Project Dogwaffle team announces Howler 9
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.