Blogger removing FTP access

As Blogger are removing ftp access, I'm removing Blogger. So this is a test post using MarsEdit to how well it integrates will my existing blog.

Dave

And another....

I forgot to post that there's a new version of Oxidizer out. 

As I’d fixed a few bugs, I’ve decided to release a 0.5.5 version.

• The bugs I’ve fixed are….
  
• Image save dialog maintains previous settings.
  
• Changing the height now updates the width again when the aspect is locked.
  
• Conistant labels for co-effs
  
• xform window now titled Transformations.
  
• Drag and drop from main window to Gene Pool would render a full render for the thumbnail rather
  
• than a preview.
  
• Allow drag and drop from Breeder Result Image Well to Gene Pool.
  
• Having no comment would crash conversion of genome to Lua format for scripts.
  

Since I’d also started development for 0.6 you get to play with a couple of new features too.

• Auto-preview extended to all windows, although there are still a few controls that have not been adjusted to use it.
  
• Auto-preview setting persistent between sessions, can be set in preferences.
  
• Render Movie as Stills now has jpeg, with quality setting, and 16 bit png options.
  
• Preview/Thumbnail Render preferences, allowing you to set the size of the longest dimension of the preview and limit the quality.
  
• Bigger preview image wells
  
• A few parameters now have sliders.
  
• Window size / positions are persistent between sessions.
  

As always its downloadable from Sourceforge.

Dave

Long time, no blog. Anyone still out there ?

Finally, just under a year after the last release, planetGenesis 1.9 has crawled out from under the covers. As always it's available from sourceforge. New noises, new functions and new drawing code :-) .

There's also a version that has had the package structure rearranged so it can be used as a plug-in to other Java apps. See a quick render of a sphere in sunflow using pG to texture it here on the sunflow forum

pG 3.x is likely to head more down the postGenesis route, but still written in Java, see my much earlier blogs.

Oxidizer is now up to version 0.5.2 and finally has a version of Apo's triangle editor. It's not something I wanted to add originally as it was a bit to much like ripping off Apo and I wanted Oxidizer to have it's own identity and head more down the genome evolution path. Well now it has the best of both worlds.

Oxidizer is where my attention will be spent next, bringing the flam3 version up to date, the deciding which of the idea's the community wants next.

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.