – Pseudo3D-shading is obsolete due to new 3d rendering

    – removed the rarely used brightness-slider in the main editor
    – removed the rarely used Chaotica-bridge

    – recreated the SystemInfo window and added a function to clear the cache (which hold resources like fonts, meshes, …
    in order to speed up future calculations)
    – new “Transfer to Interactive Renderer”-button in the main editor
    – removed the MutaGen-button in the main editor

    – added two new parameters to the “subflame_wf” variation: “colorscale_z” (adds depth to the outer flame according
    to the color-information of the inner flame) and “use_colors” (use the computed color-information of the inner
    flame as color of the outer flame)
    – the “subflame_wf”-variation also respect hidden samples now and can recover iteration after receiving
    invalid results (e. g. division by zero)

    – added new parameters “axis”, “centre_x”, “centre_y” and “centre_y” to the “pre_wave3D_wf”-variation
    – added experimental “direct_color”-parameter to the “truchet”-variation

    – new “MobiusN”-variation by eralex

    – replaced the link to variation-guide, hosted by user FractalGee, which seems to be permanently off, by a link to
    the variations-list supplied by Don Town

    – 3 new SINEPOW-filter-kernels (with predefined power-levels)

    – the “Rnd”-button now can also operate on newly created flames

    – refined the default resolution- and quality-profiles

    – improved the speed of the MutaGen

    – changed the layout of the sub-tabs “DoF” and “Solid rendering”

    – slightly shorter startup time due to the use of more simple random-flames-generator at startup

    – support for loading and saving Fusion-compatible *.spl-files in the motion-curve-editor

    – moved the “Rnd”-button at a new “Misc”-tab

    Have fun!


  • JWildfire 2.60 release: the HUGE update :-)

    Just released JWildfire V2.60, which is a really HUGE update. This time, it took 7 BETA-versions until completion, thanks to the guys at the forums for suggestions and testing :-).

    Here are the update-notes, please read them carefully 🙂

    Major changes:

    • New progressive preview, which allows progressive rendering while editing.
      While it needs much CPU-power it is a great new way to explore interesting spots inside your fractals, it is especially of great use in combination with the “Fine Edit”-option.
      It also allows you browse random-flames or flames generated by scripts at higher quality because the quality increases while you are watching at the fractal.
    • Any variation may be now be easily toggled to be pre_/normal/post_ – variation. This feature uses minimal changes in the user-interface and it does not break anything, e. g. all scripts should be remain intact without any further change
    • Separate (and resizable) window for editing scripts with a more advanced editor with basic syntax-highlighting
    • Some new random-generators, including the “Spirals3D”-generator which generates cool 3D-flames (i. e. flames with affine3D-transforms, not just the usual z-translation-stuff)

    Complete list of changes:

