To install, download and unzip krakatoa0919.zip (attached to this thread.) Uninstall any previous Krakatoa builds, then run the krakatoa.0.9.19.msi installer.
Changes from Beta Build 0.9.18 to 0.9.19 (as of July 28th, 2007)
GENERAL
Added render preset support to the Krakatoa On and Off Macros - when switching to Krakatoa, a preset with the current renderer was saved to be able to revert back to it. Now, the "Switch Back From Krakatoa" will also save a preset with the current Krakatoa settings, thus allowing you to revert back to Krakatoa from your other renderer when clicking the Krakatoa GUI icon - you will be prompted whether you want to load the last preset or start a clean Krakatoa session.
PRESETS AND HISTORY
Added pattern search fields to both drop-down lists to allow for fast filtering of saved presets and history files.
MAIN CONTROLS
Added "Save Attenuation Maps" option to the RENDER BUTTON Right-Click menu - this doubles for the option in the "Shadows On Geometry" rollout and should save you time when switching shadows generation.
PARTICLE SAVING
The [Get Channels] button was causing a full evaluation of the PFlows to get all channels which in turn caused crashes in heavy scenes. Until this is resolved cleanly by adding a better and faster scan for channels, the left list in the "Particle Channels To Save" rollout will be hard-coded to the channels needed by Krakatoa and some more typical channels like Age, Orientation etc. A checkbutton can be used to show the 99 map channels above 1, by default they are hidden.
Fixed a bug in the Take incrementing code which was adding too many zeroes when incrementing something like tk5 by 100.
PARTICLE PARTITIONING
Added support for renaming the Orbaz Box#3 Disk Cache file per partition, allowing backup caching during partitioning both locally and on Deadline. If a partitioning job has crashed and has to start from the middle, it will use the cache to pre-roll faster to the first unsaved frame. Adding NOSEED to the name of the disk cache will disable this behavior.
Added support for a user-defined global function Krakatoa_SeedIncrement_UserFunction() and a global variable Krakatoa_SeedIncrement_LastValue. The function can be defined by other scripts and will be called each time the seed increment function is called, thus allowing 3rd party tools to alter other aspects of the flow currently unsupported by Krakatoa. The function will be sent one parameter which will be the seed increment value. The global variable will also be set to the last increment value in case 3rd party scripts want to query the value without using the callback function method.
For example:
fn Krakatoa_SeedIncrement_UserFunction theVal = format "Seed Increment: %\n" theVal
--this will print the seed increment and decrement value to the Listener
--each time a partitioning is created
PREFERENCES
Added "Acquire License..." and "Release License (Evaluation Mode)" buttons to the Preferences rollout. The license status will be shown in the title bar and in the About rollout. When a license is released (for example if you want to allow another colleague to get a floating license), the Watermarking will be enabled when rendering.
Removed the "Keep Last Cache In Memory" option as it is already available in the Cache's Right-click menu.
RENDERING
Added support for Non-Square Pixels - both cameras and lights support pixel aspect ratios different than 1.0.
Added a new PFlow Operator (Krakatoa Options) which allows Script Vector and Float channels to be copied to the Color and Density channels when saving and rendering directly without using a Vertex Color Map to shade.
Changed the way color sources are handled by Krakatoa to allow vertex colors to be shaded directly without a Vertex Color Map (which would still work but would be slower):
If there is a Material, its color will be used
If there is no material but there are vertex colors, they will be used
If there are no vertex colors, the wireframe color will be used
KRAKATOA PFLOW OPERATORS
Krakatoa File Position and Krakatoa File Birth now work correctly on Deadline.
Both operators do NOT require a license anymore. They can now be used by anyone with the evaluation version of Krakatoa to load PRT, BIN and CSV files into PFlow. We feel they are not up to our standard yet and we consider them BONUS tools.
BUG FIXES
Fixed bug in raytracing code which was causing particles to leak. There can still be some leaking particles (in our tests 25 particles leaked out of 100 million), but they will be typically invisible unless density values are very high.
Fixed bug in Legacy Max Particles shading - assigning a material would render with density of 0 in Beta 18, making particles invisible.
Fixed Playback Graph position interpolation bug in PRT Loader - the velocities were scaled BEFORE calculating the new interpolated positions.
Fixed a bug in Shadow Utility - assigning a non-krakatoa renderer twice would overwrite the last known Krakatoa settings. Now, the settings will be saved only if the current renderer is Krakatoa.
Light leaking from Spotlights at the edges of the cone was fixed.
Adding a modifier like Bend or Twist to a PRT Loader in 3ds Max 8 still causes a crash. Don't do it! WSMs and Space Warps should work. (FIXED in 0.9.20!!! YAY!)
Thinking Particles Groups and Colors are still not supported. We intend to provide a point release with support for TP 3.0 when Cebas releases it.
MINOR
Creating a PRT Loader will cause the Undo Buffer to be flushed. The alternative would be a crash to desktop when attempting to undo the creation. This is a temporary measure until we figure out why the creation is not undoable and crashy. If you prefer not to clear the undo stack and live dangerously, you can comment out the line clearUndoBuffer() from the Krakatoa_PRTLoader.ms file.
Saving PRT Files and images with negative frames will create misformatted numbers like 00-1 instead of -001. Scheduled to be fixed in the next build.