Just released JWildfire V0.69.

The major new feature is the possibility to integrate external gradients (as *.ugr or *.map files) into the (enhanced) gradient library. (A gradient editor for creating new gradients or editing gradients from the library is already under construction, but not visible in this release yet.)

Another nice feature is the ability to create a script from any flame in the editor. Those scripts reproduce the source-flame, but contain already code to create mutations. (This code is deactivated per default, but you have just to remove the comment-chars to activate it selectively.)

Complete list of changes:
- support for for storing external gradients (in the formats *.ugr and *.map) into an external folder, the contents of those folder (inclusnig subfolders) is integrated into the gradient library
- path for external gradient in the Preferences
- create scripts from any existing flame in the script editor, those script either create a new flame (if no one is selected) or overwrite the the currently selected flame
- new "Sierpinsky"-random-flame-generator
- new "Simple tiling" random flame generator (was also improved after ALPHA)
- new "twoface" variation
- new "fourth" variation by guagapunyaimel
- new variations "blocky", "bubble2″, "mcarpet", "octagon" and "splitbrdr" by FracFx
- improved the "Bubble3D" random flame generator
- moved the gradient library to a slightly larger tab
- new "baseline"-parameter in the "text-wf"-variation to adjust baseline in more difficult font manually
- started to create an integrated gradient editor, but its not visible yet
- one more image for the launcher created by Lorant Buntye
- removed the "extended" parameter from the truchet variation because it caused too many crashes
- removed the dialog to ask if you really want to remove a thumbnail from the thumnail ribbon
- FIXED: add only one thumbnail after invoking the "new form scratch" function
- FIXED: allow only the creation of scripts if a user path was specified in the Preferences
- FIXED: the script-treeview was something not updated right after inserting a new script
- FIXED: updated the launcher to work with newest Java update (Java 7 Update 21)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Just released JWildfire V0.68.

Many small changes were made as well one major one: the scripting-tab was complety re-implemented.

Complete list of changes:
- re-implemented the script-tab: scripts are now maintained in a folder-like structure. There are two main folders: "Built-in scripts" (examples) and "Your scripts". The latter points to an arbitrary folder on your harddisc and holds your own scripts. You can easily create and copy scripts either using the new functions in JWildfire or by just copying/creating them manually. Additionally, scripts now always contain of two files: the description (plain text) and the code (Java code)
- added most of the recent scripts from the JWildfire Open Group as examples
- new path for scripts in the Preferences editor, moved the old script path (for the animation editor) into a new "Misc" category
- added the possibility to delete flame files from within the file dialog
- added (again) separate buttons for moving, rotating and scaling of triangles (but using the move button you still have the possibility to rotate with the right mouse button and to scale with the middle mouse button)
- triangle editing mode is now the default mode
- added a small buttons in the variations tab which points to the visual variation guide created by Georg Carlson
- added remove-buttons for flame-thumbnails in the thumbnail ribbon
- possibility to cancel the playback (preview rendering) of movies in the movie editor
- possibility to edit flame- and transform names (where transform names now also are displayed as well)
- unified column layout for main transforms-table and relative-weights-table
- added a new ADD_VARIATION mutation style in the MutgaGen module
- improved controls for accessing flames in the MutaGen module
- new "target" variation by Michael Faber
- adding a thumbnail for the flames imported from MutaGen
- removed the RANDOM_FLAME-mutation-subtype from the ALL-mutation-type
- updated the link to the new JWildfire Open Group in the welcome-screen

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Hello friends,
after some sleepless night it's now finally done: a small version of JWildfire for smartphones - called JWildfireMini. It works on tablets as well, but is compared to the pc version very limited and on many devices very slow, but seriously fun But, all the stuff you create with it, is yours, there are no hidden costs, and you may render your flames in any quality using the full JWildfire software later, of course.

There are two versions of this app, a completely free version without the ability to export parameter files, and the full version for 2 EUR. (Note that you still can export images in the free version and there no other limits as well).


Some screenshots of the interface:




Some example renders done on my phone (without any postprosssing):




An here are the links:
FREE version: [link]
FULL version: [link]

Enjoy!

Just released JWildfire V0.67.

