• Category Archives MB3D releases

  • MB3D1.99.28 release with update to BulbTracer2

    Posted on by thargor6

    Just released MB3D 1.99.28 as update to MB3D and BTracer2.

    This version comes with another update to the new mesh generator (BTracer2):

    • mesh-reduction now supports both vertex-colors and uv-coordinates and is enabled by default (in BTracer2x64)
    • some bug-fixes

    See the file CHANGES.txt for a list of changes.

    When using BTracer2: please do read the official documentation, it will probably answer most of your questions.

    Update-suggestion: just manually copy/overwrite the following files to your existing installation:

    • BTracer2.pdf
    • BTracer2x64.exe
    • BulbTracer2r28.jpg
    • CHANGES.txt
    • Mandelbulb3D.exe
    • README_1.99sr28.txt

    When you have further questions, feel free to contact me at thargor6@googlemail.com.

    Cheers!


    MB3D releases

  • MB3D1.99.27 release with major update to BulbTracer2

    Posted on by thargor6

    Just released MB3D 1.99.27 as major update.

    This version comes with another huge update to the new mesh generator (BTracer2):

    • optionally use the OpenGL-window for previewing the mesh. This is slightly slower, but gives you a much better impression of the final mesh
    • an official documentation for all BTracer2-related topics: BTracer2.pdf
    • controls for rotating the mesh
    • optional tracing ranges for better control of the result (e.g. allowing you to only create a mesh of a certain slice of the whole traced cube)
    • option to create closed meshes (along the trace-range-boarders)
    • loading/saving of all options (including fractal-params) in a new file-format (*.btrace2)
    • more efficient memory-management
    • creating BTracer2-Cache-files which can be processed using a new external 64Bit-companion-app, called BTracer2x64
      • to create meshes of any size your machine can handle
      • unlike to the feature to create meshes, MB3D can generate cache-files for any volumetric resolution (they just need some time to calculate and consume a lot of space on your hard-drive).
      • using the external app, you can create meshes from those cache-files and let them automatically reduced (optional feature)
      • please note, that you are not allowed to use the NON-COMMERCIAL-version of this application in commercial projects (see BTracer2.pdf for details)

    See the file CHANGES.txt for a list of changes.

    When using BTracer2: please do read the official documentation, it will probably answer most of your questions.

    When you have further questions, feel free to contact me at thargor6@googlemail.com.

    Cheers!


    MB3D releases

  • MB3D 1.99 release: improved point-cloud export

    Posted on by thargor6

    Just released MB3D V1.99 with improved point-cloud export.

    I thought it may be already time for a new release, as there are some really major improvemens
    on point-cloud-export, and I’m not sure how many spare time I will find in the next weeks for further additions.

    What’s new:
    – Point-Cloud-export:
    – major increase of sampling-quality
    – minor speed-increase (is compensated by generating more samples)
    – jitter-option to improve sampling of round shapes, usually gives good results at high volumetric resulutions > 1000
    – option to generate normal vectors (is not the same as approximating the normals on the final mesh)
    – display elapsed time
    – Progressbar for the BulbTracer-preview
    – renamed the “MeshGen”-button back to “BulbTracer” (which was always the intended name)
    – updated the huge JIT-formula.pack (“EM_JIT_M3Formulas”) from Alef from fractalforums.com
    – Added the missing formulas to the distribution: JosKn-KleinIFS, JosKn-ModIFS, K-TowerIFS

    Cheers!

    Andreas


    Mandelbulb3D MB3D releases

  • MB3D 1.98 release: point-cloud export

    Posted on by thargor6

    Just released MB3D V1.98 with point-cloud export.

     

    Even if I stopped active development of MB3D a while ago, I make some additions from time to time.

    Now there are enough features finished to make a new release (coming even more close to V2.00 ;-)).

    What’s new:
    – Point-Cloud-export in the BulbTracer-module, which is able to generate very nice models in high resolution in a short time,
    even with color (which is currently a limited feature).
    This mode is now the default mode in the BulbTracer, with a initial volumetric resolution of 256, which is nice to play around,
    because it is not too slow, but often creates nice models.
    For creating a final mesh, a volumetric resolution of 2560 is not unusual, as the new mode is fast and takes not too much memory.

    To use the old way of generating mesh consiting of vertices and faces, choose “Mesh” as Mesh Type)
    – updated the huge JIT-formula.pack (“EM_JIT_M3Formulas”) from Alef from fractalforums.com

    Have fun!

     


    MB3D releases

  • MB3D 1.91: with integrated mesh generator

    Posted on by thargor6

    Hi all,
    here is the new MB3D release with the first version of a new module called “BulbTracer” to easily create meshes from within MB3D.
    Its supports the complete workflow of creating, smoothing and previewing the meshes, so no additional software is required.
    It works fully multi-threaded, so it is fast, too.

