Krakatoa beta 16 is now available. (Release notes to follow.)
Important! For 3ds Max 8, there is a minor issue with the installer that will not correctly update the plugin path in plugin.ini. You will need to manually update the line:
Changes from Beta Build 0.9.15 to 0.9.16 (as of May 17th, 2007)
INSTALLER
Added code to the KrakatoaStartup.ms script used to load the scripted portions of Krakatoa to copy the latest icon files to the 3ds Max \Icons folder. This works in Max 9 since icons can now be reinitialized. In Max 8, a second restart will be required to make sure all icons are initialized.
Added Progress Report prints to the Krakatoa Log reflecting the loading of Krakatoa script files. This output can be used to debug the loading process should some script files not load as expected.
PRESETS AND HISTORY
Added a progress display dialog during History Cache rebuilds. This can take several seconds in certain cases and it is better to see what is going on than waiting without feedback...
MAIN CONTROLS ROLLOUT
Added code to change the height of the Main Controls rollout when the Advanced File Controls are toggled on and off. This gets rid of the huge empty space at the bottom of the rollout when using simple file controls.
PRT LOADERS
Added Particle Loader Deformations support using the following Space Warps, World Space and Object Space Modifiers:
All Modifier-Based Space Warps: Bend, Noise, Skew, Taper, Twist, Stretch
Most Geometric/Deformable Space Warps: FFD(Box), FFD(Cyl), Wave, Ripple, Displace, Conform
Some World Space Modifiers: Path Deform, Patch Deform, Surface Deform
Some Deformation Object Space Modifiers: Bend, Displace, Melt, Noise, Patch Deform, Ripple, Skew, Squeeze, Stretch, SurfDeform, Twist, Wave, XForm
Instancing and Referencing PRT Loaders (and their Modifiers) now supported and working like with any other 3ds Max object.
Particle Culling controls are not grayed out anymore - in the past, deleting the culling node would remove it from the list of Named Selection Sets but the On checkbox would remain checked and grayed out so it was not possible to disable. The viewport cache will still draw the culled particles in the scene until you either select None from the list or uncheck the On checkbox.
Fixed the Graph code in the PRT Loader to skip BIN and CSV files when checking particle counts. Missing files will still be drawn as a red line regardless of file format, but the actual count will be assumed 0 when a BIN or CSV file is loaded. This will be finally fixed in a later build by implementing internal Krakatoa interface methods to deal with particle count checks.
PARTICLE CACHE
Added a new Keep Last Frame In Cache mode - in the majority of cases, the user starts rendering and then realizes that the cache should have been turned on. Using this new default mode, the cache can be enabled AFTER a frame was rendered.
When on (default), rendering with cache off will keep the last rendered frame in memory. Enabling the Cache after that would preserve the already loaded particles in memory and thus allow immediate re-rendering without re-caching. To force a Cache reload, you can check, uncheck and check again the Cache or disable the feature completely.
When this option is off, the memory will be cleared after the last rendered frame, so enabling the Cache would require reloading all data (this is the old behavior)
The option can be accessed via the Right-Click menu of the Cache buttons or in the Preferences Rollout>System group of controls.
The option is saved in the renderer but is not sticky between sessions - assigning a new instance of the Krakatoa renderer will set it back to ON unless saved as OFF with the Custom Defaults.
BUG FIXES
Fixed Installer bug for Max 8 - plugin was in the wrong sub-directory and could not load scripts correctly.
Fixed PRT Loader Animation Parameters which were broken in beta 15.
Fixed PRT Loader Cloning which was broken in beta 15.
Fixed frame sequence rendering holding last frame bug - canceling rendering would cause the next render to use the last rendered frame because the cache was not reset on cancel.
KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
Thinking Particles still crash the renderer (at least in 3ds Max 8). We have not verified in Max 9, but we assume it behaves the same. Try not to use TP with Krakatoa until we figure out what is going on.
We found some bugs in the Deadline Submission and Processing code and fixed them.
Submitting "One Job, Partitions As Tasks" was eating the .PRT file extension and not saving. We still wonder why nobody reported it ;o)
It is fixed now.
Submitting "One Job Per Partition, Frames As Tasks" was decrementing the seeds incorrectly when submitting a range. For example, submitting just partition 1 out of 10 would increment by 1 but decrement by -10, thus ending up 9 below the starting seed value.
This has been fixed, too.
Download the ZIP, unzip and replace the two files in your Krakatoa\Scripts folder.