Fragmentarium v0.9.12 released

[Syntopia]

I've released a new version of Fragmentarium.

Support for Image Based Lights, HDR, and tonemapping, examples of emulated and hardware double precision, and several new examples by Kali, Knighty, and a few by myself.

For full release text, see:
http://blog.hvidtfeldts.net/index.php/2012/08/fragmentarium-version-0-9-12-prague-released/

There are quite a few internal changes, so let me know if you can't run Fragmentarium anymore.

[Syntopia]

There is now a Mac OS X build of Fragmentarium 0.9.12 available - I don't have a Mac myself, so I don't know much about it, but it might work :-)

I have also updated the Windows builds for better ATI and Intel HD 3000/4000 compatibility.

Notice, that Intel users might want to use the 'Fast-Raytracer.frag' instead of the 'De-Raytracer.frag' include. For some reason these Intel chips are extremely slow with the my new raytracer, but do a reasonable job with the older ray tracers. 

[cbuchner1]

I created a Windows build folder that generates a 64bit executable and uses Visual Studio 2010.

Essentially I had to re-create the project from scratch using the Qt Visual Studio Add-In, and
adding all files in the same folder ("filter") structure as in the VS 2008 project file.

If there's any interest in this, I will share.

[Syntopia]

Yes, please share the project files.

I've thought about making a 64-bit build, but never got around to it.

One complication was that the express versions of VS do not support plugins. Which means I have to add all Qt's 'moc' preprocessor steps by hand as custom build steps.

I also tried changing to Qt Creator, but I've grown so accustomed to VS that I ended up switching back, even though Creator is a nice IDE.

[cbuchner1]

Yes, the plug-in does not run in the Express versions, but the project files saved while using the plug-in (from a Professional version of Visual Studio of course) continues to work in the Express version, given that one defines the QTDIR variable externally (or alternatively in a custom property page, manually added to the project)

A problem will only arise when adding new Qt classes to the project with the Express version: these won't be preprocessed by MOC. What I have done in such situations is that I manually edited the .vc(x)proj file in notepad.exe, duplicating one of the existing MOC entries and changing the file names.

[richardrosenman]

So far I am loving Fragmentarium. It's pretty awesome.

I have a few questions and I hope this is the proper place to post them:

1 - Is it limited to 8 bits/channel? It supports PNG and those support 16 bits/channel color which is SO useful for color correction and post effects in Photoshop. 32 bits/channe; is even better. If not, perhaps a future feature?

2 - Is the progressive renderer only limited to 2000 subframes? Why place this restriction? Even at 2000, at a moderate resolution of 4000x3000 you see noise.

3 - Perhaps a silly question (and admittedly I am still figuring out this software), is it possible to add more than one light?

4 - When switching to other renderers such as the Soft-Raytracer, I can't use things like the floor.

5 - I too, wished for a transparent alpha but read the other post and see this is difficult. It just means you're stuck with the simple Fragmentarium backgrounds or you key it out.

6 - Ok, this is just neat - possible OBJ support? Might come in handy to bring in custom GEO for mixing in with fractals.

I'm sure I'll have more questions in the near future... (like a couple of hours near future...)

-Rich

[Syntopia]

Thanks, Richard.

1 - Is it limited to 8 bits/channel? It supports PNG and those support 16 bits/channel color which is SO useful for color correction and post effects in Photoshop. 32 bits/channe; is even better. If not, perhaps a future feature?

Internally the working buffer resolution can be set using the '#Buffer' command.  The default buffers are using 32 bit floats, but you could do 16 bit fixed, by changing the buffer line to '"Buffer RGBA16' (for most raytracers this line is set in '3D.frag').

As of now, it is not possible to save the internal buffers - I don't think the Qt PNG libraries support 16-bit, and besides I need floats for HDR output. I plan to add support for .HDR (RGBE) output in a coming version, though.

2 - Is the progressive renderer only limited to 2000 subframes? Why place this restriction? Even at 2000, at a moderate resolution of 4000x3000 you see noise.

Probably is -  but I can increase it for next release - just didn't figure more would be useful.

3 - Perhaps a silly question (and admittedly I am still figuring out this software), is it possible to add more than one light?

No, you will have to change the raytracer code, which should be fairly easy.

4 - When switching to other renderers such as the Soft-Raytracer, I can't use things like the floor.

Yes, that is quite messy. Some raytracers support different things especially wrt shadows, reflection, and floors.

5 - I too, wished for a transparent alpha but read the other post and see this is difficult. It just means you're stuck with the simple Fragmentarium backgrounds or you key it out.

You can code your own background - I can't remember if this was part of the last release, or only in Git, but otherwise you can do like:

Code:

#define providesBackground
#include "DE-Raytracer.frag"

vec3 backgroundColor(vec3 dir) {
	return dir;
}

float  DE(vec3 z) {
	float d = (length(z-vec3(1.0,0.0,0.0))-1.0); // A sphere
	d = max(d,- (length(z.xy-vec2(1.,0.0))-0.4)); // minus a tube
	d = max(d,- (length(z.yz-vec2(0.,0.0))-0.4)); // minus a tube
	d = max(d,- (length(z.xz-vec2(1.,0.0))-0.4)); // minus a tube
       d = min(d, length(z.yz-vec2(1.,1.0))-0.3); // plus a  tube
	return d;
}

And add panoramic images, or generate background from code.

6 - Ok, this is just neat - possible OBJ support? Might come in handy to bring in custom GEO for mixing in with fractals.

Sorry, but that would extremely difficult to implement on GPU :-) (The CPU can't call the DE functions - though I have thought of embedding a small C-compiler, and do some preprocessor magic)