Updates

Still here.

Much of my time has been dealing with Oxidizer, fixing bugs and adding stuff for the next release.
One issue that I can't fix is it's incompatibility with Shapeshifter. It appears that stuff complied on Leopard causes issues with Shapeshifter and I'm unlikely to attempt to fix any issues caused by haxies, especially when something as simple as opening a window causes Shapeshifter to crash Oxidizer.

The good news is that adding Oxidizer to Shapeshifter's exclude list is enough to stop the crashing.
The bad news is that it can cause people to think Oxidizer is an unstable piece of rubbish, of course these people never actually contact me, they just moan about it on software review sites.

For anyone actually wishing to be helpful here's a link to how to write a useful bug report.

planetGenesis has been sadly neglected recently, at least it has by me. SadWillow has been adding some fun new noises and functions. I'm working on a new version of Worley noise that I might check in one of these days :-)

Dear internet.....

I recently was given a router, from work, for when I have to work from home.

For the last couple of days my internet connection has been crap, constant "You are not connected to the internet" errors, the mac version of the "cable unplugged" errors you get with Windows networking. 

It appears the router, a Linksys BEFSR41 v.4.1 has a bug in the more recent versions of the firmware and disconnects when it attempts to use port forwarding on UDP. 

To fix things switch off uPNP and only use the TCP setting in the port forwarding. It you really need to forward UDP (and yes bittorrent works fine without UDP, it's only needed for extra 'off spec' features) then I suggest you get a new router.

Oxidizer News

I've started blogging Oxidizer specific suff at Rampant Mac The idea is that Scott's site becomes a 'Landing Pad' of all stuff Oxidizer. There's a forum too where you can get in touch with me.

Look out for a Oxidzer 0.4.2 release soon. This has a major flam3 bug fix in. 

Dave

planetGenesis 1.8 released.

I' ve finally got around to releasing pG 1.8.

The changes are....

The components are now highlighted by colouring them red. (Thanks to Sid D)

The properties of the noise are selected are displayed on the right hand side. (Thanks to Sid D)

The joins between components can now be dragged over functions and combiners to insert the function / combiner between the the two joined components.

There's a faster version of Worley noise call FastWorley. The cdownside of using FastWorley is that it is less random than CacheWorley, although I would imagine most people would not notice.

  Linear Sand Dunes. An attempt at linear sand dunes. Note these are perfectly parallel, so need extra work to make them look good.

New function called Range. It is something like a combination between Clamp and Mask. All inputs below a lower threshold are painted to one value, those between the two thresholds are painted to another value, and those above the upper threshold are painted to a third value. It also has a ramp option which interpolates linearly between two boundary values, based on the input value, thus acting as a softer mask. (Thanks to Colin Paddock)

New Component Type - PostProcess
This type of component was designed to allow the use of algorithms that require the input noise to be calculated for all points before the algorithm can be applied. 

16 bit Grey scale SGI output, for the Terragen 2 Tech Preview uses out there.

Help!!!

I started work on a Help/Tutorial thing. It's early days and I really should be testing pG 1.7 before I release it, so it is definately a work in progress. C&Cs welcome.

http://oxidizer.sourceforge.net/OxidizerHelp

I told you it would be soon...

I've just released Oxidizer 0.4 with a few changes to stabilize the Gene Pool. The changes are

Oxidizer 0.4.1 change log...

Oxidizer now generate genomes compatible with flam3 2.7.5

Applies a few fixes in flam3 CVS to fix issues with really stupid numbers of xforms. This should make the Gene Pool more stable.

Only keep the last three 'edits' information when breeding. 

The Gene Pool would chose union method of breeding far to often leading to huge number of xforms in a genome. Its now even chances for each method.

These last two change significantly reduce the amount of memory Oxidizer needs to breed.

There is a preference option to change if the preview kindow is kept on top or not.

Oxidizer no longer attempts to breed 'empty' genomes if selected.

Bugs in Oxidizer 0.4

Indirectly, as in I came across a forum where someone was whinging,  I heard off an issue with 0.4 where it would 'crash' if you over breed.
 
Basically if you keep breeding the same Genomes over and over again after 6 to 7 generations you end up with a genome with over 128 xforms, which flam3 2.7.4 does not like. 

The good news is that flam3 2.7.5 released barely hours after Oxidizer 0.4 fixes the issue, well moves it along until 65535 xforms.

The bad news is that it still crashes after 6 or 7 goes. I seem to been having a problem with file descriptors. I've got a feeling that using autoreleased NSPipes is leading to file descriptors not being freed in a timely manner.

Looks like there's going to be a 0.4.1 release soon.