Archive for the 'Applications' Category

Flam3 2.8 Beta7 release mainly adds full interpolation for ‘Highlight power’ and it corrects the flam3-genome ’split’ (broken during the previous betas).

Thanks a lot to Erik Reckase for the new update!

Download it here:
flam3-2.8-beta7.zip – 32-bit Windows for 1-2 core machines
flam3-2.8-beta7-atomic.zip – 32-bit Windows for 3+ core machines

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The new WordPress 2.9 Carmen is available from the official download page (click here).
Thanks a lot to all the WordPress Team and to all contributors: you’ve done a great work as always!

The coolest new stuff from a user point of view is:
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Render Flam3 Padding XForms is a unique feature that I introduced in the script version 1.3.7 (04 November 2008). It was mainly coded to adjust some quirks related to the Morph animation type so the user can have a better control of the whole morphing process but it can also affect Edge and Sheep ones.

Why I’m talking about it?
I’ve had no feedback about it (I’m not blaming anyone) but the script has some potential that lays underneath the surface and the current preliminary documentation doesn’t help at all (I’ll work on it as soon as possible too).
So I was just guessing: “Had someone tried it at all?”. Who knows…

Four simple video examples can maybe show how Padding XForms changes the animation motion.

Render Flam3 Padding XForms ON – Morph animation

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Flam3 2.8 Beta6 release mainly corrects some bugs and adds some new Variations to the executables and the  flam3 shared library (read below).

New Variations: auger, cos, cosh, cot, coth, csc, csch, exp, log, sec, sech, sin, sinh, tan, tanh.

Thanks a lot to Erik Reckase for the new update!

Download it here:
flam3-2.8-beta6.zip – 32-bit Windows for 1-2 core machines
flam3-2.8-beta6-atomic.zip – 32-bit Windows for 3+ core machines

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I’m glad to find that WordPress had won the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award (found it in my Dashboard today) and it was also named first runner-up in the Best Open Source PHP CMS Category.

WP is a very powerful and flexible platform and it really deserves both Awards for sure!

I was very excited last week to learn that WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. This is a landmark for us, as it is the first time we’ve won this award, and it marks a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. No small contest, the Open Source CMS Awards received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories.
… … …
In addition to winning in the Overall Best Open Source CMS category, WordPress was named first runner-up in the Best Open Source PHP CMS category.

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The last WordPress versions has introduced the automatic insertion of Generator meta tag in the HTML HEAD.
So what is the problem?
The Generator meta tag reports both the platform name and the software version; an example is “WordPress 2.8.5“. I don’t know why they decided to expose the version number, a so deprecated and potentially harmful information, directly to everybody “eyes” cos this precious information could facilitate a potential hacking tactic based on specific revision problems.

So… is the Generator meta tag bad?
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I just don’t believe how much fast the time flows; the last release is approaching to a month ago. I’ve got so few spare time to work on the script: the new code was added during the weeks but I was out of testing possibilities due to some main-job urgencies.
Well, there’s not much hurry: no users response at all!
… I’m not complaining, it’s the world we live in …
… Any which way, we’re going to need a little luck …

Beta3 is a quite good step forward to me. I’m quite near to the end of the 1.3.x planned-features-table so maybe I’d be better stay silent and go on with the coding. Who knows! :O
The new 1.4.x will have plenty of new small commodities and it’ll be mainly focused on usability. You know I’m still on the case.

Flam3 installation is now checked using Apophysis “Export renderer” path: we’ll no see the annoying request anymore, plus it can be easily changed just in case you need to use some different Flam3 versions.

Flam3 2.8 Bet4 stagger env var is now fully supported, plus I added the ‘oscope’ to ‘oscilloscope’ conversion and dropped redundant and useless (to Flam3) Flame.Angle tag.

The other small adds can be found in the Changelog.

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Flam3 2.8 Beta5 release mainly corrects Waves2 variation problems plus some other small ones (read below).

Thanks a lot to Erik Reckase for the new update!