    Hints:
    – to get started just press the “BTracer”-button to open the new module and press the
    “Import parameters”-button to import the current fractal
    – the sizing/positioning works the same way as in the VoxelStack-module, also
    the preview works very similar, but there are 2 new size settings for faster display
    – to get started quickly hust hit the “Generate Mesh”-button and watch what happens.
    You should get a small preview window showing the mesh if all worked right.

    If not, there is probably some problem with the OpenGL-display. In this rare case
    you can still create the meshes, but not preview them from within MB3D. You may use MeshLab instead.
    – Level of detail: Increase the “volumetric resolution” setting. Usually a value of 100…200 is a good start,
    and can 200…300 gives good results. The higher the value, the more detail, but also the more
    vertices and faces are generated, leading to larger files and more consumption of memory.
    – Smoothing: There are two different smoothing options:
    – oversampling: smoothes the mesh during creation and leads to increased creation time
    – Taubin-smooth: post-processing, usually very fast
    It depends on the fractal which works the best, some fractals work best with a combination
    of both.
    – Cancelling: you can cancel the mesh generation at any time and preview the changes
    which were made so far. This is the default behaviour. If you want just cancel,
    you can change this behaviour by chosing the option “Cancel immediately” from within
    the “Cancel type”-listbox.
    – Saving: Usually also saving is very fast and is done automatically. But if you want to try out many settings,
    you may want to turn saving temporary off. In this case, just choose “Dont save, only preview” from
    the “Save type”-listbox

    The Download is hosted at the place, where this software was invented: fractalforums.com

    Best regards and have fun!

    Andreas

    MB3D BulbTracer


    Mandelbulb3D MB3D releases

  • MB3D 1.90 RELEASE

    Posted on by thargor6

    Hi,
    I wish you a Merry Christmas and a nice holiday! I was absent for a longer time from JWildfire-development because I
    was very busy with creating the new MB3D-release, which now was released at fractalforums.com.

    V1.90 RELEASE NOTES:
    – Support for animated (height)maps! They are defined in the “Map Sequences”-window in the Prefs-section
    and saved as local properties, i.e. you may use them independly of a specific set of fractal params.
    – You define an image sequence by filename, start frame, end frame, loop setting and frame increment
    – You assign this sequence to a logical map channel (any number) you wish
    – You use this channel as map number in your fractal, e.g. as color map or heightmap
    – Now you can preview the state at frame [n] by changing the frame number in the main view
    (this is just for test render, not for animating)
    – When you use this fractal in the animation window, the map will now be animated, i.e. at each frame
    of the animation the corresponding frame of the map will be calculated (accordingly to the settings
    you made) and the image-file will be loaded. If no image file is found it is asumed to be “black”.

    – new MutaGen-module to easily explore new combinations of formulas and settings
    – four types of mutations:
    – add, remove, exchange formulas
    – modify params of formulas
    – modify Julia-mode
    – modify iteration count
    – in the UI you may turn on/off those types individually, by specifying a weight, and you may specify an additional
    strength-parameter
    – you may browse through the already generated generations of mutations and restart on interesting results
    – you may resize the window to alter the size of the generated thumbnail images
    – you may cancel/restart the mutation-process at any time (sometimes there occur combinations of parameters
    which may lead to “endless” calculations, in such cases it is helpful to be able to just restart)
    – WARNING: some formula-combinations may SILENTLY crash the program, so please save often!
    Silently crashing means you will not see it immediately, often the UI starts to behave weird.
    We are working to improve this!
    – This is just the first version, e.g. interpolated functions are not supported yet!
    – Please note, that it is intented that this module does not create ready-to-use artworks from scratch.
    It can only happen, when you put in well made parameters (whith everything what makes a great artwork),
    that the mutation will keep many of those properties, making it a nice artwork.
    Or in short: the better your input, the better the output.

    – Navigator-size may now be altered (you must expand the right toolbar to see the “Navigator size” control),
    the last setting is stored to the ini-file. Please note, that the size can only be defined in percent
    by using the arrows or listbox, but not by changing the window-size directly (this is due to some historic
    implementation details).

    – Global rework of the UI, added theme-support, made “Glossy” the default theme,
    changed the captions of some buttons in order to make them more readable

    – Formula-Window:
    – exchanging of formulas now works in two directions

    – integrated formula-editor for creating/editing JIT-compiled formulas (see the new buttons in the formula window)
    – support for MB3D’s parameters and constants, both the TIteration3D and TIteration3Dext-structs are supported
    – preprocessor to deal with the parameter-handling code
    – backed by the commercial PaxCompiler
    – included support for about 50 mathematical functions
    – watch out for formulas with the prefix “JIT” for examples!
    – Please note that dIFS-formulas are not supported yet because they are invoked differently,
    but also this will be fixed in future releases

    – Many new formulas from the community at fractalforums.com

    – New Info-Section at the main window, which now has a button to reach the official bug-reporting tool,
    please use the bug-reporting-tool to report bugs if possible!

    The Download is hosted at the place, where this software was invented: fractalforums.com

     

    Best regards and have fun!

    Andreas

     


    MB3D releases