Archive for September, 2006

Heart out

Design and Rendering: Apophysis 2.03c

Flam3 2.7 changelog declare “Added settable kernel for downrez“.
I found this sentence a little cryptic; myabe I’m not the only one.

I tried flam3-genome to produce a Sequence and immediatly found a new tag: “filter_shape” and the default value is filter_shape=”gaussian”.
It sets different filtering modes; I used them many times in 3D and some 2D applications for resampling or filter images using diiferent approaches (algorithms).
So I took a fast look into the source code and found what I was searching for… the shapes list.

Here it is:
gaussian, hermite, box, triangle, bell, bspline, mitchell, blackman, catrom, hanning, hamming, lanczos3, lanczos2, quadratic.

I’d be quite easy find various resources about every algorithm in the net; just search.

Hope it helps.

P.S. I really don’t know if all modes are implemented or usable; I’ll take a deeper look at the source code as soon as I’ll have some spare-time. Spot or Erik could cast a ray of light about it really faster than me.

New Apophysis version: 2.05 beta

Some new features are listed below (not comprehensive list).

Added multiple buffer depth support
Added ability to stop render and save unfinished images
New variations: “gaussian_blur”, “radial_blur”
Fixed creating of transparent PNGs
Many interface improvements in Main window and Editor
New hexadecimal format is used for saving gradients in .flame files (incompatible with previous versions!!!)
Improved Rendering customization

Download it here: Apophysis 2.05 beta

Flam3 2.7b7 Final by Scott Draves and Erik Reckase

Features List:
print out palette as floating point with up to 6 digits rather than integers (for very slow smooth transitions).
Added optimization to only recalculate the xform distrib array when necessary (Thanks Joel Faber). Added settable kernel for downrez.
Added XML reading code for new format for gradients.
Functionalized hex gradient read.
Removed color shift experimental feature.
New ‘motion_exponent’ attribute controls fade of temporal steps.
Added gaussian_blur and radial_blur vars from Apo.
Added “pie” and “ngon” variations from joel faber.
Add rotation_center attribute.
Added but disabled image variation from Joel.
Release as 2.7.

Direct download: http://flam3.com/flam3-2.7.zip
Download page: http://flam3.com/index.cgi?&menu=download
Readme: http://flam3.com/README.txt

If you Believe

Design: Apophysis 2.03c – Rendering: Flam3 2.7.b8

This is a quite old and brief small guide to help LightWave users in resolving problems about Sentinel driver installation.
It’s quite old and tested up to LW 8.5; I firstly pulished it on 3D Recursions, but I think that someone could find a way to my Blog too.

So, here it is.

I reported and hinted (for years up to now) many time some suggestions; I want to disclose a very small/breiaf guide here, so everyone can read and fastly resolve the most common related problems.

1. Don’t use LW’s provided Sentil Driver. It’s notorious they have some installing problems: not for all users’ configs but for a good percentage so you better stay away also if you’re installing an LW’s update.
2. Download the Driver directly from SafeNet:
   General Download page (Sentinel SuperPro): http://www.safenet-inc.com/support/tech/sentinel.asp
   Sentinel Driver for LW 8.3 (or later): Sentinel Protection Installer 7.1
   x64 machines (AMD64 / EM64T) for Windows XP-Pro 64-bit and Windows 2003 64-bit:
   Official: Sentinel System Driver v7.1.0
   Beta: Sentinel System Driver v7.1.0 for x64 machines
   Mac users: SuperPro Driver v1.0.0.2 for MacOS X 10.3.x.
3. Unplug the Sentinel,
   execute the SSD Cleanup 1.1 utility (see below),
   install the downloaded Driver,
   then plug in the Sentinel again.
   Note: when using the USB version a messagge will alert you that the new hardware is intalled correctly.
4. Everything should works ok now: all problems vanished!

Some more help:

• Use the SSD Cleanup 1.1 to completely clear/uninstall the previous Driver; if you already installed an LW’s provided Driver and you have some sort of problems or you want install the driver from scratch.
• Use Sentinel SuperPro Medic 6.3.0 to test if your Sentinel is working correctly; the test is not related to the Driver installing but directly to the Sentinel’s hardware.
  NOTE: the Sentinel SuperPro Medic tool only test the hardware, it provides useful information when you’re guessing “Is my Sentil broken?”.

I’m sure that someone is currently mumbling about the necessity of this short guide.
Ok.
Just tell you: I slided on the same banana’s peel recently.

I recently installed the LW 8.3 update (in a new dir as always, for testing Aurora Attractor plugins) and I confirmed, in a hurry moment, the installation of LW’s provided Sentinel Driver (damn idiot… I am); a great magical force was surrounded upon all my installed LW versions after the Driver installation.

A small comparison table:

LW’s provided Sentinel Driver

• LW 7.5 – Discovery Edition
• LW 8.0.1 – Dicovery Edition
• LW 8.2.1 – Dicovery Edition
• LW 8.3 – Commercial – Full

SafeNet’s original Sentinel Driver

• LW 7.5 – Commercial – Full
• LW 8.0.1 – Commercial – Full
• LW 8.2.1 – Commercial – Full
• LW 8.3 – Commercial – Full

Moral: uninstalling the LW’s provided drivers using SSD Cleanup ad then installing SafeNet original dirver has healed the magic spell out of my LW installed versions: they’re working correctly now!

Note: this simple guide was tested up to LW 8.5 version.

This is an humble tribute to The Cure “Maybe Someday” song.

Hope you like.

Get too scared to jump if I wait too long (but maybe someday…)

Design: Apophysis 2.03c – Rendering: Flam3 2.7.b8

Cyan swirl [1]

Design: Apophysis 2.03c – Rendering: Flam3 2.7.b8

Cyan swirl [2]

Design: Apophysis 2.03c – Rendering: Flam3 2.7.b8