what is Quicktime video editor, you mean Quicktime Pro or is there more?

hm, why would they call it alpha gain filter?

this one is simply   threshold filter, but instead of just making a pixel black or white, you can limit the effect to single channels, like the red channel, then the green or blue too, with different levels for the respective threshold. If you have that enabled on red, green and blue, you end up with just  about 8 possible colors. pretty neat ones too, depending on where you set the threashold in each channel, you might get some interesting looks, some of which to me are reminiscent of a Warhol poster. I know there's more to it, but...

FYI, PD Pro, aka Project Dogwaffle Professional is paint and animation program.

www.thebest3d.com/pdpro  has version 4 latest edition
www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle  is the general info on many prior evrsions, plugins, tutorials, freebies... including a free version 1.2

There's also a little cousin to PD Pro, called PD Artist, and a tiny little one (just painting, no animation) called PD Particles, great for making shrubbery and foliage with alpha channel mask generated automatically, Ready for use on billboard polygons (like the Xfrog billboards)

if you want more sophisticated animation fx you might want to grab a copy of PD Pro or even the free version for just the painting part, PD Pro hoever has tons of animation oriented tools, and there's also DoggyFX, which adds animated gif support and much more, like transtions, fades, and some controled by masks, even animated masks.

perhaps also yousendit.com

Quote - staigermanus - Thank you very much, dogwaffle 1.11b looks very interesting, but I would'nt want you to go through all of this trouble, I'm sure someone has already been through all of this math?  Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will leave a link to a Photohop Plugin, Action, or other pre-fab software?

1.11b is a bit old now, btw, there's a world of difference between v1.11b from 4-5 years ago and the latest version 4, even 3.7, and even the latest freeware version 1.2 from 2.8 years ago, it's probably like comparing Photoshop 3 to CS2.

I've tested my script with the gluas script and GIMP 2.2, it runs well there too. Though quite a bit faster (make that significatly faster) on PD Pro.

Anyway, this now makes it possible for anyone who can't afford Photoshop to get this function running for free on Dogwaffle, on the GIMP and also on ArtWeaver, which incidentally also has a direct plugin to PD Pro and PD Particles.

Happy scripting!

Are you sure Poser does HDRI?  It's one thing to do IBL (Image Based Lighting), it's another if the image types supported include images with 16-bit per channel or better, which is where HDRI resides.  IBL with 24-bit images is great too, but the results are better with high dynamic range images. Better in this contact means more realistic, or closer to real lighting. Sometimes realistic is not the better way, because there's a cost in rendering time and memory sizes etc...

IBL is something that was already in TrueSpace 6.6 and 5.2 , what, 5-6 years ago?

Of course, it's one thing to have a feature, it's another thing to make it a no-brainer for usability. Carrara is by far easier than TrueSpace to set up and enable IBL, indirect lighting (radiosity) and caustics.

I think if you do a good and thorough test of demo versions and analysis of the results you'll find that Carrara is the better of all these for rendering HDRI and IBL and caustics and radiosity all together. In terms of quality of the render, in terms of speed too.

But it's always a function of cost too, so if Carrara 5.1 is out of reach check and compare with Carrara 4 or go with Bryce. Or both.

Quote - Bryce 6 is not that difficult to learn..  like ricky said there is a lot to it.... Good mate for Poser

I wonder if Bryce 6 now has similar shortcuts as Carrara, I mean for interactive viewing while managing and assembling the scene? That is one whing I like about Carrara, using both hands for viewing and modeling or placemnt of objects is a snap, using shortcuts like

e for examine
d for dolly
t for translate
r for rotate
s for scale
w for window move

I end up using d and e a lot, with the left hand, while the mouse is busy in the right hand with click and drag and stuff.

The renderer is also an important thing: Carrara has had HDRI since version 3 at least. That's 4 years back. And it has a terrain editor too, and great landscape, plants/trees and skies.... not a whole lot that Bryce can do which Carrara can't. The thing is Carrara has much more on the modeling side. It can certainly save you money if you want to make your own props instead of buying them - in the end when you render you might enjoy a very fast renderer, aka Carrara's renderer. Italso rocks for animations. But that's prolly beyond your needs, or is it?

it's rather easy to pick up alright, IMHO. But you'll want to try the demos to see if it can easily do what you like in term of scene assembly, posing, rendering against transparent background for composition in 2D imaging tools, etc...

