Flam3 2.8 Beta3 and Beta5

[Exper]

The new Flam3 2.8 Beta3 release is actually available for testing.

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

10/03/09 - Release as 2.8beta3.
+ env var 'stagger' affects the simultaneity of xform interpolation when morphing from one flame to another. set to 0 for existing behaviour, set to 1 to make each xform interpolate individually
+ Removed final xform from stagger algorithm.
+ Changed color_speed range from 0 (no color change) to 1 (use new xform color).
+ Animate attribute is now 0 for no motion, 1 for motion.
+ 'oscope' parameters are now called 'oscilloscope' to match the rest of the parametric variations (backwards compatible, so old genomes can be read.)

[Exper]

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.

[Exper]

Flam3 2.8 new highlight_power tag usage comparison.

Highlight_power tag, as reported by Erik Reckase, has this particular rendering usage: “This new feature clips the RGB color at max Value (in HSV space), and then the color will trend towards white as the density increases. Setting highlight_power to -1 (the default) results in 2.7 functionality. Setting it to values >= 0 enables the new functionality; a value of 0 means that there will be no trending towards white, that is, no highlights at all. The larger the value, the faster dense areas will become white as density increases. Start with values around .5 or 1 and adjust from there.”

This image reports the result on the same setup rendered using a value ranging from -1 (disabled) up to 4.
http://exper.3drecursions.com/flam3/highlight_power_comp1.jpg

See the original setup here: Round & Round

[Exper]

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

2.8beta5 - 10/16/09
Non-threadsafe progress tracking code in main iteration thread replaced with per-render progress storage.
Fixed bug where pausing render during density estimation stage terminated render.
Waves2 variation fixed (thx Joel F).

2.8beta4 - 10/07/09
Fixed bug affecting 'animate' mode with flam3-genome.
Changed estimate_bounding_box to increase discarded iterations if numerous badvals were encountered during iterations.
Exported a few more functions for Windows DLL.

Supported Variations - complete list:
linear, sinusoidal, spherical, swirl, horseshoe, polar, handkerchief, heart, disc, spiral, hyperbolic, diamond, ex, julia, bent, waves, fisheye, popcorn, exponential, power, cosine, rings, fan, blob, pdj, fan2, rings2, eyefish, bubble, cylinder, perspective, noise, julian, juliascope, blur, gaussian_blur, radial_blur, pie, ngon, curl, rectangles, arch, tangent, square, rays, blade, secant2, twintrian, cross, disc2, super_shape, flower, conic, parabola, bent2, 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