    • New progressive preview, which allows progressive rendering while editing.
      While it needs much CPU-power it is a great new way to explore interesting spots inside your fractals, it is especially of great use in combination
      with the “Fine Edit”-option.
      It also allows you browse random-flames or flames generated by scripts at higher quality because the quality increases while you are watching at
      the fractal.There is a new button to toggle progressive-preview in the main-editor (you may switch between classic preview and progressive preview at any time),
      and there is a new option in the Preferences to specify the initial state of this button (tinaEditorProgressivePreview).
      So, if you machine is too slow, you may just permanently disable it and use the default preview which was also slightly improved.There are new options tinaEditorProgressivePreviewMaxRenderTime and tinaEditorProgressivePreviewMaxRenderQuality in the Preferences to control the render-time of progressive preview.
    • any variation may be now be easily toggled to be pre_/normal/post_ – variation. This feature uses minimal changes in the user-interface
      and it will not break anything, e. g. all scripts should be remain intact without any further change
    • added the possiblity to change the position of variations inside a transform
    • New “Low priority”-option in the the launcher. This options is only available under Windows and enabled by default. It should cause a general smoother behaviour of the software.
    • providing a more advanced editor with basic syntax-highlighting for editing scripts and custom variations (thanks CozyG for the java8-related fix)
    • separate (and resizable) window for editing scripts
    • new “Batch Renderer”-button which quicksaves the current flame and sends it together with size/quality information to the batch-renderer
    • new “post_axis_symmetry_wf”-variation
    • new “post_point_symmetry_wf”-variation
    • new “mobius_strip” by CozyG
    • removed the confusing “H”-Button from the main-editor in order to free space, cleaned up the main toolbar
    • adjustment to brightness-calculation when using post-symmetry
    • rearranged some buttons so that it is unlikely to press the MutaGen-button by wanting to press Undo (important because the MutaGen currently can not cancelled)
    • new “Reset”- and “Reset All”-buttons on the Xaos-tab
    • Optimization of preview-rendering: do not re-render flame after switching “triangles”
    • Optimization of preview-rendering: do not re-render flame after switching editor modes
    • new “Spirals”-random-flame-generator which can generate awesome results, thanks Tate27kh from dA for the inspiration!
    • new “Ghosts”-random-flame-generator
    • new “Spirals3D”-random-flame-generator (which utilizes the “Spirals”-generator)
    • improved the “Brokat”-random-flame-generator (uses the ability to switch variation-types, see below)
    • improved the “Simple Tiling”-random-flame-generator
    • reimplemented the “Brokat3D”-random-flame-generator to generate more visually appealing results
    • reimplemented the “Gnarl3D”-random-flame-generator to generate more visually appealing results
    • new Option “tinaAdvancedCodeEditor” in the Prefs to turn off the advanced code-editor. May not work on all systems/may not look good on all themes, especially the true dark ones.
    • the Script-From-Flame-Generator also supports flames with 3D-affine transforms
    • the Script-From-Flame-Generator also respects the new variation-priority
    • created a v6 of the Custom_Variation_Loader_GH-script by CozyG, which now used the new Prefs-option for the path and included this version as standard script
    • new property tinaCustomVariationsPath in the Prefs to specify the path for external custom_variations (used by the Custom_Variation_Loader_GH script by CozyG).
    • modifications to ScriptParamsDialog and ScriptParamsForm to keep script params modal dialog centered on JWildfire main frame.
    • added use of tinaAdvancedCodeEditorFontSize and tinaAdvancedCodeEditorColorFix to ResourceDialog.
    • performance-improvement of the MutaGen
    • fixed some zoom-calculation-bug when zooming with the mouse-wheel
    • fixed some problem with parameter-handling in the “trade”-variation
    • moved the gradient-editor-button to the gradient-tab
    • removed the outdated start_windows.bat from the distribution (Windows-users should use JWildfire.exe instead to properly start the application)
    • updated the Win64-distribution to java8

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 2.57 release: IR reloaded

    Just released JWildfire V2.57.

    This version comes with some important optimizations and fixes, especially to the Interactive Renderer (IR):

    • it should be much faster now
    • the final images created by the IR should be the same like the images created by the static renderer at the same quality (there were always differences until now, because those two renderers work differently)
    • saving an image while rendering should be much faster and never lead to freezes, because the rendering is paused automatically while saving

    Complete list of changes:

    • Major speedup in the interactive renderer
    • Tonemapping in the interactive renderer should now be exactly the same as in the fixed renderer (i.e., the final images should be the same when the quality is the same)
    • while saving an image the rendering is paused in order to avoid to too heavy load or even freezes of the java-process
    • fixed the behaviour of the main progress-bar (was sometimes not updated)
    • Windows-Launcher:  fixed the problem with paths which contain spaces (i.e. you can now have the JWildfire-folder at any local folder, e.g. at “C:\Program Files” etc.)
    • added some Author-informations to the JWildfire.exe-file, otherwise some virus-scanner seems to be too nervous about the file 😉
    • slightly increased the default image-quality
    • improved the “Black&White”-random-flame-generator
    • Problem fixed regarding parameter handling in the variations “trade”, “w”, “x”, “y” and “z”
    • the native plugins for the Chaotica-bridge are available as external download-packages now

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 2.56 release: improved render-quality

    Just released JWildfire V2.56.

    This version comes with the following major new features:

    • improved render quality: spatial oversampling and a few of other option to significantly improve render-quality (see the official Wiki for details: http://wiki.jwildfire.org/index.php?title=Manual_RenderQualityFlameFractals)
    • visualisation of filter-kernels to make it more transparent how filtering works and how different settings work
    • reduced memory-usage (needs about 50% of memory with identical settings as before)
    • simplified install: no more installer, just unzip, additional package for Windows 64 Bit with pre-installed Java and Leap-motion-dll’s

    Complete list of changes:

