Custom color picker with choice of color modes, standard and custom color
squares, eyedropper and live update of the program (New!
added HSV numeric controls)
Preset management allows switching between system and personal preset files,
importing and exporting
Help file with complete reference, now in CHM format
'Using XenoDream' guide, with 50 topics of tutorials, illustrations, tips
and FAQ
Camera and Views
Full 3D camera view including zoom, with 3D mouse dragging or individual
controls
New! new camera controls, easy to learn and
use
New! switch between camera and six fixed
view directions, with individual pan and zoom, all remembered
New! four trackball modes for rotating the
camera or world
Rotate view by selectable increments
Fisheye lens
Front and back clipping planes allow cutaway views
Stereo mode, with Stereo Depth and Distance controls, for automatic and
interactive creation of stereograms
Preview stereograms in cross-eyed, parallel or anaglyph (four color choices)
Shape
Add, clone and delete holons
Each holon has scale, skew, rotation and position controls in each of X,Y,Z
directions
Mouse dragging of scale, skew, rotation and position relative to camera
view
Interactive randomized morphing of the shape by mouse dragging
Explore mode, with choice of parameters to morph in each direction
Distribute selected holons along a line or a variety of waveforms. Applies
independently to position, scales, skews or rotations.
Randomize all or individual parameters for selected holons
Maximum Iteration control for each holon
One or two metamorphs (nonlinear transformations) can be applied to each
holon
179 metamorph styles (New! 23 more in v2.1),
from simple swirls and waves to complex hyperwarps
22 of these (New! 3 more in v2.1) are 'constructor
styles', allowing spheres, cubes, cylinders, tori, cones, planes, polyhedra,
gearwheels and others to be used independently or with fractal replication
Metamorph styles are listed in a floating window, organized in categories
Popup help describes each metamorph style
Metamorphs can be individually repositioned, reoriented and rescaled to
the holons
Metamorphs have Amount, Scale and Special parameters for many variations
Randomize any combination of metamorph parameters for selected holons
Extend holons for either extra metamorphs or displacement mapping
Hide individual holons while preserving any fractal interaction
Free holons: make multiple instances of the object and apply further transformations
to each
Hide the parent shape so only free holons are visible
V2 Solo Holon button to show only the active holon,
for easier editing
Option to remember shape memory spots between sessions
V2 Buttons to save and open shape memory spots as
sets of parameter files
Color
Holon sequence coloring method uniquely correlates the color of each 3D
point to the shape
Metamorph coloring method for texture mapping from metamorphs or other sources
Map each holon to a gradient or a picture
Gradient strip showing active gradient
Powerful custom gradient editor
Curve and blend options to filter and combine patterns
Create background pictures from metamorph coloring patterns
Randomize gradients
Save and open gradient presets (Includes hundreds of presets for general
purpose and specific uses such as sky, stone, wood and other textures)
Rendering
Three rendering methods: chaos, ordered and hybrid
Set render size to standard or custom sizes
Render sizes remembered in order of recent use
Large renders supported depending on memory, eg about 6000x4500 with 512MB
of RAM
Start/stop/resume rendering from main window or picture window
Opacity can be varied per holon
Three different modes for transparent rendering
Shadow casting can be disabled per holon
Animation
V2 Create animation sequence with up to 30 keyframes
V2 Interpolate camera, shape and coloring with up
to 800 steps between keyframes
New! Spline interpolation, optional per keyframe
V2 Preview animation before creating batch for rendering
V2 Save animation keyframes and settings as animation
project file
Render batch, saving images in JPG, BMP, PSD or TGA format
Picture
Set magnification to 200%, 100%, 50%, 25% or to fit window
Supports three open pictures at once. Two layers can be combined.
