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The Dogwaffler of the Moment
newsletter #4 - July 2005
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/newsletter/4

A sporadic newsletter about visual art for artists using Project Dogwaffle and PD Pro Digital Painter and kids of all ages who love to draw, sketch, animate and paint... but without the fumes, the mess and occasional spills.
 
Here's another newsletter with bits and pieces of what's been happening around Project Dogwaffle. Whether you use the freeware 1.2 version (or an earlier one), or the pro 3 version, we hope that something in this newsletter will be of interest to you.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you want to report Dogwaffle sightings!
 
 In this issue:
  1. the 3.2 Release & Update Patch
  2. and the winner is? .... tornado art contest update
  3. plugins for game developers - Flight sim, Train sim and more
  4. new Dogwafflers of the moment
  5. new Resellers, New pricing, new deals
  6. Multi-print, an intelligent print utility for Dogwaffle
  7. new brushsets from Cybersign
  8. more art sightings made with Dogwaffle
  9. 3D tools for Dogwaffle artists - Carrara Studio & 3D Basics
  10. final words
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art by Cyrwynn


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1) the 3.2 Release & Update Patch
 
Yet another free update patch for PD Pro 3 - the 3.2 update patch is free for users of  version 3.

Lots of speed increases iwith internal brushes and interactive zooming/viewing are particularly useful when working on large projects with high resolution. We have started to 'realtime' a number of plugins and filters too.

Read more about this major new update here:  http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/whatsnew




 

Dan Ritchie
 

2) and the winner is? .... tornado art contest update

If you haven't seen the entries of art for the contest,  visit http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/contest

Most entries involved some 3D rendering, some used a combination of 3D and 2D tools.
 
  • 3rd place ............  with 16% of the votes,... Lyla Bettis (picture #3)
  • 2nd place .............with 27% of the votes, Betty Sun (picture #7)
and last but not least  (drrrrrrrrrrrrrrum roll please!)
  • 1st place  ........... with 38% of the votes:  Ed Melvin  (picture #11)


 







 





 






 

this is a Flash embedded animation, you need Flash 6 or newer player. Right-click to re-Play animation from Flash player menu
The original animations was rendered in Carrara Studiuo 3, post work for old film and other special fx all done in PD Pro 3.2
for for info and a version with sound, please click here

3) plugins for game developers - Flight +Train sim formats, by Martin Wright

  Long ago the Wright brothers made their historical flight at Kitty Hawk. Did you know that their flight distance was less than the length of a typical economy section found in a Jumbo jet?

Now, over 103 years later, another Wright brother, Martin Wright who lives in the UK and who has his own two Wright brothers, (yep, 3 Wright brothers altogether this time) has produced a few programs which will interest the world of flight again - this time in the virtual sense. Martin is an expert at the file formats used by Flight simulation games. He has made some of his expertise available in the form of plugins for Project Dogwaffle

Visit http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/3rdpartyplugins  to see his plugins
  
 

4) new Dogwafflers of the moment:

Last year, Becca Chan, aka Cyrwynn, helped us out with demonstrations in our booth at Anime Expo. This year she came in during the seminars we held there. Some of her art is now also in the newest galler of Dogwafflers:

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/dotm/vixenarts

Phoenixfire is another artist recentl;y added to the DOTM gallery

For the latest in waffling see http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/dotm
 
 
 

5)  new resellers, new pricing, new deals

PD Pro, Project Dogwaffle, and some tutorials are available on a few more online stores:
  • Purplus.com
  • CGProShop
  • BMT Micro
For a complete list of stores visit our sales page:
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/sales

Note that Purplus carries many softwares at very discounted prices. They usually purchase old inverntory of 1-2 year-old software, or sometimes just buy in high quantities to get very preferential discount pricing which allows them to pass the savings on to you.  Check them out for other 2D, 3D , video and music software too.

The 60% discount on Dogwaffle 2 is now over, and we have made a few changes to some product pricings. Project Dogwaffle 2 is now $59  USD  (down from $67). The upgrade from v2 to PD Pro v3 is now $45  (up from $37).  We wanted to keep the entry-level version (v2) more accessible, so there. We hope this helps particularly those artists living in countries which levy sales taxes and value-added taxes on internet sales in the 15% or more.

Talking about deals and sales, we have come to an agreement with a publisher in the UK, Fasttrak Software Publishing,  who will bring  Project Dogwaffle to retail stores in boxed/CD form. They already carry a variety of other multi-media and game authoring titles, see http://www.fasttrak.co.uk for details.
 

