Use up to 400 holons
V1.5 can use up to 100 holons, v1.6 can use up to 200 holons. Now
you can create even more complex models with up to 400 holons.
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Preview grid |
You can overlay a grid on the Preview to help with alignment.
Preferences include color or grayscale options, aspect ratios and
grid resolution. Gridline colors are matched to the choice of background
color.
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Show/hide Holon window and Preview
These toolbar buttons let the Holon window or Preview display full
size.
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Solo Holon button to show only the active
holon
When working with many holons, showing only the active holon makes
it faster and easier to edit.
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12 history levels for Undo/Redo
Explore at full speed knowing you can get back if you need to.
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Save and open Shape Memory Spots to
a set of files
While exploring or working on a project, you may often store a variety
of interesting objects. It can be convenient to save your shape memory
data in one step. You can load the set back to the shape spots or
open individual shapes as parameter files.
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Export to UltraFractal
Objects with up to 31 holons and no metamorphs can be exported as
a UPR for UltraFractal 4, using Dave Makin's formulas. Free holons
and hidden holons are also supported. Coloring and lighting are not
exported.
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23 new metamorphs
V2.1 includes 23 new metamorphs: cyclic constructors; cyclic tiles;
flat, circular and spherical mazes; cylindrical and spherical patterns
of holes; randomized cellular blocks and organic warps and more. Here
are some examples.
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New camera controls and switchable
views |
Redesigned camera controls are easy to learn and use.
Switch between the camera and six fixed direction views for convenient
design. Each view can be panned and zoomed.
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Animation controls to create batches
for rendering |
Create animation sequences with up to 30 keyframes. Camera, shape
and some coloring are interpolated with up to 800 steps between keyframes,
with choice of linear or spline interpolation. Preview all or part
of the sequence before creating the batch. You can save all the keyframes
and settings in a single animation project file.
(There are also batch rendering controls, which are not exclusive
to version 2.)
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Stereo mode post processing
Stereo mode automates production of stereograms, which are rendered
for cross-eyed viewing. The v2 additions let you add a black border
around the stereo images, swap left and right images for parallel
viewing, and convert to anaglyphs for any of four standard colored
glasses (red-blue, red-green, red-cyan, ochre-blue). Anaglyphs are
produced with one image in monochrome and another in color so you
can choose the one that works best for your picture.
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Pic Texture filter |
Create a wide variety of backgrounds with this powerful texture editor.
Combine up to six layers of 2D texture, with perspective and bump
options for 3D effects.
Each layer has spatial, contour, noise, turbulence and gradient controls.
The contour controls provide adjustable shapes to drive the gradient.
Noise controls add random or geometric patterns. Turbulence lets you
warp the layer. Gradient controls adjust the coloring and opacity.
Memory spots provide temporary storage for layers or whole textures.
You can save textures as presets for future use.
Over 130 presets are provided, ranging from simple gradients to rocks,
seascapes and different kinds of skies.
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Depth of Field filter |
The Depth of Field filter creates the effect of a camera lens, varying
the focus with distance from the camera.
You can control the focal distance, depth of focus and amount of
blurring. You can also choose from 10 aperture shapes, adjust spherical
aberration and boost highlights.
This is a post-processing effect that can be applied to the picture
after lighting, or used in other creative ways.
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Fill background with cellular
automata |
The Fill Holes option has 127 cellular automata variations. Some
of them fill the background solidly, while others leave intricate
patterns of holes.
These two examples began with a striped torus and filled the rest
of the picture.
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Mesh Export: increased maximum
size, smoothing filter |
In XenoDream 2 the grid size limit is increased to 1500, so the only
limit on mesh resolution is the physical memory (up to 2GB). Improved
memory management allows bigger meshes to be produced (up to 17 million
triangles before simplifying.)
You can use a mesh smoothing filter as much as you like, with controls
for the amount, number of times and width.
This example was generated with grid size 300, producing 1.1M triangles,
then simplified to 50k triangles. The copy on the right had moderate
smoothing applied before saving the mesh.
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Other improvements
Parameter files include holon selection and selection memory spots.
There is a toolbar field showing how many holons are selected.
The Color Picker includes HSV numeric controls.
The Custom Gradient Editor has several improvements: improved randomizing;
options to change the default gradient for holons, equalize node spacing
and copy node type.
Lighting is multithreaded for improved responsiveness and reliability.
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