2015-02-23T07:21:36Z

GNBarnes:

1. Getting Started

A. About JWF
i. Introduction
a). Flame fractals examples and definition.
ii. JWF history
a). Scott Draves
b). Apophysis
c). JWildfire
iii. JWF online
a). [http://www.JWildfire.org jwildfire.org]

B. Launching JWF
i.Please use always the official launcher to start JWildfire. The launcher can be
executed by any Java runtime and can be started with any options.
The task of the launcher is to launch the main software with controlled options
and to reserve enough memory.
- under Windows use the start_windows.bat to start the launcher.
- under Mac OS use the start_mac.command to start the launcher.
- under Linux use the start_linux.sh to start the launcher.
If this doesn't work or if you have another operating system not listed here
just start/open the j-wildfire-launcher.jar directly.
PLEASE DO NOT START THE j-wildfire.jar DIRECTLY!
If you start the j-wildfire.jar directly then JWildfire is started with default
Java options.
In the most cases you cannot render large images with those settings because not
enough memory is reserved at startup. So even if you have plenty of memory it can
not be used for rendering this way. Additionally, the wrong settings may cause
slower rendering.

'''HOW THE LAUNCHER WORKS'''

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It analyzes certain system settings to locate java runtimes on your system and
automatically selects the most recent one. You can override the automatically
selected version by selecting another entry in the listbox.
If the scanner did not find a java runtime (probably on Macs as I have no way to
test this) you can manually add it. You must do this only once, of course.
The memory setting lets you specify the maximum amount of memory in megabytes to use.
This memory amount is only allocated if required. But there is no way to allocate
more memory than here specified if JWildfire is already running.
I. e., you must choose this value wisely.
Example: 6000 MB should work fine to render images in high-end quality for print.

'''TROUBLESHOOTING'''

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The launcher works in two ways: regular and debug mode. In regular mode it just
start JWildfire and shuts down itself.
If you face any problems (i. E., JWildfire does not start) please activate the
"Debug" checkbox. This forces a traced launching where log messages are recorded
and displayed at the "Log messages" tab.
You can easily copy those messages into the clipboard by using the "To clipboard"
button and then report them for further assistance.

C. Basics
i. The Interface
ii. Creating fractals
iii. Rendering fractals
a. what is rendering and why do I have to do it?
b. the various renderers.
c. when should I use the interactive renderer?
iv. saving files in JWf
a. saving files from the flame editor
b. saving files from the interactive editor
c. resonance hdr files
v. Known problems and solutions

a. Mac OS X issue:(included in a private message from Andreas Tuscher)
"Hello,
I had quite issues to run JWF for the first time on Mac OS X.
It took me a while to understand that JRE was not enough for running it
but I figured out finally that I needed to instal JDK
and select the JDK path rather the JRE path for JWF to run. "

b. Windows issue: windows error message "could not locate Javaw..."
This issue happens either because one does not have java installed or there
is a problem with the last installation of an update.... the solution is
to remove any versions of Java on one's computer and to download the latest version.

2.[[FAQ]]

3.[[Credits]]

GNBarnes: GNBarnes moved page User talk:GNBarnes to FAQ

== FAQ ==

Q0001: JWildfire freezes my system. What can I do?

Q0002: What are params?

Q0003: What are scripts and how they are used?

Q0004: Isn't a Java program slow?

Q0005: What are HDR files and how are they used?

Q0006: How to change render size?

Q0007: How can we add plugins? I'd like to use the "snowflake" plugin but i'm not sure how they work with JWildfire.

Q0008: What is the Interactive Renderer for?

Q0009: There doesn't seem to be a button to change the output or even the quality in the movie maker tab. What am I missing?

Q0010: How do I render a transparent background where the black background usually shows?

Q0011: I downloaded a font to my computer and it isn't showing up in JWildfire. What do I need to do?

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'''Q0001:''' JWildfire freezes my system. What can I do?

'''A0001:''' JWildfire never freezes your system by itself. Being a Java application it uses a fixed pool of memory. This pool of memory is managed by a so-called "garbage collector". If your memory pool is very large or your pool is used to the limit (if you are low at memory) your system my occur freezed from time to time if the garbage collector is working. The following can help to reduce those freezes:
decrease the process priority of JWildfire in the task manager (reduces system freeze, but not JWildfire user interface freeze)
increase your memory (hardware or virtual memory if hardware is not possible)
increase the heap size in the startup options
use the interactive renderer (which does not use oversample and uses less memory then the normal renderer)

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'''Q0002:''' What are params?

'''A0002:''' "Params" are definitions of fractal flames you can excange with other people or save to disk. These are XML files you can post as text. You can recognize them by starting with either "<flame ...>" or "<flames>..." The most simple approach to load params into JWildfire is to copy them into clipboard and then using the "From clipboard" button ion JWildfire.

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'''Q0003:''' What are scripts and how they are used?

