Adobe is making their own "Filter Forge" with Pixel Bender engine?

Fr om some time ago I had the news from a very good and trusted source that I can´t tell (sorry) that Adobe seems to have plans to make an external software for Photoshop CS6 (or CS7) that is to make your own photoshop filters with a graphical similar "filter editor" like FF have, and so it would be much easier to use their own Pixel Bender Technology and do not have to learn how to code as it happens now.

Right now ONLY expert and/or skilled persons can make filters for Pixel Bender because you must write the code yourself (as you can see here) and there is not any easy and wondeful way to write them as it happens with FF, wh ere it has beautiful and useful graphical GUI to do it.

I think that this could be a big problem for FF, as they have already integrated and developed 3 important things that FF does not have, and as far as I know there is no plan to have.

Pixel Bender and Adobe have already

1 - 64 bit code
2 - Optimized memory manager to use the most memory possible (even in 32 bits)
3 - GPU optmization and acceleration to make filters rendering and preview in realtime.

64 bit code

Obviously that I am not requesting that FF is converted to 64 bit because I know or think that for this perhaps all the code must be rebuilt, so this would be a huge work, and FF is not able to do this right now, and the main reason is to be able to use more than 4 GB RAM

And considering that FF uses it´s own memory manager probably there is no point for this

Optimized memory manager

FF could in some way possibly optimize their own special memory controller to use 3 GB RAM instead of only 1.5 GB.

I suposse and think that this probably could help to the perfomance of FF, or may be not, not really sure.

GPU optmization

With the GPU acceleration Pixel Bender filter can preview and render in realtime.

This would be the best way to optimize FF and make it a beast and have all the power to compete against the other companies but regretably GMM have confirmed now that FF 4.0 will not have any GPU acceleration

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GMM wrote in this thread here I can confirm there are no plans for GPU acceleration for Filter Forge 4.0. I don't know the details why this is infeasible; let's wait for Vladimir's response.

NOTE:

I have not written before about this news from Adobe because as it is a "secret" I did not want to tell about this, and I have not, as only have said the intentions of Adobe and nothing more

What have made me write this is the confirmation from GMM

Would be nice to see some PixelBender nodes or something. I mean in one way, PixelBender already has a nice market. Lots of scripts available for use and for sale I'd love to see some more PixelBender market. Although the one thing that bugs me about dealing with PixelBender is the scale at which you can render graphics at. For example, if I want to filter a 5k image it's not so bad, but give it a very complex operation to deal with... it takes a fair amount of time still.

In the mean time, I'm using QuartzComposer to make GPU based filters. Very handy tool for realtime image manipulation and analysis. Maybe SpaceRay should take a look at that.

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Well, I think that is not possible to put "a quality" mark for submitting filter to the online library, and you can´t ask to the filters authors that ONLY submit very good and high quality filter and do not send low quality. The problem comes where you need to define and mark a line between what is a low quality and what is high quality ? and perhaps also what is a useful filter and which one is not? It depends much of what you like and need, and I have seen that some filter I think are low quality are very welcomed by others, so how do you measure it?

Of course you can. Stock sites do it with all their contributors based on what they think is good.

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GENETICA DOES NOT HAVE ANY KIND OF FILTER LIBRARY I prefer to be navitaging a library searching what I could like and be useful than shifting through LOTS of posts on the Genetica Forum searching for filters because there is NOT AVAILABLE any kind of library in Genetica.

Not sure why you would say that. They have a large library of textures and there is another library of unrestricted high res photos. What they don't have are user submitted filters.

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45 minutes takes only if are using resolutions higher than 3000x3000 or even 4000x4000 or beyond.

This is true but 3600 x 3600 is the standard size image we create for our commercial tile collections.

We sell primarily to the sign industry and wide format printers. Here's a link to our online offerings of tiles.

I don't understand why you are making Pixel Bender out to be a secret as it is well known and old news in the coding world by now. It's been openly available for the public to download for ages already.

For any coders you don't need to be a expert either as the format is really simple to use, it's probably just as easy to use as FF lua code and thats quite simple due to the way it's done.

Basically pixel bender is adobes own version of HLSL/GLSL shader effects so they can be easily used within flash and photoshop.

Pixel Bender was already available in photoshop before CS6 by the way. They have a 3d version also and will probably included that at some point since photoshop now has 3d features.

It's literally called Pixel Bender 3D. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/pixelbender3d/

And Photoshop had 3D input since CS5. I mean, historically speaking there were limited 3D functionality in earlier versions of Photoshop (via the 3D transforms filter) but lets not argue that. It's not the same as the ones in the latest versions. With CS6, it's improved but it's pretty much the same thing. And you know... I don't see many people even touching that 3D feature in Photoshop. It's handy, but it's kinda like... just there for the sake of being there as something to keep people excited.

As much as pixel bender's all cool, pretty sure not all of us will pick it up and enjoy making filters with it. It's not "friendly" as Filter Forge. It's not like you can whip out diffuse, bump, normal, specular, AO, and rAO maps and generate super complex stuff immediately.

I mean render speed wise, pixel bender's awesome. But in terms of using it like Filter Forge... it falls on different grounds. So I mean, if I were to want a specific texture or function, I have to ... do some programming or wait for somebody else to do it for me. I guess that's why I like Filter Forge better. It's a treat to use it.

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James wrote: I don't understand why you are making Pixel Bender out to be a secret as it is well known and old news in the coding world by now. It's been openly available for the public to download for ages already.

I did not say at all that the Pixel Bender is a secret, and as you say right, it is very well known and famous, and is not new either.

Perhaps the confusion comes that this thread is NOT about Pixel Bender itself, is about a secretly hidden project that Adobe is working on to make Pixel Bender available OUTSIDE of the coding world and make it EASY for anyone to make filters, the same that is easy to make them in FF using a VISUAL editor instead of a coding editor like the one PB has one.

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James wrote: For any coders you don't need to be a expert either as the format is really simple to use, it's probably just as easy to use as FF lua code and thats quite simple due to the way it's done.

Exactly, for ANY CODERS would be probably easy and simple, and IF you know how to make scripts and know how to use the LUA language in FF. I would never be able to make a filter in Pixel Bender or use the LUA in FF.

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Adobe have just confirmed that Pixel Bender now is included inside Photoshop CS6

By the way, this not unveiling a secret either, and this ONLY means that it will be now MORE known than before, and many more users will be able to use the GPU accelerated filters and probably would appear even more filters once it is more known than it is already now.