Download it here:
flam3-2.8-beta5.zip – 32-bit Windows for 1-2 core machines
flam3-2.8-beta5-atomic.zip – 32-bit Windows for 3+ core machines

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I’m back to this script again after more than one year.
Why? Well, some update needs surfaced out of genetic-design mailing list during the last days.

First of all I’ve had the confirmation that the ‘twintrian’ Variation is currently banned; when a Flame containing this Variation is uploaded then the designer will have a surprise: the result it’ll be different cos the server silently erase it.

I’ve secondly discovered that ES (ElectricSheep) server limits to 5 the number of Variations per Transforms (XForm); I was completely unaware of it or I forgot the limitation when I firstly coded the script (I really don’t remember).

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Stagger env var is another Flam3 2.8 new feature.
It permits to control how the Transforms are interpolated during the animation; every designer can use this feature to customize the animation motions.
It applies to all animation modes created by Flam3: Sheep (Loop), Edge and Morph ones.

Erik Reckase explains it this way: “Setting stagger to 0 means the same as current behaviour. stagger=1 means that each xform will interpolate one at a time instead of simultaneously. stagger=0.5 means that the second xform will start halfway through the interpolation of the first xform, and so on.” and also “Affects simultaneity of xform interpolation during genome interpolation. Represents how ’separate’ the xforms are interpolated. Set to 1 for each xform to be interpolated individually, fractions control interpolation overlap.”

Setting stagger to 0 is like not having it at all. The Transforms are in both cases interpolated in the old Flam3 2.7.xx way.

I’ve prepared 4 small clips that visually explain the ’stagger’ env var usage.
The first two clips represent what previously said about stagger=0 and no stagger usage: the result is the same!

Morph animation – stagger OFF

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Flam3 2.8 Beta4 release corrects the ‘animate’ mode bug; see here: Flam3 2.8 Beta3
Previous betas was unable to create Morph animations correctly; the correct ‘animate’ mode implementation is back and this release can create them too.

Thanks a lot to Erik Reckase for the fast update!

Download it here:
flam3-2.8-beta4.zip – 32-bit Windows for 1-2 core machines
flam3-2.8-beta4-atomic.zip – 32-bit Windows for 3+ core machines

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Flam3 2.8 new highlight_power tag usage comparison.

This image reports the result on the same setup rendered using a value ranging from -1 (disabled) up to 4.

See the original setup here: Round & Round

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The new Flam3 2.8 Beta3 release is actually available for testing.
Thanks a lot to Erik Reckase for the new releases!

Warning: there’s a bug related to flam3-genome; it cannot properly execute when used with ‘animate’ mode (animate env var active). Already communicated to Erik: a fix will be available in a few days.

Download it here:
flam3-2.8-beta3.zip – 32-bit Windows for 1-2 core machines
flam3-2.8-beta3-atomic.zip – 32-bit Windows for 3+ core machines

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The new Flam3 2.8 Beta2 release is actually available for testing.

There’s a great bunch of new features in this release!

First of all Flam3 2.8 runs faster than 2.7, averaging about 20-30% or more depending on variations, due to a significant speed optimization.

New supported Variations:
bipolar, boarders, butterfly, cell, cpow, curve, edisc, elliptic, escher, foci, lazysusan, loonie, pre_blur, modulus, oscilloscope, polar2, popcorn2, scry, separation, split, splits, stripes, wedge, wedge_julia, wedge_sph, whorl, waves2
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A new release is available here: RenderFlam3

Well, this is the public beta release.
Sorry for the setback about beta1 but I found a couple of quirks that could potentially lead users to some headaches.

The Chaos tag was improperly including the FinalXForm value (always equal to 1); this value is totally redundant and unneeded.

Global Camera Rotation feature (introduced in 1.3.8.3 release) was spinning the Camera in the wrong direction (the opposite one) cos Apophysis uses an inverted Rotation value.

This version supports most of the new Flam3 2.8 Beta2 new features.

Download it here (Right Click / Save As): RenderFlam3.zip

Released under GPL License – http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Credits or donations are not mandatory but very appreciated especially when using “RenderFlam3″ in commercial production.
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