This is issue #175 of the Dogwaffler of the Moment (DOTM), our sporadic newsletter about Project Dogwaffle.

   January 2021 --- Howler 2021.3 is Build 85

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This edition and other issues of the newsletter can be found here with more content:

https://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/newsletter



What's new?

• PD Howler 2021, build 85  - it's also known as 2021.3
  

• Many new tutorials

• Just one more - free & royalty-free Elevation maps
  

Be safe, be healthy, be creative!




 

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January 2021: PD Howler 2021.3 is out --- based on Build 85

 

    Another year, another build.  Right? Wrong!  Well, not exactly.
   
    We have had many updates and builds over the months since the initial release.
    Howler 2021 startes shipping in July 2020. We're now at build 85 and we also call it Howler 2021.3

    Here are some recent additions, new features, bug fixes, enhancements and also the start of a new feature: audio on animation track:
    
     
    It's all about more performance, working on large images, and changing the tools for the way people are working today.

• We got more performance out of the blur tools by utilizing the GPU texture sampling hardware, and reorganizing the memory to work better with the cache on the GPU.  It also means render quality is higher than before.

• The Gaussian blur filter is rewritten.  More speed for both approximate mode and precise mode.  Precise mode is moved onto the GPU and now works in real-time too.  Thus Hybrid mode is now removed.  Gaussian blurs can go much higher because people are working on larger images.

• There's a new Blur by Alpha filter that works in Realtime, replacing the old "alpha aware blur" tool.

• Blur by alpha also has a bias setting that interprets the alpha channel non-linearly.

• Bokeh blur now works in real-time.  Settings have been rethought and simplified.  The Bloom effect in the tool now only needs one slider.  Some of the more esoteric settings were removed for simplicity.

       (bokeh blur produces those hexagonal/octagonal lens flares/blooms you see in shallow depth of field photographs.

• Motion blur is faster and higher quality, and the setting can be driven higher.

• Zoom blur is faster and higher quality

• Mystic vision is faster and higher quality.  It gets several new combine modes, including min/max/screen/multiply.

• Radial blur is now on the GPU and is faster and higher quality.  There's also a correction for aspect ratio, which we previously lacked.

• The smoothing setting in the lighting tool is reimplemented for better quality.

• The value noise filter is reimplemented for better quality.  We don't have to rely on bit manipulation trickery like we used to.  The value noise filter produces more statistically accurate noise and doesn't alter the overal brightness of the image.

• Visible Grid and Artist Guides can now have their own user defined colors.

• Reimplemented "Selection/Gaussian blur selection" to be consistent with the new Gaussian blur tool, meaning more speed and quality.

• The halftone filter now defaults to color mode

• The water drops filter got a huge speed boost

     
   Interested in more details? Learn more here:  
    https://www.thebest3d.com/2021/#news
 
   
 
 

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Tutorials and Sample Videos


With had numerous(!) new videos posted to our youtube channel. 


The Daily Dose
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3D27B6B09FEBDB03
  

Here's one example:



A brushed metal look with the radial blur on GPU:

https://youtu.be/lL9xLDz_zlk






The next is not about a new feature, but if you missed it: Puppy Rayu has a bunch of sky presents, and you can add your own, even animated slies

https://youtu.be/EKwauyu-Tww





Here's an animation created in Howler:   (with animated sky)


terrain1 01032021 m2 -  created and rendered in PD Howler 14 (2021)

https://youtu.be/1WQY_B-p85c

Last but not least, we have started to collect and post elevation maps here - free and royalty free elevation maps you can use to learn, practice and produce.

https://www.thebest3d.com/elevationmaps

These are provided as a means to learn about many different types of elevation maps. Have fun! Come back for more, we just started this short collection but there are also linnks to prior examples from PuppyRay and 3D Designer's pages.

Related Resources:

https://www.thebest3d.com/puppyray

https://www.thebest3d.com/3D-designer




Also:
We will participate in a round table discussion/presentation in February on Elevation maps. See https://www.DigitalArtLive.com for details
Hope to see you there!




And that's a wrap for now.

Thanks again for waffling and howling!and be safe, stay healthy.

Team Dogwaffle

      

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