Howler 9’s new Puppy Ray raytrace renderer. The VFX-friendly paint package enables users to specify an image to use as an elevation map for a 3D environment, and render with GI, fog and soft shadows.

The Project Dogwaffle Team has announced Howler 9, the new version of its VFX-friendly digital paint tool.

Raytrace rendering for background environments
The main new feature this time around is Puppy Ray (shown above), a raytrace rendering engine intended for creating background environments.

Users can specify an image to use as an elevation map to generate a 3D landscape, then render with GI, fog, soft shadows and anti-aliasing.

Filters, features and flares
Other new features include a side-by-side option for displaying the effects of filters, enabling users to see the results alongside the original image.

There is also the option to “open a specific section from an AVI [in order to] load an AVI as an alpha selection or animated swap image”, and new particle gravity filter for creating spinning glows and flares.

Linux support via Wine
The formerly Windows-only application also gets Linux support – via Wine, at least. There is also a longish list of smaller features, performance enhancements and bugfixes.

Howler 9 is available for pre-order now, price $89. The software is due to ship officially on Saturday 7 September.

Read a full list of new features in Howler 9

Pre-order Howler 9

Tags: background, Dan Ritchie, digital painting, environment, filter, GI, Howler 9, Linux, painting, Project Dogwaffle, Puppy Ray, raytracing, side by side, vfx, Wine