Introducing ArtMatic Voyager 4

Introducing ArtMatic Voyager 4

New Features and Changes - Quick Summary ArtMatic Voyager 4 - New Feature Guide Camera can now point straight up or down. See Camera Settings below. Full 360-degree spherical panoramas possible. Amazing for VR applications! Amazing new cities and building elements and more via ArMatic. A host of ArtMatic components were added specifically for expanding Voyager s capabilities. BE SURE to take a look at the extensive examples library to get a sense of the new possibilities. Improved live communication between ArtMatic Voyager and ArtMatic Designer New object shading modes: Gas and Clouds, Volumetric Light. New ambient light mode options. It is now possible to use the Environment Setup dialog to set the ambient light channel to an image or particular color for dramatic new lighting possibilities. Improved and expanded Mist model. New wave model available. New Camera Settings dialog and new icon in the main user interface. Updated Camera Path dialog Elevation slider now relative. For absolute control of the camera elevation, use the new Camera Settings dialog. The range of movement via the sliders is now influenced by the View Map scale. For effective navigation with DFRM cities and objects, set the view range somewhere between 1 and a few kilometers. Land Camera icon added to main user interface to set the camera at the surface level and should be effective for both simple 2D terrains and 3D volumetric (DFRM) terrains. Save Image Options dialog. Cast shadows option added to turn on this option for the render without having it on in the main user interface. Improved Ambient Occlusion. The ambient occlusion has been made faster with improved quality. See details below. Shadows have been improved with a better soft shadow algorithm. Improved object dialog. DFRM object rendering has been optimized. See details. Multiprocessing architecture updated to make use of POSIX calls. Improved top-view of DFRM objects in the surface map mini-preview. Terrain Shader Options icon moved. - 2 -

New Feature Details ArtMatic Voyager 4 - New Feature Guide CAMERA PROJECTION MODE ArtMatic Voyager now allows the camera to be pointed straight up or down and to create full 360-degree spherical panoramas. To accomplish this, ArtMatic Voyager now has a selectable projection mode that is accessed via the new Camera Settings Dialog (more about this later in this chapter). The modes are cylindrical (the legacy mode), perspective and spherical. The cylindrical projection mode is generally much faster to render than the other modes since it allows for massive optimizations not possible when the camera can point straight up or down. More about these modes and the Camera Settings Dialog are found later in this chapter. IMPROVED MIST MODEL The mist model was improved. It now has two parameters in the Environment Settings dialog: Mist Top Altitude and Mist Range. Mist Range controls the vertical spread and controls the density. The smaller the range, the faster the mist reaches full opacity. Mist density is also affected by the global haze level. NEW WAVE MODEL A new wave model is available in the Environment Settings dialog. The option smaller and rougher has been added to the wave algorithms available from the popup. CITIES AND MUCH MORE VIA NEW ARTMATIC COMPONENTS ArtMatic Designer 7 has a host of new components that enable cities, architectures, spaceships, 3D fractals and more: far beyond what was possible in earlier generations of the software. BE SURE to take a look at the extensive examples library to get a sense of the new possibilities! - 3 -

IMPROVED TOP-VIEW OF ARTMATIC OBJECTS The Map s top-view preview shows an improved representation of ArtMatic DFRM objects. A density slice is taken at the terrain s elevation and another slice at the object s center and superimposed on the map. Map preview for the Utopia city TERRAIN SHADER OPTIONS ICON MOVED The icon to call up the Terrain Shader Options dialog has moved to the Color Shader section of the main user interface as shown above. AMBIENT OCCLUSION The ambient occlusion algorithms have been improved. A vertical component has been added. The ambient occlusion is stronger than before so old scenes may require some adjustment. NEW AMBIENT LIGHT SETTINGS - ENVIRONMENT The Environment Setup Dialog offers four options for the ambient light mode: Automatic. Automatic is the mode used in ArtMatic Voyager 3 and earlier. The ambient light is a blurred low-res image (128*64) derived from the scene s map and is recalculated for each frame. Image. When you use an image as the light masp, it is resized to 128*64 and blurred. The image is stored in the Voyager scene s bundle as AmbiantMap.png Image+Constant. The constant color is added to the chosen image. Constant. Constant mode uses a mix of the sun, haze and sky color to create a uniform ambient light. Light map recalculation. When you use the image or constant modes, the ambient light map is fixed and not recalculated with each frame. - 4 -

