New Features Summary
Below is a quick summary of ArtMatic Voyager’s new features (as of version 1.2):
• Combination Mode. Combination mode, lets you modify the built-in planet models with one or two ArtMatic surfaces. Add mountains, rocks or other features to a built-in planet with an ArtMatic system or use ArtMatic to provide a custom sea.
• Sun shape, visibility and brightness options. More control over the appearance of the planet sun has been added, including the ability to hide the sun disc.
• Atmospheric color shift control. This new preference controls how much distant colors are shifted (due to atmospheric scattering).
• Places display. Voyager can now display a palette of snapshots of all saved places. Toggle the display using the Show:Hide Place menu command.
• New built-in planet. A new built-in planet, Planet D, has been added.
• High Freq Limit % preference. A preference has been added to limit high frequency, super-fine detail. This can be useful in some ArtMatic-based systems that have fine-grained noise – which can cause aliasing or other anomalies in some cases.
• Sky Illumination gain. A new preference allows the sky’s brightness to be adjusted.
• Ground illumination gain. A new preference allows the ground’s brightness to be adjusted.
• Slope sent to ArtMatic. ArtMatic Voyager can send slope information to ArtMatic Pro which can use the information to vary color with the slope.
• Alternate sea. It is now possible to use an ArtMatic system to define the planet seas.
• ArtMatic surface and color in same system. ArtMatic systems can now provide both the surface and color in one system.
• ArtMatic control of ambient light and wetness. ArtMatic systems with an extra output can have the extra output mapped to ambient light and/or wetness.
• ArtMatic sky-dome environment can be scrolled with the sun. It is now possible for ArtMatic Voyager to adjust the position of an ArtMatic sky dome environment with the sun position.
• New RGB+alpha ArtMatic clouds. In previous versions of the software, ArtMatic clouds were strictly scalar with ArtMatic providing the cloud texture and Voyager providing all color information.
• New ArtMatic components. Many new components (graphics functions) have been added to expand the topographies and color textures that can be created in ArtMatic Voyager.
• ArtMatic systems saved with Voyager files. When saving an ArtMatic Voyager file that makes use of one or more ArtMatic systems, copies of the ArtMatic systems can be automatically saved into the same folder as the Voyager system.
• ArtMatic clouds cast shadows. ArtMatic Scalar and RGB+Alpha now cast shadows.
• Distant peaks more stable when animated. Distant peaks are less prone to jiggling when the camera moves than in earlier versions. They are quite stable now.
• New QuickTime Export options. New QuickTime export dialog makes partial rendering of movies possible. To accommodate rendering only part of a movie,the duration of the complete animation is set in the user interface with the Duration tool (the watch icon).
• Global elevation change. Hold down the shift key when making an elevation change to send the new elevation to all keyframes.
• Automatic draft-quality rendering. (Added in 1.12) Draft-quality rendering is performed for renders of images and movies whose largest dimension is less than 320. For small movies, the rendering is performed without anti-aliasing to make quick draft renders possible.