I'm really glad that I finally found the time to implement a long dream: the "MutaGen"-module. It is inspired by KPT3′s texture editor and is an really amazing new module to interactively create mutations of a certain flame.
There are several mutation types affecting different "genes" (types of flame properties).
Those mutations are applied at two levels: generation A (8 new fractals from the base flame) and generation B (16 new fractals from generation A), generating total 24 new flames at each mutation step.
You can easily exchange fractals between the main editor and the new module at any time.
Unlike to many other programs of this type, there is a true history, i.e. you can navigate back to earlier generations at any time.
Even if there are so many possible parameter combinations which may lead to singularies and huge computation times, the programm achieves predictable computation times for each whole generation. This is done by delegating the mutation process to separate threads and eventually just killing them.

Here is a screenshot  of this module:


Complete list of changes:
- new MutaGen module for creating muatations of a certain flame
- new "sintrange" variaton by Ffey
- new "Sort" button on the gradient transform tab (to create a new gradient which is sorted by hue and luminance)
- the view is now centered after starting a render in the interactive renderer
- decreased the change rate of the edit gradient-related fields (some of the change now by of a factor of 0.05)
- moved the "SF" (subflame) button into the script area
- improved the Gnarl random flame generator
- slightly improved rendering (regarding quality)

Just click the "MutaG" button in the editor to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Hello friends, please take 5 seconds time and check out the survey I just created: [link]

Thanks!

Just released JWildfire V0.66.

This time I'm proud to present two major new features:
- There is a new shading mode called "distance-coloring". It offers 9 parameters which may all combined together to have endless hours of fun and to produce refreshingly new looking results!
- I now implemented my concept of "envelopes" (which I originally developed some decade ago for the Amiga version Wildfire7\PPC ) in the dancing flame module. It allows you to just draw  a "motion curve" for any property of a flame (amplitude over time.)

Complete list of changes:
- new "spline"-type of motion in the dancing flames module
- spline editor allowing three types of interpolation: spline, bezier and linear
- grouping of motions by specifying a parent in the dancing flames module
- new "distance-color"-shading for really refreshingly new looking renders!
- new button for simplified creation of "linked transforms"
- some new variations invented by gossamer light:
    - pre_disc3d
    - pre_sinusoidal3d
    - svf
    - sinusoidal3d
    - taurus
- new parameter avgSize for enabling a smoothing effect to FFTMotions in the dancing flames module
- added a "Included Variations" link to the intro window, which points to a list of all variations and their parameters, this list was created and provided by Don Town, thanks!
- gradient and shading options can now also accessed in the dancing flames module
- improved the performance of the Mersenne Twister random number generator
- FIXED: a bug regarding resuming the render state (loading failed)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Just released JWildfire V0.65.

This time I dropped the concept of the external renderers because they are in fact not needed any more and would drain too much of my development power (there were both 32 and 64 versions, and each plugin I add to the main software had to be added also to the external renderers etc.).  The only remaining benefit was memory use, as the external renderers used only buffers of 32 bit precision. You can now also choose those buffers in the internal renderer, they are even the default as there is no supposed difference in visual quality in the most cases.

The other "big thing" in this release – as reported before – is that the generation 2 of the dancing-flames-module is now useable and enabled for everyone! This was really a long road… A tutorial will follow soon.

Another nice feature is one new kind of "3d hack": you can now establish a z-dimishing of intensity which goes along with the DOF. I. e., brightness dimishes with distance of of the observer (camera), which helps to make more realistic "pseudo-3D"-renderings.

Complete list of changes:
- new "dimishZ" property to create more realistic looking pseudo-3D-renders
- dropped the concept of the external renders! The only remaining benefit of the external renders was the lower memory consumption, but this problem was also solved in this release!
- added an abstraction level to iteration rasters. There are currently two implementations available: single and double precision. Double precision was the previously used, but single precision needs less memory and leads to the same results in many cases, so its the new default. But you can change this in the preferences, of course
- the thumbnails can now be loaded into the main area also by single right click with the mouse (as suggested by Don Town)
- new "gdoffs" variaton by Xyrus02 (as also suggested by Don  )
- improved the quality of the realtime preview
- first complete working version of the dancing flames module!
- its now possible to have a "dancing fractal" without sound (i. e. static motion)
- improved the precision in calculating relative weights
- start and end time for motions of the dancing flames editor
- new "Sawtooth" motion for the dancing flames editor
- reduced the default gamma threshold from 0.04 to 0.01 (which should cause gently more brigh results)
- load/save projects in the dancing flame module
- random flame generator: create sorted gradients sorted by hue at a certain probability
- FIXED: vibrancy and contrast where not (re)stored using *flame-files correctly
- FIXED: the use of custom_wf variation did cause the editor to stop (because the example code could not be compiled anymore (which was an cause of all those changes to MathLib))
- FIXED: some params were not read correctly in the circlecrop family of variations
- FIXED: bug regarding blur shading (also already fixed in V0.64 revision 2)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Hello friends,
it is almost finished: the 2nd generation of the "dancing flames"-module in JWildfire. And I just finished the first video using the new software. I had the creation of this video so long on my mind, and now I'm really glad that it could be done. In the end, things went very quick, the design was done in one hour and the rendering took 4 more hours. But the work on the software felt like months, and sometimes there was no progress for several weeks.