A scene as it appears with the normal automatic ambient light As it appears when an image of a soap film is used as the light map The image chosen as the ambient light map The AmbiantMap.png created by Voyager and stored in the bundle The folder Ambiant Maps provides some images that you might find useful as ambient light maps. It also includes the ArtMatic systems used to generate them. STEREOSCOPIC/BINOCULAR RENDERING When rendering a 360-degree stereoscopic image, the distance of convergence parameter is disabled as it has no effect. CAMERA-RELATED CHANGES Camera Settings Dialog The new Camera Settings Dialog (command-f or clicking on the camera icon) lets you set a number of camera settings including the new projection mode setings. Changes to the settings are reflected in real time in the main user interface. Of particular interest to long-time users is the ability to have the camera point straight up or down and to make true 360-degree spherical panoramas. These new capabilities are accomplished by the new Perspec- - 5 -

tive Projection and Spherical Projection modes. ArtMatic Voyager 4 - New Feature Guide Settings: Projection mode: Cylindrical, Perspective, Spherical Horizontal direction Vertical angle Longitude Latitude Elevation Cylindrical Projection. This is the standard projection mode. It is highly optimized for speed and quality. These optimizations, however, prevent the camera from pointing straight up or straight down. Unless you need to point the camera to the vertical extremes, use this mode. Perspective Projection. This mode allows the camera to be pointed straight up or straight down (-90 to +90) something not possible before ArtMatic Voyager 4. All previous versions of ArtMatic Voyager used Cylindric projection. In this mode, the terrain optimizations used in cylindric projection are not possible thus planet terrain rendering will be slower. Some systems with steep slopes (such as those that use the old 2D city components) may not render well in this mode. Spherical Projection. This mode allows you to render a full 360-degree panorama which can be used for VR and viewing in apps that allow viewing of full 360 panoramas (such as Facebook s 360 mode which is especially cool when viewed on a mobile device). When rendering with this mode, make sure to use a 2:1 aspect ratio and to set the Zoom (focal angle) slider all the way to the left (the numerical value is 360). This mode can be used to render images and also for creating environment maps. You can use it to create an accurate ambient light image (low res sender) that takes the objects in the scene into account. See also 2->3 Inverse Projections and 3->2 Spherical projections. More information about creating 360 degree renders can be found on the ArtMatic wiki. 360 Panorama Examples: To fully appreciate this capability, check out some of our examples posted as Facebook 360 panoramas. These are best viewed on a mobile device as the screen is treated like a portal into a 3D world. Click here to view the album. Camera Control Enhancements. When using Perspective or Spherical projection, control-click on the canvas to center the camera on that point. Control+option or command drag will move the camera forward or - 6 -

back from the center point. When doing this, dragging left moves the camera further from the point and dragging right moves it closer. Rendering Considerations. Perspective and Spherical projection modes are mathematically more demanding than cylindrical projection mode. For this reason, the terrain rendering quality is more limited in order to prevent radically long rendering times. This limitation does not apply to DFRM objects. Examples: Voyager 4.0 examples/df Modeling /SpaceStationsV7/DF 2C Polyhedron SpaceStation.vy, Voyager 4.0 examples/df Fractales V7 /SI fractales /BFSI spherical.vy, Voyager 4.0 examples/ Cities and Architecture//Utopia/Utopia explore Spherical Proj.vy ArtMatic Voyager + ArtMatic Designer Features VOYAGER/ARTMATIC COMMUNICATION AND FILE SAVING Some major improvements were made to ArtMatic Voyager/ArtMatic Designer communication. Of special importance were changes made so that when you use Save As from Voyager while editing ArtMatic elements that you don t accidentally keep working on the old file s elements. When using Save As from ArtMatic Voyager. (When working with ArtMatic Designer 7 or later). If you use Edit in ArtMatic while working in ArtMatic Voyager then choose Save As (from Voyager), ArtMatic Designer will make sure that you are working with the ArtMatic file associated with your new project rather than the old one. ArtMatic will alert you that it has started working with the new file. For example, imagine that you are working on a Voyager project called My Original Planet whose surface is provided by an ArtMatic system called My Surface. Let s say you click on the Edit button (in Voyager) to start editing the planet s surface in ArtMatic and later choose Save As in Voyager and name the new project My Newer Planet. When this happens, ArtMatic Designer will start using the version of My Surface from the new My Newer Planet. ArtMatic Designer will also display a message File Path Updated to let you know that you are working on a new file. Prior to ArtMatic Designer 7 and Voyager 4, you would have ended up continuing to work with the surface from My Original Planet unless you remembered to press Edit again after choosing Save As. Caveats: if you start editing a Voyager project s ArtMatic element and decide that you don t like your changes to that element, use the Reload button before you edit another ArtMatic element. ArtMatic Voyager occasionally, saves elements being edited when you go to edit another ArtMatic element (in order to make sure you don t lose change if you are going back and forth between different elements). Back up your project! We recommend either making a backup copy of your ArtMatic Voyager project be- - 7 -

