Ideas for Filter Forge Beta 2+

Regarding the rendering quality idea -- I have some ideas about implementing undersampling, i.e. rendering with less than one sample per pixel for quick and rough previews and for rendering maps where precision isn't needed (e.g. blur sources), but we haven't prototyped anything yet, so most likely it won't make it into 2.0.

Lucato -- we don't have any specific settings in mind yet, we'll have to think and prototype this first.

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Betis wrote: I think the Bomber component should have 5 tints instead of the global one, and each tint would go to each particle. This would allow you to use one source image for all particles, and have different colors for each particle. (Particle in this case is more like one of the 5 source images for each particle.

Hmmm.... here's something that's kinda like what I was thinking of.

Picking colors from a color range.
The current Bomber has a Global Tint option which basically changes color for everything based on any given node (or itself). This option works, but I wish there was an option to select the color from a given range. For example, the user can set a gradient from blue to red which becomes the basis of where colors are picked from. I think it's a lot more intuitive.

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: This is incorrect -- tint is not "global", it is per-particle. If you want to pick colors from a gradient, plug Noise / Elevation Gradient combo into the Tint Color input. I prefer a Stones noise with Solid Color and Flat turned on.

Oh my it works the way I unimagined of working. It's a rather unique approach actually. If you think about it, many particle-plugins/programs have an option for range-based color selection which is often useful. But if this works, I guess it's ok. Not sure if this is intuitive or unintuitive still.

3) Installation:
When installing the Filter Forge 2, it would create the Menu folder "Filter Forge 2" and the link "Filter Forge 2" instead of "Filter Forge" in the programs menus;

4) Coming soon

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: Uh, doesn't it already do that?

Nope, I mean, at least in my equipment. Maybe it is because I got the Filter Forge 1 installed too? Do I need to uninstall it to make the folder name/link work as 2? Vlad, when you install over there to you get the folder/link as "Filter Forge 2" instead?

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: As far as I know, FF2 should install as a separate product in Program Files and a separate Photoshop plugin. We'll clarify that.

Thanks, I'll be waiting your feedback on that subject here to know if you get as 2 over there or if it is some issue just with me.

Talking about separated Photoshop plug-in. Another suggestion in the installation process:

4) Installation process:
When installing the Filter Forge 2, besides installing automatically the graphic application plug-ins path it would ask (browse...) the folder where we want to install the FF2 plug-in. So I would pick the wished folder whe I store my plug-ins from different as the default ones;

5) coming soon...

lucato,

on both my machines, (both pc's), FF1 installs as "Filter Forge" and FF2 installs as "Filter Forge 2". this is true both on the desktop icons and in windows explorer for the main folders.

ah, ok.

good to see you're still around, by the way

A good collection of suggestions ... Here are my two cents ... I am new to the forum and pardon my ignorance if I am not right or already has been asked... would like "Lucato" and other eminent forum members to justify their validity ...

1. Ability to group components by user ... like various subparts of filter editing components ... each group doing some particular thing ... differentiating the groups either by particular colour of title or by colour glow or background rectangle ... just like you can group shapes in corel draw and ability to lock them ... and attach a comment or heading for each group for user easiness to remember and work on filters. Ability to assign a key to quickly select or focus or highlight the group ... like a f1-12 function key or ctrl + any no.

2. Ability to attach comment/hint to each component ... for future reference ... just like programmers use /* comments in coding*/ ... which will show the hint on title bar or on mouse hovering and also the parameters and values of that component on mouse hovering without selecting it.

3. Ability to arrange components automatically by considering their operation hierarchy from left to right / or right to left ... and same level of hierarchy of components should be placed in the same coloumn from top to bottom.

4. One menu to clean up unused components.

5. This is difficult ... could be possible in future ... but suggesting or automatic cropping down of extra components or resource heavy components ... from what filter a user has created ... and replacing them with simpler hierarchy or lighter components ... resulting in same end result.

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softhunterdevil wrote: 1. Ability to group components by user ... like various subparts of filter editing components ... each group doing some particular thing ... differentiating the groups either by particular colour of title or by colour glow or background rectangle ... just like you can group shapes in corel draw and ability to lock them ... and attach a comment or heading for each group for user easiness to remember and work on filters. Ability to assign a key to quickly select or focus or highlight the group ... like a f1-12 function key or ctrl + any no.

Its been on the Wishlist

6) Value button (Components adjustments):
In the Beta 3 we have the value buttons now that we get to click and drag left/right to change the values which is really cool. I got a suggestion that we would have an option to click once over the button and it goes to next 50% value of the range value option and if click twice it goes back to zero value. So, for example if a variable is from 0 to 100, if I click on the button once, it goes to 50, if I click once again it goes from 50 to 100, if click once again it goes to the next that is back to 0. Now, I'm on 50 and click twice on the button, it sets the value to 0. Well just a suggestion. ;0)

7) Coming soon...