    •  new spatial-oversampling-option for improved render-quality. The default value is 2, this may be set in the Preferences
    • visualisation of filter-kernels for better understanding/easier customizing of the spatial filtering process, both a nice-looking 3d-mode and a fast 2d-mode are available
    • new sample-jittering- and color-oversampling-option for improved render-quality. The default value is off, this may be set in the Preferences.
    • new post-noise-filtering-option for redusing noise of the final noise by using an adaptive gaussian filter. The default value is off, this may be set in the Preferences.
    • added a brief description of all of this options in the official Wiki: http://wiki.jwildfire.org/index.php?title=Manual_RenderQualityFlameFractals
    • changed the memory management/layout of the iteration buffer (rendering should now take significantly less memory, and initialisation of rendering runs substantly faster, comes to a cost of only slightly degraded render time)
    • the final image-generating-process now works fully multi-threaded and should be faster
    • added a new experimental option “Opacity” to control the opacity of the foreground when rendering an image with background (often those renders caused the loss of too many details)
    • new “Pseudo3D”-random-flame-generator
    • improved the “Xenomorph”-random-flame-generator
    •  improved the “Cross”-random-flame-generator
    • some more useful statistics in the interactive renderer, e.g. absolute render-speed-indicator to make it easier to compare different settings (render speed means the quality level the renderer can reach in one hour)
    • the windows-launcher (JWildfire.exe) should now be much smarter to find a valid Java-install
    • completely removed the izpack-installer (until now there were always two files: a *.zip for users who just wanted to unzip, or an izpack-based installer which caused too many problems)
    • there are now two packages available: platform-independant without jdk and any dll’s, and windows64 with jdk and certain dll’s
      – removed the applet from the distribution
    • the Chaotica-integration is now disabled by default (in order to hide the export-button which may occupy important space for some users)
    • changed the animation-playback in the main-editor to full-window-size
    • made the detached renderer and the interactive renderer to behave more smooth
    • progressbar-update should be much smoother now, i.e. use less ressources
    • negative “perspective”-values are allowed now (again)
    • when using post-symmetry, the maximum of symmetry-order of point-symmetry was increased from 18 to 36
    • new ouputchannel to change param-values of plugins via the Leap Motion controller
    • added a new option tinaIntegrationChaoticaAnimationExport to the preferences. This option controls if the flames which are exchanged over the Chaotica-bridge are animated flames or static flames. In case you export them as static flames and have not a Studio licence for Chaotica you may render in higher resolutions.
    • fixed a bug in the crop-like variations
    • fixed a bug regarding autoimatically saving the current flame in the iteractive renderer
    • some refactoring of the structure synthesizer
    • completely removed all experimental opencl-code

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 2.56 BETA 3 release: memory-usage reduced

    Released the BETA 3 which was optimized regarding the usage of RAM:

    • default rendering should now use substantly less memory (should be about 50% of usage of previous versions)
    • the initialization of render-buffers should be insanely fast in comparison to earlier versions (does only matter having very large renders, but then it really matters)
    • animation-playback in main-window was changed to full-size

    Download


  • JWildfire 2.56 BETA 2 release: performance improved

    Released the BETA 2 which adresses several performance issues:

    • default rendering is faster now
    • rendering in the interactive renderer/detached view is substantly faster
    • render-display-update in the interactive renderer/detached view is changed to non-buffered by default (you may change this in the Preferences, property tinaOptimizedRenderingIR)
    • faster and smoother update of the progress-bar while rendering

    Download


  • JWildfire 2.56 BETA release

    Hi all,
    in the last weeks I was working on some major changes which I should have done much earlier, but never found the time before: increasing the render-quality! The new version actually works quiet good, but there were so many changes under the hood that I decided to release a BETA-version to receive your feedback before the final release.

     

    So what has changed?

    The previously used cheap antialiasing-mode was completely removed.

    To increase image quality and reduce noise there are now the following options (at the Antialiasing/Filter-tab):

    • spatial oversampling
    • apply one of 14 supplied filtering kernels (depending on the fractal, to increase sharpness or reduce noise)
    • in order to help you to choose the right filter, there is a visualisation of the filter-kernel, either in flat or 3d-mode. As a rule of thumb: sharpening filters have negative parts (indicated red in 2d-mode)
    • color oversampling
    • sample jittering
    • post noise reduction

    I will describe those options later at the official Wiki, just have fun to play around with them.

     

    You will notice that the renderer appears to be slower. But, it isn’t, in fact it is faster. It just renders at spatial-oversampling-level of 2 per default (i. e. internally rendering an image which is larger by factor 4 in size).

    So you should now get better quality in nearly the same time, maybe in some more time. But, more importantly, there is no need to render at insane quality levels to render an image in decent quality.

     

    You may change all the new default settings in the Preferences.

