10.5

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Release: Kineme3D, v1.2

Release Type: Production
Version: 1.2
Release Notes

Changes since Kineme3D 1.1

New Features:

  • Parametric Surface patch
  • Height Field patch
  • Drag-and-drop meshes onto the Composition Editor

Updates:

  • Updated to most recent Autodesk FBX SDK, which:
    • solves issues regarding multi-object placement in 3DS meshes.
    • solves issues regarding object scaling in 3DS meshes.
    • slightly improves performance of loading OBJ meshes.
  • Improved performance of smoothing and normals calculations.
  • Improved performance of mesh normalization.
  • Improved performance of mesh blending.
  • Improved performance when rendering static meshes.
  • Improved performance when rendering meshes that are regenerated every frame.
  • Fixed issue wherein some degenerate meshes would cause the smoother to crash.
  • Fixed issue with license key activation when running Quartz Composer in 64-bit mode.
  • Fixed issue with incorrect simplification of some FBX meshes.
  • Fixed issue with incorrect global displacement of some FBX meshes.
  • Fixed occasional stability issues when inside a Render In Image environment.

Pixel Grid (Composition by smokris)

Author: smokris
License: MIT
Date: 2009.12.16
Compatibility: 10.5, 10.6
Categories:
Required plugins:
(none)

Generates an infinite grid of pixels with the specified spacing.

Release: File Tools, v0.5beta-20091216

Release Type: Beta
Version: 0.5beta-20091216
Release Notes

Changes since 0.4

  • Modified Structure To File and Structure From File to preserve structure ordering.

Mandelbrot zoom (Composition by psonice)

Author: psonice
License: (unknown)
Date: 2009.12.15
Compatibility: 10.5, 10.6
Categories:
Required plugins:
(none)

It's been a while, so I had a quick tinker. Result: One traditional, coder-colour-cycling mandelbrot.

It's done in GLSL, so it's pretty quick (more or less realtime on my radeon 2400 here, zooming in until it hits the buffers). Control it with the mouse - point at where you want to go, then left button zooms in, right button zooms out. There's a control for visual quality (speed = blocky 2x2 pixel mode, quality = full res + 2x AA) and a control for the palette scaling (higher = stripier).

I'll apologise for the colours right now :) Other than that, there's plenty of room for optimisation. If anyone wants to try, I have some suggestions:

  1. A segmented renderer (not sure what the correct term is). Render it at maybe 1/8th scale, then look for areas where the pixel colour varies. Render at higher res, but only render these 'interesting' areas. Continue until at 1x1... this way, you can render only the areas of the image that contain anything interesting. Very tricky to do in a shader though I think ;)

  2. Render every x frames, but scale the image in between. This is what a lot of fractal apps do - you scale the last image smoothly so you have smooth zoom, and render a new actual frame in the background, adding it when it's done. QC isn't exactly geared towards 'background' rendering, but it IS possible (I know, because I've had different sections rendering at different speeds before now, which is a bad thing when one depends on the other ;) Unfortunately, I've no idea how to actually do that on purpose ;(

Note Spiral (Composition by gtoledo3)

Author: gtoledo3
License: (unknown)
Date: 2009.12.09
Compatibility: 10.5, 10.6
Categories:
Required plugins:
(none)

This is an example that uses particle systems, the queue, and iteration to make a kind of image snake/spiral effect. Audio triggers an image "chase".

The attached composition doesn't have all of the source images of the video clip below, but it is the same basic qtz. One can attach more images to the multiplexer/particle system in the render in image, and add to the chase effect.

Alpha blending on the sprite inside the iterator can also be favorable, but I've left it in Over mode for this example.