What was New in WinImages R6?

These changes are relative to the R5 release

New Features & Enhancements

• New Warp Layer type added allows direct nondestructive geometric layer manipulation
  • Dome
  • Caricature
  • Swirl
  • Waves
  • Radial Wave
  • Turbulence
  • Surface Warping (using a Source Image)
  • Kaleidoscope
  • Mirroring
  • Rotation (via special warp layer control in layers dialog)
  • Enlargement & reduction (via special warp layer control in layers dialog)
  • Warp Reversal (via the Negative operator)
• Ray Trace Operator added
  • Wide 3D Format conversion support in "3D Exploration"
  • Human-readable and creatable ray trace definitions
  • Up to 5x5 antialiasing (25x !!!)
  • Transparency support
  • Translucency support
  • Refraction support (including atmospheric density control)
  • Light emission support, also self-luminosity
  • Full scientific mathematics expression support
  • Animation support, with splined keyframing
  • Viewpoint and view-target support
  • Intelligent smoothing of arbitrary triangle meshes
  • Library system for building complex objects and surface trait definitions
  • Axis support
  • Bump mapping (linear and tiled)
  • Image mapping (linear and tiled)
  • Decision mapping (linear)
  • Procedural Texture Image Mapping (3d, active, and animated)
  • Procedural Texture Bump Mapping (3d, active, and animated)
  • Vertex specific triangle mesh color support (also object specific)
  • Unlimited light sources, including self-luminous sources
  • Primitives: Spheres, triangles, rectangles, lights, bounding spheres
  • Specularity support (for both metallic and nonconductor material types)
  • Extensive surface character definition support
  • Complex structure support (for accurate reflection and refraction)
  • Stack support for nested definitions
  • Recursion level control
• Roll operator added
• Shear operator added
• Bend operator added
• Frame/Field support added (NTSC and PAL)
• Convolution operator added
• Stroke (painting) operator added
  • Image Barrels add unlimited creative power
  • Animated Ghost Writing
  • Unlimited Brushes
  • Stroke-based follow, random, and incremental brush trail rotation modes
  • Stroke-based resizing
  • Stroke-based flipping
  • Stroke-based path displacement
  • Tight control over random elements of placement
  • Stroke-based Fade out
  • Stroke-based Fade in
  • Shadowing as a function of placement during the brush stroke
  • Matte mode
  • Additive Mode
  • Color Palette Mode
• Masking more powerful
• Julia fractal operator added
• Mandelbrot fractal operator added
• Fully Independent Particle System operator added
  • Multiple force types available
    • constant
    • linear
    • radial
    • vortex
  • Unlimited numbers of forces may be applied to a particle system
  • Force application time window completely controllable
  • Controllable turbulence for all force types
  • Integral force editor
  • Area selection lathing for particle system placement
  • Path following for particle system placement
  • Area-free mode for particle system placement
  • Additive and replace placement modes
  • Unlimited size of particle systems (based on available memory)
  • Both 3D and 2D modes; either may be immediately applied to any image or image stream
  • Broad color control via "aging palette"
  • Save and Load complete particle systems
  • Particle system test and preview
  • Radial and linear distributions (as well as path and area modes)
• Page Curl operator added
• Force Dynamic Operator added
• Sample Alpha Operator added
• Toonize Operator added
• Unfilled shapes added
• Tool palette enhanced
• Over 30 new layering modes
• New keystroke modifiers for additional movement options
• Local Layers capability added
• Global Mask Layer Option added
• Inverse layer types added
• Inverse shadows added (automatic upon inverse masks)
• Inverse Glows (automatic upon inverse masks)
• Emboss Layer Effect
• Punch Layer Effect
• HTML Gradient Generator Utility
• Color Fill now has 16 color palette directly available
• Enhanced Motion Morph Control (in Morph R6)
• Make Alpha operator enhanced
• Promote RGB channel to mask operator added
• Most-Recently-Used directory mechanism for fast file access
• Fast Image File Thumbnailing system
• Context image data promotion to clipboard: Size, name
• Sample Color can be sent to clipboard in HTML format
• Timeline can directly generate web animations in MNG and GIF formats
• Filmstrip can directly generate web animations in MNG and GIF formats
• User preferences dialog collects new convenience and control settings
• Fast JPEG previewing saver allows precise control of save quality
• Enhanced initial load of small images (preferences item)
• Additional tutorial information throughout the documentation

New File Format Support

• ELF files version 2, supporting Warp layers, etc.
• PSD (Photoshop ®) layered file support
• MNG animated sequence output file support (key WEB format)

F/x R6 Documentation Changes

• Globally changed for R6
• Completely New Expanded Table of Contents
• Completely New Expanded Index

Bugs Fixed from previous versions of FX

WinImages F/x Manual Version 7, Revision 5, Level B