My suggestion would be to make the Progress Bar actually show progress *before* rendering. In V1, there was always a 'pause' from the time you did something that caused a new render, and the point that the actual render started and the progress bar started showing green in parts, but the Pause tended to be short (few seconds).
Under V2, the pause is still there, but especially with shadow occlusion turned up, it can take minutes or even hours . The problem here becomes 'Nothing is happening, is it still running, has it not noticed I did something, or has it crashed ?'. I've stopped running renders because I was not sure anything was still going on
My Suggestion would be to make the progress Bar do something even during this pre-rendering phase. For instance, turn the progress bar blue immediately when you start working to give feedback that things have started, then progressively turn it gray as you complete whatever it is you're doing, until you're finally ready to actually render, and the progress bar is fully gray. Handle the progress bar as before from there on.

Dont know where elase to put this, so im putting it here..

NON-SEAMLESS tiling on the non-seamless components should be an option.. If i wouldn uncheck it in my preferences it would work the same way it works now in Stage3..
But if i would uncheck it (and it would give me a warning that it will give me some strange results..) then the non-seamless nodes would still work in a seamless filter, but they would just work in the pixel space you have, beyond that, they would just repeat! and then its up to me to use those components in the way it makes sense to me.

It's bad that you cant use, lets say, rotate in a seamless texture, even if the shape your rotating doesnt go to the edges of the pixel space, so it would tile just fine.. or you cannot easily scale something to 2x, which would also tile just fine.. or use some free gradient, which wouldnt tile fine, but i would be fine with it not tiling fine, just as long as everything else in the network of my nodes tiles.. fine..

For me, using FF to create game textures, it is ESSENTIAL and part of the FF appeal, that textures are TILEABLE..

But if there is some technical issue with it not beeing possible i understand, ill just have to use the old components..

Sure!! That would be awesome and would solve a lot of problems Right now i cant use any of the new awesome transform components, but that would really boost the "productivity" up.. it sucks to do simple scale either with bomber or the old way, with the offset and gradient (must always refer back to the snippets (or WIKIs "Offsets_Demystified" on what goes where and at what settings )

Good morning Everyone,

Great suggestions, & THANK YOU Vladimir!
The BEST just keeps gettin better!

Have a GREAT day!

Ron

Nice idea Angelboiii, just adding to your great idea, besides the mousing over and showing the connection line, maybe another option or use both would be when you click twice over the T1, it would move (scrolls automatically) your screen to R1.
Well, something like that. ;0)

Sure, Kraellin, those "transmitter/reciever" would be components, just like any other, any you would choose on which connections you would use them.. the way i imagine it.. or you would right mouse click on the connection and choose "split" or something like that.. totaly optional..
The "T1/R1" naming convention is the first thing that popped into (pooped onto??) my head.. it would have to be a little bit more taught out than my original idea

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angelboiii wrote: NON-SEAMLESS tiling on the non-seamless components should be an option.. If i wouldn uncheck it in my preferences it would work the same way it works now in Stage3.. But if i would uncheck it (and it would give me a warning that it will give me some strange results..) then the non-seamless nodes would still work in a seamless filter, but they would just work in the pixel space you have, beyond that, they would just repeat! and then its up to me to use those components in the way it makes sense to me.

I completely agree with this.

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: OK, adding it to the list for Stage 4.

Excellent! That should solve some issues I'm having with the current implementation. Any chance we could get that in a stage 3 hotfix?

How about a down-sampling node? Would operating on a down-sampled image save much time? Sometimes, portions of my filter don't need to be full res, like if I'm going to guassian blur something. If this decreases render time then I think it would be worth while.

Been working on some textures lately and my "networks" are huge.. I do something one day and when i open it the next, im lost

Ever since i got that idea about "transmitter and reciever" node i've been seeing all the places i could put that to good use.. and now i think it should look like the image attached (link to larger file included..).. Just try to imagine this in a big network of nodes.. you could have diffuse on one end and from it just one node.. and you feed that node to any other part of the network you like.. oh, and the image i forgot to include more inputs from the same output, so you can of course have one outgoing "PATTERN" and as many incoming "PATTERN" nodes as you like..

Vladimir, any chance we will see this implemented?

HIREZ:
http://tinypic.com/r/263bz0o/5

angelboiii wrote:

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NON-SEAMLESS tiling on the non-seamless components should be an option..

We want - Seamless option on the NEW components PLEASE.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!

SOOOOO very frustrating with out this Vladimir. WE want this bad! Trying to make seamless tiles in Photoshop with the filter results....! This is a MUST HAVE OPTION. PLEASE HELP US!

I love the program but would love it more if we could have this.

Have a good evening!

Ron