I hope you will like it

Just released JWildfire V0.64.

The software is getting more and more mature, and this time there were many ground-breaking changes under the hood. But no change made it necessary to change the software-design substantially, so it seems to be a well suited and stable platform for many further enhancements in the future

There were made many changes regarding the improvement of the render quality. So for overall, I call this the 2ND GENERATION of JWildfire.

Complete list of changes:
- 37 phantastic new images for the launcher from the community
- a whole family of random number generators is now available: SIMPLE, MARSAGLIA, MERSENNE_TWISTER, JAVA_INTERNAL,  default is MERSENNE_TWISTER, you can change this in the Preferences)
- removed the old DE filter code and replaced it by a flam3-compatible implementation
- 14 different filter kernels for both DE and spatial filtering, also known from flam3: BELL, BLACKMANN, BOX, BSPLINE, CATROM, GAUSSIAN, HAMMING, HANNING, HERMITE, LANCZOS2, LANCZOS3, MITCHELL, QUADRATIC, TRIANGLE
- recover "lost" (=infinite) points, this should avoid the effect of "rendering turns into black" on certain flames
- its now possible to choose from different implementations of basic mathematical functions. Two implementations are currently provided: FAST_MATH and JAVA_MATH. You can select them from the preferences window. Normally FAST_MATH should work perfect, if you are loosing details at high zoom factors just use JAVA_MATH
- new Preferences option for default DE filter radius
- antialiasing is now enabled by default, you can find new options for the default values in the Preferences
- since this version the pitch angle is (again) not altered while rotating the view with the mouse (this makes it easier to just modify the roll angle)
- additional color indicator on the "color" tab which color corresponds to your selected color index
- new "hypertile3D", "hypertile3D1″, "hypertile3D2″ and "poincare3D" variations by Zueuk
- improved the "JulianDisc" random flame generator
- several additions to the dancing flames module (still work in progress)
- the brightness slider has now its maximum at 25.0 (before this was 20.0)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

PLZ NOTE: If your scripts do not work anymore and say that "MathLib" can not be found, you have just to replace "org.jwildfire.base.MathLib" by "org.jwildfire.base.mathlib.MathLib" in your scripts. Sorry for that, but I had to create a sub-package for all of the math-stuff to make it better suited for future enhancements (and this will not change again).


You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Just wanted to thank the man who today gave me premium membership, *m0thman72 !

Even if those are "only" virtual points etc. - such things have a very important meaning to me! He did not say anything... this is the stuff which is driving me to create strong software which make users happy!

Thanks, m8!

Just released JWildfire V0.63.

Major new feature are even more DOF controls and the possibility to combine the famous Buddhabrots with flame fractals!

Complete list of changes:
- new parameters "area" and "exponent" for DOF (depth of field). The parameter "area" controls the size of the area with low blur, the parameter "exponent" controls the increase of blur with distance from the focus point
- restored the old method to calculate DOF (before V0.62) and allow to switch between old and new method freely (i. E. all your old flames look as you designed them)
- buddhabrot mode for all "classic fractal" variations (beginning with "fract…")
- "lazyTravis" variation my Michael Faber
- the brightness slider has now its maximum at 20.0 (before this was 10.0)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Just released JWildfire V0.62.

Major new feature is the possiblity to visually specify the focus point for calculating dof (depth of field) effects. So its much more easy to to create fractal images with awesome "depth" effects. There is short tutorial on those new features:



Complete list of changes:
- more accurate calculation of dof (depth of field)
- freely specify the focus point in dof
- special edit mode to specify the focus point visually (by dragging it with the mouse)
- simplified triangle editing modes (move, rotate and scale is one mode and uses the same controls as view editing mode), free point editing is the same as before
- allow to change the camera yaw angle by dragging the mouse in the preview window (hold left and right mouse button)
- mouse view editing: modify camera pitch by dragging the mouse in the vertical (y) direction, modify camera roll by dragging the mouse in the horizontal (x) direction
- "circus" variation my Michael Faber
- FIXED a bug in the Flame morphing service regarding flames with final transforms (which caused final transforms to be duplicated)
- reset the DE filter amount to 0 of older flames (because the meaning of the value had changed and would cause too much blur if used as before)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Just released JWildfire V0.61.