     

    Any feedback is welcome

     

    Download

     


  • JWildfire 2.50 R2 release

    Just released JWildfire V2.50 R2.

    • Added a new option tinaIntegrationChaoticaAnimationExport to the preferences.
      This option controls if the flames which are exchanged over the Chaotica-bridge are animated flames or static flames. In case you export them as static flames and have not a Studio licence for Chaotica you may render in higher resolutions. Per default this option is set to off, i.e. exported flames are static.
    • Fixed a problem with the launcher regarding installation-path containing spaces

    Have fun!


  • JWildfire 2.50 R1 release: important bugfix

    Just released JWildfire V2.50 R1.

    There is some important bugfix (the Linear3D-variation was not working correct when preserveZ was set to false) and it is now possible to control the change of parameters of formulas (e.g. the power N of juliaN) by using the Leap Motion device.

    Additionally, there is now a 3rd option to download the software: a *.zip file without any *.dll. The Leap Motion-support is disabled in this version, and the plugins for Chaotica-bridge are missing. (This option is useful when the comlete *.zip-file is suspected to be a virus by some anti-virus-software. Of course, it is a false-positive)

    Have fun!


  • JWildfire 2.50 release: Chaotica and Leap Motion support

    Just released JWildfire V2.50. Big thanks to Gregg Helt and boleslaw for their contributions!

    This version comes with three major new features:

    Complete list of changes:

    • support for Chaotica as additional rendering-solution for the high-end-user, please see the official documentation at http://wiki.jwildfire.org/index.php?title=Manual_ChaoticaIntegration for details
    • support for the Leap Motion Controller for animating flame-fractals, please see the official documentation at http://wiki.jwildfire.org/index.php?title=Manual_LeapMotionIntegration for details
    • new random-flame-generators:
      • “Tile Ball”-, inspired by the 3D Tile Ball Script made by Shortgreenpigg
      • “Julians”-random-flame-generator, based on a script created by Steven Brodhead
    • new variations/plugins :
      • “custom_wf_full” by Gregg Helt to allow to generate and test complete Variations at runtime
      • “w” by Michael Faber
      • “y” by Michael Faber
      • “x” by Michael Faber
      • “z” by Michael Faber
      • “trade” by Michael Faber
      • “wdisc” by Michael Faber
      • “deltaA” by Michael Faber
      • “idisc” by Michael Faber
      • “CircleTrans1” by eralex
      • “CircleRand” by eralex
      • “CircleLinear” by eralex
      • “blur_pixelize” by Xyrus02
      • “blur_circle” by Xyrus02
      • “rhodonea” by Gregg Helt
      • “butterfly_fay” by Gregg Helt
      • “flower_db” by Darkbeam and Gregg Helt
      • “rosoni” by Darkbeam and Gregg Helt
      • “stwin” transcribed by Gregg Helt
    • additions the Motion-Curves-Editor:
      • smoothing-function
      • import/export of raw motion-data
      • new editing-mode for motion-curves (drag curve horizontal/vertical), some changes in the UI of the motion-curve-editor, smoothing for motion-curves
    • additions to the Scripting-interface:
      • API for managing persistent settings for scripts, see ScriptRunnerEnvironment::getScriptProperty, examples to come
      • API for generating rich user-interfaces for scripts, examples to come
    • changed the default antialiasing-settings in order to create images with more details
    • inherit the settings of “Duration” and “Morph”-count in the Easy Movie Maker from the previous movie part
    • new “Ziggurat”-random-generator, added by boleslaw, which is the new default
    • new FPS-setting for flames, with customizable default-value in the Prefs
    • renamed the main-menu-item “Script” into “Operators Script” to avoid confusions with flame-scripts

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 2.40 release: now with documentation Wiki

    Just released JWildfire V2.40. Beneath many small additions there are two major new features:

    • there is … finally … yes! … an official documentation! It is hold in a wiki ( http://wiki.jwildfire.org ) and continously evolving. There is not only conventional documentatiuon, but also tutorials. For the release there a 4 tutorials for beginners and one advanced tutorial.
    • the possibilty to create animated brushes for use inside a painting programm for “painting with fractals”. Currently, the native format of the painting software PD Howler is directly supported, for use in other software the generation of image-sequence is supported.