6) Multi-print, an intelligent print utility for Dogwaffle

Ever printed a great photo or Dogwaffle artwork on glossy photo papoer only to realize that since you printed 4x3 inches on 11x8.5 inches paper size you're tossing out a lot of unused expensive paper?

Martin Wright has a great tool specifically to fix this problem. Instead of printing just one image per page, use his new plugin if you have two or more (up to 64) images ready to be composited and laid out over a sheet of paper to print them all together. This can help you minimize the amount of wasted white space, so it can help you save money when using expensive photoquality glossies for example.

For more details on his new 'MMulti-Print' plugin visit
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/3rdpartyplugins/multiprint

It is available for under $8 by download, comes with great documentation,  and even works with the freeware version of Project Dogwaffle 1.2!

Talking about documentation, have you read the latest version of the PDhelp files?

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/help

 
 
7)  new brushsets from Cybersign

.Martin Duerr has sent us two new brushsets and told us he's making more to come. Check these two free new brushsets for Project Dogwaffle by Cybersign:

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/freebies/brushsets/index.html#cybersign

While you're at it, be sure to visit http://www.Cybersign.de  and specifically http://www.cybersign.de/cybersign_prod_inhalt/WIP/ILLUS3/illus3.html to check the latest Dogwaffle artwork show there, or visit his DOTM page:
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/dotm/Cybersign
 

8)  more art sightings made with Dogwaffle

.New images have been added in the DOTM galleries of  Martin Duerr's Cybersign. Others can be found in the presszone.  See some of these locations:

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/presszone
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/dotm/Cybersign
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/art/illustration

to name a few.

Another european artist, this one from France, Cedric Trojani, is saying great things about how much he likes Dogwaffle and will soon have updated images in  is DOTM page. See http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/dotm/CeD for more.


 

9)  3D tools for Dogwaffle artists  - Carrara Studio & Carrara 3D Basics

In cooperation with Purplus, one of our new resellers, we're offering Carrara Studio 3 from Eovia at very discounted prices. The latest release of Carrara is version 4 (has been for over a while). Purplus has acquired remaining inventory of Carrara Studio 3 boxes at a very good price and is offering this great netry level 3D modeling, animation and rendering tool for under $50  USD.

If you have always wanted to try 3D as a companion to Dogwaffle, this may be your ticket. Carrara is the successor to the very popular RayDream program, formerly by MetaCreations (which also used to make Bryce (now with Daz3D.com)  and Poser (now with Curiouslabs), hence the similar and familiar  look in user interface). Carrara contains a great collection of modeling tools, many preset models and textures for easy drag-and-drop use, advanced shaders and a very fast rendering engine with cartoon styles and photorealism beyond belief with global illumination (including HDRI), indirect lighting and caustics. Carrara also has a variety of modeling tools, from assembling blocks and primitivce objects to vertex modeling with subdivision surfaces, Spline modeling and MetaBalls, as well as Terrain, clouds and other special environmental effects.  Even back when selling at the full original $299 it was such a bargain, now for just $49 and change it's, well,  out of this world - a perfect fit for Project Dogwaffle.

For more details visit http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara   as well as http://www.eovia.com for their latest galleries and tutorials to see how easy and affordable it can be to create professional 3D renderings and animations. You can also find a demo version (of v4) there.  You'll be glad to know also that, like Dogwaffle, one of the biggest Carrara forums is at yahoogroups.

If you're attending Siggraph this summer in LA be sure to stop by the DAZ/Eovia booth too and say hello to Ringo, the group moderator and one of the demonstrators there.


For sample animations made in Carrara 3 or 4 and post worked with Dogwaffle see http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/art/animations










vixenarts


vixenarts
 

10) a Final Word: show happenings
If you attended Anime Expo last weekend of July 1 - 4 in Anaheim, California, you may have attended our hands-on seminars. We had a dozen of laptops donated by HP, and a dozen of tablets by Wacom, to set up a super interactive lab experience for new Dogwaffle artists and seasoned users alike. It was a great audience, we'll try to do this again next year for sure.

Next week (mid July) we may in fact put together a similar event around Comic-Con International in San Diego, which is a huge show expecting around 85,000 attendees again.

Later, in early August, don't miss the BOF (Birds of a Feather) meeting at Siggraph in LA. And in September we're in San Diego again for AVsim, a conference focused on gamers who play flight simulation and train simulation games. We'll be presenting the tools offered in Dogwaffle for editing textures, particularly the plugins made by Martin Wright.

There are other events planned, stay tuned and visit http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/events.html to see if we'll be in your area any time soon.

If you have a major art show event in your area feel free to tell us about it, you never know.
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