Major new feature is the possiblity to cancel the current main render process because it is now running in the background. This was heavily demanded by many users and now it's finally done   On fast machines you can even continue to design new fractals while rendering.

Complete list of changes:
- the main render function now is a background task which makes it possible to cancel it (currently only for internal renderer) and continue to work while  -rendering
- removed the ancient spatial and color oversampling options (all user-defined quality profiles will be removed with this update!, if you face problems with noise use spatial and/or DE filter options)
- new variations originally created by Larry Berlin:
    - pRose3D
    - ho
    - ovoid3d
    - fibonacci2
- experimental tree to show flame properties for the dancing flame module
- lots of internal refactoring regarding the dancing flame editor

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

Hello friends,
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and have prepared a little gift for you, the JWildfire V0.60 Xmas edition It contains a really innovation which allows you to include arbitrary text (with an arbitrary font) into your fractals… which may even help to create surprisingly cool Christmas cards . Some more really cool variations by other authors are included as well.
So have fun, have some relaxing hollidays, and the best to your family and your friends

Complete list of changes:
- new "text_wf" variation for integrating arbitrary text objects with your fractals
- "SuperShape3D" variation by David Young
- "xtrb" variation by Xyrus02
- new type "Font" for variation ressources (allows for example to pick up the desired font for "text_wf" variation from a list)
- many enhancements and layout changes to the dancing flames module (still work in progress)
- improved the behaviour and performance of the mouse view editing

You can download the new version as always here: [link]

Some recent renders:

This time the new release has not really a lot of new features… but one new striking one: the long awaited view editing mode is now available You can now just drag, rotate and zoom your fractal the way it should have been working from the first day
This mode is now the default editing mode, it works as follows:
- left mouse button: drag the fractal ("CentreX" and "CentreY")
- right mouse button: rotate ("Roll") the fractal
- middle mouse button/mouse wheel: zoom ("Pixels per unit") the fractal

Complete list of changes:
- new interactive view editing mode (move, rotate, zoom)
- color and color symmetry does also affect the new fract_* family of variations
- lots of internal refactoring regarding the dancing flames editor (does not affect current state of features but makes it more easy to add new features soon)

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version at the projects web page: [link]

Some recent renders:

A new video I just did today for fun

Just released JWildfire V0.58.

Major new feature is the improved render quality and a series of new variations which generate "classical fractals" like Mandelbrot or Julia fractals.

Complete list of changes:
- improved render quality (also applies to the external renderers)
- new variations to to generate "classical fractals":
   + fract_mandelbrot_wf
   + fract_julia_wf
   + fract_salamander_wf
   + fract_pearls_wf
   + fract_meteor_wf
   + fract_dragon_wf
- new "Mandelbrot" random flame generator
- display the flame name and flame file name (if available) in the status display (currently window title, but this place may change in future)
- improved the "Bubbles" random flame generator

Just click the "Random flames" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version at the projects web page: [link]

Some recent renders:

Just released JWildfire V0.57.

Major new feature is the "Dancing flame fractals" module. It allows you to create sound-synchronized flame animations, either in realtime or in any desired rendered quality!  A short tutorial regarding this new module will come soon.
Here are some quick hints to help you start playing  it:
- Load any mp3 file using the "Load sound" button (without sound there will be no show)
- Import or generate some fractals (just press the "Generate random flames" to start quickly)
- Start the show by just pressing the "Start show" button (if it appears too slow decrease the image size using the "Border size" slider (increase border size -> faster render))


Complete list of changes:
- first working version of the "Dancing Flame Fractals" editor
- new "Splits" random flame generator
- flame preview in the batch renderer
- switched the background transparency display in the movie editor off
- turned off background transparency display in flame file previews
- FIXED: the elliptic variation was broken
- FIXED: Formula mode was broken in the Benoit creator

Just click the "Random flames" or "Dance" button to start playing around and have fun

You can download the new version at the projects web page: [link]

Some recent renders:

I'm really glad to present you a new video - done in collaboration with ~j13-satori


Sound-synchronized flame fractal motion with music by ~j13-satori . The animation contains about 11000 frames and is made of about 180 flame fractals - all designed, animated and rendered in JWildfire. The uploading took more time than the rendering

Credits:
concept, fractals and some sfx by *thargor6, made with JWildfire
www.andreas-maschke.com [link]

main music by ~j13-satori
www.j13satori.com [link]