JWildfire version 6.5 release

– Introducing variation-filters, based on variation-profiles and variation-types.They will improve usability a lot by simplifying the selection of variations/”plugins” by selecting and combining variation-types.

The variation-types are internally defined and connected to the variation by the variation author. A variation may have any number of variation-types. e.g. “BLUR3d” is both of type BLUR and 3D. Profiles are not restricted to the use of variation-types, you may also create profile containing a list of any variations. For example. you can create a profile which contains well-proved variations to use inside a splits-elliptic-setup. You can also exclude variations.

You may combine up to two profiles. E.g. to combine your own profile with the internal categories, like “Baseshape”. E.g., when you chose your own profile together with the predefined “Baseshape”, you get only base-shape-variations from your list. (a “Baseshape” is a variation which creates a shape/fractal on its own, like “square”)

– This is the first version of an official user manual.

Thanks to Brad Stefanov, D. Aaron Sawyer, Nancy Pierce, my wife Patricia Maschke and Rick Sidwell for reviewing it!

Because it is also a public project, you can view the latest version of the manual always directly on GitHub: https://github.com/thargor6/JWildfire/blob/master/manual/src/docs/asciidoc/JWildfire_manual.adoc

The final manual can be reached from within the program under the “Help -> User manual” or in the file system inside the lib-subfolder (JWildfire_manual.pdf).

– ply/PointCloud-export now generates two additional fields: pscale and intensity

– new property tinaDefaultNewFlameTitle where you can set a default flame title which is assigned when you create a new flame by using the “New from Scratch”-button

– new property specialMacOsFileHandling in the Preferences to enable special file handling for newer versions of macOS.

The default behavior on all platforms is to use the standard Java file dialogs. On macOS, these only allow access within the sandbox. This makes it difficult to share files between JWildfire and other apps. If you enable this option, JWildfire uses native file dialogs on macOS. However, this comes at the price of having to reconfirm each first access to a folder. This new option is enabled by default.

– folder-parameters in the Preferences (e.g. gradient-folder) can now be entered manually or selected by using a folder-dialog

– added Alt-F shortcut for Fine edit, by Rick Sidwell

– new variations
-bulge,
-fresnel,
-tunnel,
-kaleidoimg,
-dc_portal,
-kaplan,
-dc_gmandelbroot by by Jesus Sosa
-crop_mandelbulb3d,
-crop_mandelbox3d by Whittaker Courtney
-post_aexion_crop,
-post_benesi_crop,
-post_asurf_crop,
-post_bristorbrot_crop,
-post_bulbtorus_crop,
-post_coastalbrot_crop by by Jesus Sosa

– new internal scripts
– “Tile Maker” (which is a whole family of scripts) by Missy Gainer
– “Yummy Gnarls” by Brad Stefanov

– improved the “Affine3D”-random-flame-generator

– slightly improved the speed of “glsl_”- and similar variations

– slightly improved the speed when chosing a random variation (from within a random-flame-generator or Mutation)

– moved the “ZBuffer”-subtab from the “DOF / Bokeh”-tab to the “3D rendering”-tab

– removed the advanced code-editor (using jsyntaxpane-1.1.5), which was not properly working in Java 15 (and honestly, was never working very well). Accordingly, the properties tinaAdvancedCodeEditorColorFix, tinaAdvancedCodeEditorFontSize and tinaAdvancedCodeEditor  were removed from the Preferences.

Recommended Alternative: use Visual Studio Code for editing complex scripts (https://code.visualstudio.com/download)

– removed the “Variations settings”-window which was superseded by the new variation profiles

– flame-morphing now also takes into account post-symmetry

– added motion-curves for post-symmetry-related settings

– added a new mode variable to the glitchy2-variation

– fix: file dialogs in macOS Mojave now are the native file dialogs, so you can access files outside the sandbox

– fix: a bug regarding macOS which prevented that path-settings where correctly saved in the Preferences

– fix: name of parameter “type” was wrong in “cut_booleans”-variation, by Brad Stefanov

– fix: QuickMutations now inherit the zoom-factor, quality and spatial oversampling settings form the original flame

– fix: regarding z-coordinate to tqmirror-variation, by Brad Stefanov

– fix: regarding of priority in the post_falloff2-variation

– fix: initialize width and height for new flames, by Rick Sidwell

– fix: a bug where changing a post-affine-transformation-value was not properly updated and the change was lost when saving and re-loading the flame

– fix: sets a default font for the UI during early startup. On macOS Big Sur some parts of the UI were reported to use a strange font sometimes.

– fix: added support for PreserveZ in the dc_carpet-variation, by Brad Stefanov