The Dogwaffler of the Moment (DOTM) - our sporadic newsletter about PD Howler and PD Artist.
PD Artist 2023 (version 16) is here!
What's new in this newsletter?
Thanks again for waffling and howling! Be safe, stay healthy, and always creative.
Team Dogwaffle
Animated Clouds
As you may know, the difference between PD Howler and PD Artist is that PD Howler includes tools for animating and working with video clips, such as frame by frame painted animation or applying motion estimated interpolation on videos to make them go slower or last longer, and stabilizing and more. Many Filters can be applied to a single frame or the entire frame sequence. And the Timeline editor also lets you keyframe the parameters of many filters to add changes to the filter's effects.
PD Howler can animate many features of PuppyRay landscape rendering, 3D Designer and also the new Sky filter.
Here is one recently created in PD Howler:
https://youtu.be/pceGpGk-6fw
Introducing PD Artist 2023 (v16, Build 44)
The full incarnation of Project Dogwaffle is of course PD Howler. But we do have a lighter version too, at lower cost, perfect for you if you're on a tighter budget and don't want to pay for things you won't likely use, i.e. if you're not doing animations/videos. You might start with PD Artist, and if anything changes regarding your needs for animation, you could upgrade later. Sometimes you might do that just for the extra filters too. Or ability to do a few renderings automatically and pick the one you like best.
PD Artist 2023 is now available, with build 44.
Note: PD Howler is now also at build 44. (remember: we first build Howler, then make a subset of it into Artist).
You can see the same introductory discount of 40% applied to PD Artist as we recently announced for PD Howler.
Normal price for PD Artist 2023 through our BMTmicro secure online store is $39. With the discount, it's just around $23-$24
You may also want to compare with Dan's direct sales at pdhowler.com - sometimes a similar deal can be had for Howler!
>>> Order PD Howler 2023 or PD Artist 2023 here: https://www.thebest3d.com/sales
Both are now at build 0044 - if you already had PD Howler build 18 you will receive new download links in coming days.
More updates?
The current release is build #0044 for both PD Artist 2023 and PD Howler 2023. There will likely be free updates, a few subsequent builds have already be seen and in testing/evaluation. You'll get notified when there are free updates. If you want to see what's coming, follow the Captain's Log at https://thebest3d.com/2023/index.html#news
In the Captain's Log, Dan summarizes what was added on a particular day or build. Not all builds turn into a release, but every once in a while, a new release will come out and you'll know what's been added by reading the captain's log.
Discount Coupon?
The 40% discount is automatic and you won't need a discount code, but: If you had an earlier version such as Howler 2022 or earlier version of PD Artist or PD Particles, or even way older versions, from us or on Steam at through Daz, you can use a discount coupon for even better discount of 50% off the regular price. Contact Philip at thebest3d.com/about if you need your discount code resent.
Free Demo / Trial?
We have now also released a Demo version from the same build 44. It is for Howler 2023.
https://thebest3d.com/2023/index.html#try
The Dogwaffler of t he Moment: Kathleen Browning aka "Drawsattention"
When I scroll through the many past artists who have used PD Artist or PD Howler, I see a big variety of styles and use cases. Some folks have created the artwork for a music CD, others created preliminary designs digitally for final artowrk that was meant for traditional, non-digital media such as oil, watercolor or such.
For some, art and especially digital art has become and escape and medicine, perhaps more affordable than the traditional media with costly canvas, occasional spills and funny fumes.
Such is the case of this artist going by "drawsattention", aka Kathleen Browning, who has Arnold Chiari Malformation and a broken neck.
Even so, she's been able to create enjoyable artwork, some of which became part of a video game.
To learn more:
https://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/dotm/drawsattention/dogwaffle-painting-by-drawsattention.html
Technical Geek Stuff - How to run PD Howler on very old computers (without AVX)
Let's talk technical geek stuff.
We had recently announced that the new version of Howler would assume it is running on a PC where the processor includes a feature called AVX. This is a special instruction set and registers that accelerate certain math operations. AVX stands for Advanced Vector eXtension.
Newer processors usually have support for AVX which is a 128-bit instruction, even the faster AVX2 (256-bit) and beyond that AVX512 (you guessed it: 512 bits), but it's not guaranteed that your old PC has it. For example, if your PC is based on Intel Core 2 Duo, it just may not have it. It should have SSE-2 and earlier extensions such as MMX and SSE, but not AVX. The same or similar shortcomings might be observed on low-end processors like Celeron.
If that's the case with your computer, you'll probably notice right away after installing Howler. When you launch it, you may see the splash screen at first, but then the program just suddenly dies. We just assumed that we can use AVX. But don't worry: for PD Howler 2023 build 44 we have created a special version that doesn't use AVX, just SSE2. It is not as fast as if you had AVX on your processor, and perhaps someday you'll get a newer, faster computer anyway, but for now you can rest easy, you can use PD Howler even on a PC powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo.
When you order PD Howler 2023, you get several download links with the order delivery through our BMTmicro store. One of them is the one for use with SSE2 on older computers when there is no AVX.
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