The Official JWildfire Blog

Just released JWildfire V0.55.

Major new feature is the possibility to render with transparent backgrounds – a feature which was recently demanded by certain artists. I initially had some other things in mind for V0.55, but this is the way how JWildfire-development works, it is community-driven, and it really makes fun!  Some other cool features are targeting the workflow: quicksave function, create snapshots, updates of the thumbnail ribbon are done much more quickly now, and the thumbnail ribbon reflects now changes made to any fractal.

Complete list of changes:

• support for rendering with transparent backgrounds
• Quicksave function (Stores the current flame in the default flame output folder with a generated filename “qsave_YYYY.MM.DD_NNN.flame”)
• snapshot function to store the current state of a flame to the thumbnail ribbon
• per-flame-option for background transparency (which is also stored and remembered with the flame)
• preferences option for default background transparency (as not all people want to use the transparency feature) – but please BEWARE: it is per default set to ON
• update the thumbnails according to the state of the flame itself
• create also a thumbnail if a new flame from scratch is created
• minor optimizations for screens with lower resolutions in the main editor
• support for the external renderer in the movie maker
• support for the external renderer in the batch renderer
• added a “Third-party” components section in the help section
• integrated JLayer mp3 library for further enhancements regarding the processing of sound
• changed to layout of the Batch renderer so that it automatically is resized according to the window size
• improved the performance of updating the thumbnail ribbon
• if a variation is missing in the external renderer a proper error message is displayed

Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂

Just released JWildfire V0.54.

Major new feature is the new family of external C++ based renderers called “JWildfireC”. They need less memory, are faster than the interal renderer and are optimized for rendering high quality images in acceptable time. Only a few features of JWildfire (e. g. the integrated Java compiler or certain variations) are not available in JWildfireC.
Currently only binaries for Windows 32Bit and Windows 64Bit (faster) are available. The external renderer currently features 222 variations and supports also the generation of hdr images.
Addionatlly, one new rendering option (only avaialble for JWildfireC) is a density estimating filter. In many cases this type of filter helps to improve image quality by smoothing portions with low density and keeping sharp details.

Complete list of changes:

• new family of external C++ based renderers called “JWildfireC” which are integrated into the main program
• density estimating filter for JWildfireC optimized to gain good image qiality at low sampling (=quality) rates
• new preferences option to set up the default renderer
• display render time in the title bar
• new controls for the density estimation filter options in the editor
• “ripple” variation by Xyrus02, added a new parameter “fixed_dist_calc” for calculating distance right (looks totally different then and make no sense to fix it in the original plugin)

Just click the “Random flames” button to start playing around and have fun 🙂