Front layer can have background masking, alpha masking, layer opacity, merge
modes
Choice of 21 merge modes
Copy one layer to another, or combine two layers to any layer
Open JPG, BMP or PSD images as a layer
Save to JPG, BMP, PSD or TGA files (TGA includes
alpha channel)
Save PSD files with transparency and layer masks, opacity and merge mode
Reopen menu for recently used pictures
Copy layer to clipboard
Flip vertical, flip horizontal, invert colors
Adjust hue, saturation, lightness and contrast
Gaussian blur/sharpen filter with width and amount controls
Remove/increase noise filter
V2 Depth of field filter, with aberration, aperture
shapes, highlight boost and focal depth controls
V2 Pic Texture filter for creating textures for
background pictures (see below)
Save depth map as 16 bit heightfield in PGM format or RG-encoded TGA
Open PGM files as depth map
Save depth map to/from BMP format, to support depth effects in Photoshop
V2 Stereo mode options to add stereo border, swap
left and right, and convert to anaglyph (four color choices)
Depth window allows conversion of colors to the depth map. Independent handling
of object and background allows casting shadows onto backgrounds, convert
from alpha channel, tilt plane horizontally or vertically.
V2Pic Texture filter(this
powerful filter is only available in version 2)
Up to six layers of texture. Enable/disable and reorder layers.
Preview 100% or thumbnail view
Each layer has spatial, contour, noise, turbulence and gradient controls
Spatial controls adjust position, rotation, perspective and stereo depth
(in stereo mode)
Contour controls provide adjustable shapes (ramp, ellipse, ring, square,
cross, radial, rectangle) to drive gradients
Noise controls add patterns with blending of octaves
31 Noise patterns include varieties of Perlin, Voronoi, bricks, hexagons,
spots, random blocks
Two turbulence sources (9 patterns) warp the layer in various ways
Gradient controls add a color gradient or use the existing picture, adjust
opacity and bump
Global controls adjust scale, position and rotation of all layers together
Memory spots for temporary storage of single layers or complete textures
Save and open textures as presets for permanent storage
130 presets provided, from simple gradients, rocks, seascapes to a wide
variety of skies
Full support for stereo mode
Alpha mode allows creation of alpha channel instead of picture
Lighting
Powerful 3D lighting model includes filters for convenient combined effects
New! Improved responsiveness and reliability
All lighting (except permanent cleaning options) is non-destructive, and
applied post-render
Experiment, apply and save any number of effects quickly without re-rendering
the object
Lighting preview window shows lighting/filters in realtime (at 100% zoom)
Lighting preview zoom settings 100%, 50%, 33%, 25% with auto or manual preview
Lighting ball for easy interactive adjustment of light sources
Up to 15 light sources plus ambient (can be individually enabled/disabled)
Optional shadows per light source
Adjust shadow quality
Adjust material properties per light: surface smoothing/sharpening, diffuse
amount and color, shininess, metallicity
Effects include blur/sharpen, contrast, saturation, iridescence, reflection,
refraction, glow, haze
Adjustable Fresnel effect for more realistic plastic, ceramic and glass
Haze controls for vertical angle and cloud and fog effects
Use alpha channel for transparent effects
Adjust response of alpha channel with gamma and level controls
Surface cleaning options to fill holes, remove noise, smooth/sharpen permanently
(polish filter allows high degree of smoothing while preserving edges)
Autofill holes and background for special effects
V2 Autofill with 127 variations including
cellular automata patterns
Save and open all lighting parameters as presets in definable categories
Hundreds of presets supplied, covering a wide range including lighting,
artistic effects, metals and many types of materials
Randomize lighting parameters
Protect groups of parameters from change when opening presets, memory spots
or randomizing
Apply lighting filters cumulatively for complex effects
Divide object into regions (before rendering) based on holons or color,
then light them independently
Region lighting memory spots
Mesh Export
Render for mesh generation, faster than rendering as a picture
Choose maximum mesh resolution between 100 and 600 (V2
up to 1500). Rendering is twice mesh resolution (2x oversampled)
Faster and uses 50% less memory than v1.5
Surface method captures accurate surface from 14 directions
Volume method captures internal or complex structure
Fill volume option for eliminating hidden triangles
Volume cleaning option based on neighboring voxels
Mesh filtering to reduce voxelization or other artifacts (much better filter
method than v1.5)
Simplify mesh to choose desired level of detail, with realtime adjustment
V2 Mesh smoothing controls that can be used repeatedly
New! Colorize Mesh Display option to show
triangles more clearly for simplifying
Save mesh in Wavefront OBJ format, POVRay INC format or PLY format, with
or without smooth normals