    Complete list of changes:

    • now with offical documentation-Wiki! See the “Documentation”-button at the Welcome-window or just visit it directly: http://wiki.jwildfire.org
    • 4 new beginners tutorials in the Wiki (Basic flame-editing, Basic color-editing, Basic formula-editing, More on formula-editing)
    • ability to create animated brushes (to be used in a painting-program) from within the Easy Movie Maker. Currently the ANB-format from the super-cool painting-software PD Howler ( http://www.thebest3d.com/howler/ )is supported.
    • added the possibility to have different types of output in the Easy-Movie-Maker, there are currently three choices:
      • FLAMES (create flames)
      • PNG_IMAGES (create flames and render them as PNG-images)
      • ANB (animbrush in PD Howler’s format)
        Maybe I will add direct video-encoding as additional option, currently looking for a component who can do this job…
    • advanced tutorial for creating animbrushes in the Wiki (not only for PD Howler)
    • the action performed at a double-click in the main-flame-editor can now be changed in the prefs. There are the following choices:
      • RENDER_FLAME: render the current flame, this was the default behaviour until now
      • ACTIVATE_TRIANGLE_EDIT: activate “triangle”-editing
      • SWITCH_TRIANGLE_CAM_EDIT: switch between triangle- and camera editing (this is the new default)
      • NONE: do nothing at all
    • the default fade-to-white-level for flames was increased from 200 to 220 to create more smooth defaults. You can change this in the prefs by modifying the value the property tinaDefaultFadeToWhiteLevel
    • new “cpow3”-variation by Gregg Helt
    • new “post_heat”-variation by zephyrtronium, transcribed by chronologicaldot
    • added an instancing-option the the IFlames-editor, does not wortk for all flames, but when it works, much less ressources are needed
    • removed the FAQ-section from the software
    • FIXED: some fixes the startup scripts on Mac by Gregg Helt
    • FIXED: a bug regarding the hiding of samples (affected only “crop”-like-variations)
    • FIXED: after cancelling the Batch-renderer the cancelled image was saved, though (and was in the most cases a blank image)
    • FIXED: a problem regarding saving render-state of iflames
    • FIXED: a problem regarding projecting invalid points (which sometimes appeared at points with random color at coordinate (0,0)), thanks to chronologicaldot for the reminder!

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂


  • JWildfire 2.34 release: now with iflames-editor

    Just released JWildfire V2.34 which is a major update, featuring a whole new module: the iflames-editor!
    Another major feature is the ability to cache flame-thumbnails on harddisk, which may especially improve the speed of the flame-browser a lot. But also normal browsing of flames will benefit from this.  And, also the iflames editor… but what are iflames? 😉

    An “iflame” is some kind of a symbiosis of computer images and flame fractals, and is still a flame-fractal.
    The basic idea is to build one huge fractal by exchanging “important” pixels of an image by swarms of small fractals.
    So, an iflame is made by a picture (which may be another fractal or any other image) and a number of base-fractals.
    The new module makes it a breeze to create iflames and control their numerous parameters (about 350 at this time).
    It also allows to create a library of your own images and flames, and create random iflames using this data, the possibilities are endless 🙂

    Complete list of changes:

    • powerful new sub-application to create iflames (you can reach it form the main window-menu), including a particle-simulation
      to animate them, but please beware that this new application needs a very powerful computer,
      especially when you want to animate the iflames.
    • There are about 350-parameters to change, many of them may be animated:
      • “Edge-finding”: controls where to place base-shapes
      • “Global structure”: controls the global structure of the resulting iflame
      • “Blending”: controls coloring
      • “Dynamics”: controls global settings affecting dynamics aspects, like gravity
      • “Base Flame Appearance: controls the base-shapes inside an iflame (you may have upto 6 different base-shapes)
        • “Size and orientation”: The size and oriantation of the base-shapes
        • “Distribution”: how to place which base-shape
        • “Blending”: local coloring
        • “Mutations”: controls how to create mutations from the base-shapes
        • “Dynamics”: dynamic properties (like speed in a certain direction) of base-shapes
    • thumbnails in the Flame-Browser are now permanently cached which means a significant speed improvement
    • using the Thumbnail-Cache also in the flame-file-dialog
    • (Optional) user-defined path for thumbnail-cache in the Prefs
    • new “donut”-style for the “primitives_wf”-variation (set shape=6 and play with the a- and b-parameters)
    • new “waveblur_wf”-variation
    • changed the frame-scale behaviour in the Envelope-window to scale around 0 (and not the centre)
    • several other improvements to the motion-curve-editor, you may auto-fit the view by double-clicking at it
    • fixed a problem regarding the duplication of the gradient when duplicating a flame
    • added a new option to automatically clear the cache in the batch renderer after rendering each image

    Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