fore editing or to use Save As before starting to modify your Voyager project to ensure that you can revert back to your original project. Voyager & ArtMatic Communication - TIP - Gradient and Unlocked Parameter Changes ArtMatic Voyager s live updating from ArtMatic works slightly differently when an ArtMatic file has keyframes and when it doesn t. If there are no keyframes in an ArtMatic file, the current view s parameters (whether locked or unlocked) and gradient are displayed in the Voyager mini-preview as you change them. If you edit the current gradient s colors, you need to toggle Send Parameters to Voyager to see the change reflected in the mini-preview. If the ArtMatic file has keyframes, parameter changes that affect the current keyframe (rather than the current view) are sent live from ArtMatic to Voyager to update the mini-preview popup window. If you change the global gradient or an unlocked parameter without updating the keyframe, the change won t be reflected in the mini-preview. To see the change, replace the current keyframe. ArtMatic uses the keyframe rather than the current view as the basis for the mini-preview. Generally, it is advisable to lock parameters that you are manipulating while editing to ensure that you see changes without having to modify a keyframe. It is advisable to use the Indexed Gradient component rather than the Main Gradient if you want to see gradient choices treated more like other parameter changes. DFRM UPDATE DETAILS Object Rendering And Sensitivity To Distance Estimate DFRM rendering has been optimized in order to speed up rendering for well-designed systems. However, if a system is poorly designed (for instance, if it violates our guidlines for space scaling or uses components with poor continuinuty), you may experience longer than render times or surprising artifacts. These artifacts are, in fact, helpful in identifying ArtMatic systems that should be adjusted to improve convergence. They are indications that the ArtMatic system produces a flawed distance estimate (DE). Tips for detecting poor convergence/distance estimate. If part of an object disappears when you switch to Draft mode, the distance estimate is not correct. A simple solution for such a situation is to scale down the object s distance field which will either be a single (scalar) object output for the fourth output when using RGBA until the object is stable in Draft mode. Scale down the scalar value rather than adding scaling before the object (because incorrect space scaling is usually what causes the problem in the first place). If there are only minor artifacts in Draft mode but the object is well behaved in the other quality modes, don t further adjust the distance estimate or rendering time may increase or the ambient occlusion may be thrown off. - 8 -

Opaque Objects - Ambient Occlusion Example: Abs mandelbox A0 The Ambient occlusion default algorithm has been made faster and more robust. The new implementation is more sensitive to the accuracy of the distance field/distance estimate. Compatibility Note. Because of these changes, the ambient occlusion in scenes created in earlier versions of Voyager may be darker than in the original version. When this happens, it usually indicates the the distance estimate is lower than it should be. See the comments in the section Object Rendering and Sensitivity to Distance Estimate for tips about adjusting the distance estimate. You may also want to adjust the AO level. Examples: Voyager 4.0 examples/ Ambiant Occlusion/ NEW & UPDATED OBJECT SHADING TYPES Gas and Clouds Strange cloud formation on planet B Gaz forest and smoke pillars In this mode, DFRM objects are shaded as if they are like clouds. This provides a more flexible solution for certain types of clouds and smoke-like objects than the normal sky/cloud method. You can use this mode for making smoke, steam, fog, clouds and even impressionistic vegetation seen from afar. - 9 -

This mode s parameters are: ArtMatic Voyager 4 - New Feature Guide Opacity gain Self shadow distance. The length of the self-shadow accumulation ray Self shadow gain. The strength of the self shadow Derivative level. Adds fine details by applying a derivated to the DF field. This may not be realistic for some effects such as gas effects. Contrast Ambient level. Amount of light scattered from the environment Note: the intersection of a gas object and volumetric light can be problematic. Examples: Voyager 4.0 examples/ DF Gaz/Cloud shader/ Volumetric Light (updated) Volumetric lights can now cast light. A new parameter, light emission range, controls how far light is cast from the object. The light direction is taken from the distance field s normal unless you use the Shade as projector mode in which case the object center is the source of the light. The light cast with the DF normal may not make sense in some cases and will cast false shadows. Nevertheless, it is quite efficient to render multiple lights or a complex light field (such as for city street lights). In the Desert Light Field.vy example, you can see an array of lights casting light on the desert. You can create realistic street lamps using the Multi : Opaque and light object shading mode. With Shade as projector and texturing the light with an image, you can implement a working image/ movie projector inside Voyager. - 10 -

Examples: See Voyager 4.0 examples/ DF lights fields/. See also Voyager 4.0 examples/ Cities and Architecture/Utopia city by night /Utopia DFLights.vy Utopia DFLights B.vy - 11 -