You might enjoy Carrara too.

Here's my intro tutorial with Bryce 5:

http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials/bryce101

Here's some stuff you can do with Carrara

http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara

Both are now owned by DAZ so there's good cooperation to be expected between the two and their Poser alternative, DAZ Studio (which is free until you start buying som of their addons like commercial plugins etc...

If you already have Poser you'll be happy to know that Carrara also can handle Poser nicely. Especially Carrara 5. Carrara 4 needed an additional plugin, called Transposer. The version 5 of Carrara can use Transposer too if you want Poser's cloth and hair dynamics, but even without Transposer, Carrara 5 can handle Poser walk sequences in animations too. www.thebest3d.com/carrara/poser

If you're still looking for other options, Quidam by N-sided might be really a good option too, especially if you're interested in more 'modeling' deformations, well but that goes into personal likes and dislikes. Try the demos to find out. www.thebest3d.com/nsided

Do you have some previews of your project?

I just converted the algorithm from your link to Lua. I'll post it here shortly:

www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/lua/polar

it was a great little exercise. It runs very fast. Lua is super fast as a scripting engine.

You can use the freeware version of Dogwaffle  (v1.2), no need to buy any of the commercial versions. Lua (the DogLua) filter plugin works with the v1.2, the evrsion 2.x, PD Pro 3 and 4 and I think also PD Artist (the $39 version)

yes, totally something that you can do as a Lua script in Dogwaffle, Artweaver or the GIMP

www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/lua   has samples of scripts. I can try and put this algorithm into a lua script.

Here's another example:
http://thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials/blender/criss/09_bridgeoflove.jpg

the various tufts of tall grass are done on billboards.

Billboards are large rectangular structures carrying an image, a poster, a photo.

In 3D, a billboard polygon is a rectangle (or other polygon) that carries a picture and is placed into a 3D scene in order to carry and show that picture without the need for creating a real 3D model version of the same. For example, in a city street scene you could just see yourself texturing a poster image onto a large rextangle that's 'hanging' on a brick wall, to embellish it with today's top news from a newspaper ad, whatever.

More typically, a billboard polygon carries an image with transparency from an alpha channel. That is often used then for realistic foliage, trees, plants, etc... which are either painted (e.g. with PD Particles) or with from Photos that have been worked on to make them stand on transparent backgrounds. So you end up seeing the solid inner side, the plant, and the rest of the scene behind is not hidden by the rectangle's borders.

You can see several examples of plants created in PD Particles at
http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials - used in Carrara, Poser, Bryce, Blender and other 3D systems. Doesn't make a difference whether you use PD Particles or Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro or whatever, or whether you buy collections of images like the Xfrog Trees and plants. You can even make your own in a 3D tool like Carrara, and render them with transparent masks or with keying to color later. see for example www.thebest3d.com/carrara/plants
(the first part of it anyway)
I hope this helps understand what a billboard polygon is.

Oh, here's another example, with Carrara:
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/whatsnew/3_5/optipustics_new.html
(scroll to the middle and bottom)

-Philip

PS: if you didn't know, XFrog makes image collections of plants

if we all pitch in, with 100,000 members at 'rosity we should be able to host one in my office for under $1 a person :-)

send Paypal donations at .... dogwaffle@thebest3d.com

I'll cover the electric bill, ... no seriously I will. They say it'll be a cold winter so I might as well get a Boxx floor heater  LOL

Dogwaffle 4 should be a screamer on a quad. Especially those filters which already are using the new framework to automatically multithread to the number of cores found.

Sweet, may it's time I start my Xmas shopping

While we're at it, PJW Productions has released version 1 of a video effects collection for PD Pro, called DoggyFX

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/3rdpartyplugins/doggyfx