'''A0003:''' Scripts are just small programs which help you to automate things you could also do manually. The most popular scripts for JWildfire (or Apophysis) create or modify fractal flames. You may ask "Why not just load a flame file?". You are right then, but scripts can include random numbers. I. E. they can be used to create randomly computed results. In the most cases the used random values are in a certain range and not totally random. But the script will still create an infinite number of results! JWildfire scripts are written in Java, were JWildfire exposes all properties of a fractal flame to be used in scripts. This way you can even create random flames generators on your own. Just have a look at te various examples supplied at the "Script" tab.

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'''Q0004:''' Isn't a Java program slow?

'''A0004:''' No, it isn't. Compared to a native app like Apophysis it is a little bit slower because a native app can use all stuff like graphics display or mathematical functions in a more direct or "shorter" way. Regarding only the "hard facts" the current release behaves really stunning, you can render images at really high resolutions in an always adequate time. If you are interested in technical performance measurements: I did some test renders in JWildfire and Apophysis and compared the results: [http://www.andreas-maschke.com/?page_id=1345 www.andreas-maschke.com/?page_id=1345] But what always was very important for me was the overall performance rather than the technical render performance. So I designed the interface to be as much user-friendly as possible and the app as much stable as possible. So that the user can focus on creating his/her art.

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'''Q0005:''' What are HDR files and how are they used?

'''A0005:''' HDR stands for "high dynamic range" and is a term for images with a huge amount of different shades of different colors. So many colors that no device can display them. Imagine a scene in a forrest where sunbeams break through the tree crowns. There you have both many different shades of darker colors (tree trunks, ground, flowers, ...) and many different shades of bright colors (sun beam, tree crowns) The HDR images generated by JWildfire have a precision of 32 bits per color channels and represent the raw iteration data. (So one could say that they are te real raw fractals) To make a HDR image visible on a computer screen you must reduce its color range. This process is called tonemapping. Tonemapping in detail is a whole field of science and is beyond the scope of this FAQ. But there are many programs which can do it, e.g. LuminanceHDR, Photomatix or Photoshop, where LuminanceHDR is free software.

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'''Q0006:''' How to change render size?

'''A0006:''' Render sizes are defined in so-called "resolution profiles". There are some predefined resolution profiles but you can define any number of own profiles. Those resolution profiles can then used in all parts of the program where you choose a render size (Flame editor, Interactive renderer, Movie maker and Batc renderer) The resolution profiles are defined and modified on the main tab using the detail button right of the resolution combobobx in the right upper edge of the window.

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'''Q0007:''' How can we add plugins? I'd like to use the "snowflake" plugin but i'm not sure how they work with JWildfire.

'''A0007:''' The Apophysis-plugins are compiled 32Bit-Windows-binaries and do not work directly in JWildfire. They must be rewritten in Java so that they can be used in JWildfire. This is usually very easy if the original source code (which is usually included) is available. Please note that it is not sufficient to know the mathematical formula or concept behind a variation to make it work 1:1 in JWildfire. The "snowflake" plugin is a good example, there is no way to build it from scratch because the term "snowflake" does not describe all of the necessary details.

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'''Q0008:''' What is the Interactive Renderer for?

'''A0008:''' The interactive renderer serves two purposes:
Explore random fractals in a really funny way. You can now follow the rendering of a fractal. If you have seen enough just press the NEXT button to get a new randomly generated flame. If you like it you can save it or copy it to the clipboard to tweak it in the main editor. Of course, you can load or paste any (non random) fractal into the interactive renderer.
WYSIWYG: Render an image until you are satisfied. Here is no oversampling applied. You can save the image all the time while it still rendering. So you can have a closer look at it to see if its really done, e.g. in a image processing software.
But beware, the interactive renderer never stops automatically and will render until hell freezes :-) You must always stop it manually or finish the program.

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'''Q0009:''' There doesn't seem to be a button to change the output or even the quality in the movie maker tab. What am I missing?

'''A0009:''' To make the movie-generating-process more robust it is strictly divided into three steps:
Generate the fractal params for each frame (using the Easy Movie Maker or Dancing Flames Movies -module). Each fractal parameter is stored as separate file.
Render the images by using the Batch renderer (using any resolution or quality settings you want). You can cancel the rendering process at any time and continue it later. I. e., the renderer creates only images which are not in place yet. I.e. to re-render all images you must delete them
Use the generated frames (and maybe a cool sound) to generate a movie you may upload to Youtube etc. Currently, the movie-encoding is not supported by JWildfire directly, because it is a rather complex task and I have not found any satisfying (free) components which I could include into the program to do the job. But there are a couple of free programms out there, e. g.:

[https://www.ffmpeg.org/ FFmpeg]

Windows Live Movie Maker

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'''Q0010:''' How do I render a transparent background where the black background usually shows?

'''A0010:''' Turn on transparency on the color tab, and use "Display/hide transparency" button at top of the preview window to visualize it.

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'''Q0011:''' I downloaded a font to my computer and it isn't showing up in JWildfire. What do I need to do?

'''A0011:''' Once you install the font it should show in JWF. Close and restart the program to make sure it takes.

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User talk:GNBarnes

2015-02-23T04:22:10Z

GNBarnes: GNBarnes moved page User talk:GNBarnes to FAQ

#REDIRECT [[FAQ]]