The Dogwaffler of the moment, a sporadic newsletter about art with PD Howler, PD Artist and PD Particles

In this edition, we have new sample terrain renderings and animations, more tips from Dan, the author of Project Dogwaffle.  

Here we go....


- An update - PD Howler 11.2c build 107,...er,... 109 

- New Renderings

- Free_stuff

- Tips and Tricks

- The Dogwaffler of the Moment: Damsel

- June Promotion: Dadwaffle!

- Cool tool of the Moment: Magica Voxel

- The Last Draw

New Build RC109 for PD Howler 11.2c (shipping RC109 now)


We've started shipping RC109 for PD Howler 11.2c

If you are a customer through BMTmicro's online store, you can use your current v11 download link to get the latest update:

Name: Howler_11_2c_RC109.exe
Size: 111596597 bytes (106 MiB)
CRC32: C37D63CE
CRC64: 9289D1F9AFB172F1
SHA256: B48B96C3C4F99F43255033BD6B6D68D81C645B3E438D5BE7508821B58C0828F4
SHA1: EF1775938C9F93722E2D85F21239EB144AF12AB1
BLAKE2sp: 62A9AC6DCA1E50D0951CAA1196B91DD0D1C587CEE5098C27AC65E9875D8EA7C4

If your download has expired, contact us. 
If you didn't buy v11 but have an earlier version such as 10 or 9.x and earlier, contact us for a discount coupon.
Upgrades to v11 are 60% off in June 2018  for any prior version (usually 50% or less).

Order from Dan Ritchie directly at www.squirreldome.com or from thebest3d.com via its bmtmicro online store. See http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffles/sales for ordering links.

Stay tuned, other updates may be coming soon.

If you missed the details, here's what's changed or new in this recent build:
http://www.thebest3d.com/howler/11/index.html#11.2c

What's New in Howler v11.2c (RC107... now RC109)

This is a maintenance release. Here are a few improvements:

Global illumination in Puppy Ray is now physically plausible.

Completed the 3D instance-based rendering api.

Included content for the 3d api.

included a utility for testing 3d content and rendering OBJ files.

These are the 2 videos revealing the new instance based rendering API.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRwkaQ_4Uso

https://youtu.be/hzaDNWrsvgE

The utility to render OBJ files is shown at around 8m20s in the first video.

When rendering in Puppy Ray GPU, you can see there's more of a natural matte look, with more bounce from surrounding light, particularly based on glancing angle, and less of a metallic look.

http://www.thebest3d.com/howler/11/11.2c/pastedImage2.jpg

3D Trees!

We have the starting building blocks of a new foliage system, rendered in 3D:
http://www.thebest3d.com/howler/11/11.2c/Geometry-Foliage.jpg



And a first edition of a renderer that can render the trees from OBJ files (and other 3D objects from OBJ).
http://www.thebest3d.com/howler/11/obj-viewer/rotate-in-shaded-mode.jpg

New Renderings

Here are some recent renderings for your enjoymet:

Another Free Terrain

Some of the above-mentioned renderings were based on an elevation and texture map combo which we'll offer for free here.

click the previews to view and save the PNG images of the elevation and texture map:

Or download this terrain below file which includes the Main image and the Swap image in a single file in Dogwaffle layer format:

Example07.7z (compressed with 7zip - use the 7zip app to extract the .lyr file from it)

Tips and Tricks:

Dan's Tips continued

Here are some performance tips when using Puppy Ray GPU:

The "Final Render" is a pretty good all-around setting, but these are some areas where you can further optimize for speed.

If you change your anitaliasing steps up to a higher level, (we often use 150-200) then you can set global illumination (Gi) samples down to 1. You should not need the extra refinement in this case. Also, you can set shadow sample steps to 1.

Setting shadow quality to a higher value will be faster, and give a softer shadow at the same time. I usually use anywhere form 5-12

You can set Global illumination (Gi) quality to a higher value. The higher value is a lower/faster quality, but you usually can't tell.

Set the near-clip distance to a slightly higher value anywhere from .33 to .5. Only lower this if you have to go in really, really close to something. This is probably the biggest time-saver. I higher value is faster, but too high, and objects close to the camera will be blurry.

Dogwaffler of the Moment - Damsel Art, aka Kathie Berry


You may remember Kathie Berry, who in April 2005 did a review for Planit3D about Project Dogwaffle, version 4 at the time.
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/reviews
The site isn't active much anymore it seems, but the review may still be visible 

Dogwaffle 3:
http://www.planit3d.com/source/review_files/dogwaffle1.html

Dogwaffle 4:
http://www.planit3d.com/source/review_files/dogwaffle4/dogwaffle4.html

- stay tuned for more reviews in the future.

Here's what she recently told us: 

I have a site at Facebook that is public https://www.facebook.com/kathVE

(be sure to be logged in with your facebook account)
 


And I have two sites of my own, one on Bluehost where I am writing a 
novel on Texas History which I love...partially based on real events 
(fight for Statehood and how the Texas Rose kept Santa Ana busy in his 
tent at San Jacinto which led to Texas' victory. :-)

The site www.storyvilleroad.com/

The novel http://storyvilleroad.com/texas-rose-the-novel/

And a new site just started which is going to deal with my artwork for sale and all things art which in my mind is a perfect place for reviews. I am also a vendor at Renderosity.

coming soon:

http://www.graphicberry.net/
http://www.graphicberry.net/dreamingincolor/




Our Promotion through June -  Father's Day (re-)Treat

A Dogwaffle for Dads....... It's time to give all dads a real treat. 

Get PD Howler at 44.9% off, i.e. for the price of PD Artist. Just $27 for the full PD Howler 11.2c(!), normally priced at $49.

Use this coupon, good through end of June:    DADWAFFLE
Order here:  


https://secure.bmtmicro.com/servlets/Orders.ShoppingCart?CID=1836&PRODUCTID=18360034&DISCOUNTCODE=DADWAFFLE
(currently shipping PD Howler 11.2c)

Learn more about PD Howler - http://www.thebest3d.com/howler

If you want a similar discount on PD Artist, use this:

https://secure.bmtmicro.com/servlets/Orders.ShoppingCart?CID=1836&PRODUCTID=18360035&DISCOUNTCODE=DADWAFFLE
(currently shipping PD Artist 11.2b)

Learn more about PD Artist - http://www.thebest3d.com/pda


Free update?

If you already purchased PD Howler 11 or PD Artist 11, and you ordered it through our store with bmtmicro, you can get the latest free update simply by using the same download links you got originally with the delivery by email from bmtmicro. Hang on to your emails from Bmtmicro - the links are good for a full year. If your link doesn't work anymore, or you've misplaced the email, contact us.

Discovering Another Very Cool Tool - Magica Voxel

Every so often, we notice another tool of interest, perhaps because it makes a great companion to Project Dogwaffle. This is one that recently caught our attention: Magica Voxel

It's a voxel-based, painterly 3D modeling program. Learn more about it here, where we found it mentioned in a list with other similar tools:

https://lospec.com/voxel-art-software-list

Take a closer look:

https://ephtracy.github.io/

Here's a tutorial that is very interesting:
https://aframe.io/docs/0.3.0/guides/building-with-magicavoxel.html

The interface is delightful, and very fast.

You can use Magica Voxel to create 3D shapes,export them as OBJ files, which import into Howler, or other tools. You can also render them created shapes in Magica Voxel, with or without alpha channel. This opens a lot of possibilities for re-importing as images or brush images in Dogwaffle.

Here's a simple example, a shape created in Magica Voxel, and rendered without alpha for exporting:

(click image for large view)

There's an icon near the lower left that shows a camera, to save an image snapshot. That's how you can save the current view to an image file, such as PNG:

(click to download the PNG version)
Next to that camera icon, you'll see a toggle button to enable/disable alpha. When you enable alpha, the object remains opaque but the background is transparent, via alpha channel.

The alpha transition can be gradual, i.e. it doesn't have to be all or nothing, fully opaque or fully transparent. If there is blurring for example due to depth of field, the rendering will account for that by adding a blurred transition not only in RGB channels but also in the alpha channel.

(click to download the PNG version with alpha channel)

There are numerous things you can do when combining the power of Magica Voxel with Project Dogwaffle. Here are a few ideas.

Just using the post effect filters, adding lens flares and more. We start with some mage created in Howler, then add the image that was rendered in Magica Voxel, and finally add some more effects in Howler.

Next, we did a different combination, adding some displacement through the cubes to further make them look like they're refracting the background imagery, adding an extra level of realism to those ice cubes. The image from Magica Voxel includes the alpha channel, so this can easily be used to contain the displacement to where the 3D shapes are seen.

As of this writing, Magica Voxel is a free program. If you're a game developer or illustrator who wants to explore some new 3D techniques, this might be one worth your time to explore.