particleIllusion: What's new in 3.0.4

What's new in particleIllusion 3.0.4

(Changes from version 3.0.3)

Minor Changes

When Caps Lock is on, activation dialog will show at startup (Scroll lock key does the same thing, but some Macs running Windows do not have a Scroll Lock key).
Additional codecs that support alpha channel can be added by user via a text file (alphacodecs.txt).
Added better error handling when Auto Update can't connect to server.
Added "use audio from layer" function back in (was removed in 3.0.2). This allows the output AVI to use the audio from the input AVI (if present).
Maximum stage size is now 20000 x 20000 pixels (where it was limited to 8192 x 8192 previously). Note that very large output sizes will probably only work when pIllusionRender is set to use software rendering, and there may be RAM issues.
Changed the default location where application updates and emitters are downloaded to allow a common place for both types of files if the current user does not have write access to the application folder.

Bug Fixes

Deleting an emitter from a project file would not remove the unused texure data (so saved project files could be much larger than needed).
When first free emitter type was toggled off in hierarchy window, when emitter properties dialog opened all free emitter types in the emitter would use the "disabled" icon, even though they weren't.
Deleting a texture or texture group from Emitter Properties Dialog now correctly replaces the deleted texture referenced by an Emitter with a existing texture. (could cause crash before this)
Toggling layer icons (bg image visible, objects visible, etc.) will now mark the project as modified (these settings have been saved in the project file all along)
Copy and then paste of a disabled Emitter in the Hierarchy now shows the emitter disabled in both Hierarchy and Stage.
Corrected issue of not disabling buttons in Auto Update dialog when downloading.
Corrected issue where the "Select All"/"Select None" buttons would not reset after a download.
Would crash If WMV was picked as the output file type and no profiles were found.
If User has no write access to Program Files folder (in a limited account), no library backups were saved. (Will now write them to user "Application Support" folder).
Compression controls would not always reset correctly when a new CODEC was picked.

What's new in pIllusionRender 3.0.7 (installed with particleIllusion 3.0.4)

Minor Changes

When Caps Lock is on, activation dialog will show at startup (Scroll lock key does the same thing, but some Macs running Windows do not have a Scroll Lock key).
Additional codecs that support alpha channel can be added by user via a text file (alphacodecs.txt).
Added "use audio from layer" function back in (was removed in 3.0.2). This allows the output AVI to use the audio from the input AVI (if present).

Bug Fixes

Renders that did not start at frame 1 would not be identical to renders that did start at frame 1. (So rendering frames 1-50, then stopping, then rendering frames 51-100 from the same project file would produce a visual discontinuity between frames 50 and 51). Now that this is fixed, rendering pIllusion project files on a render farm is possible.
If project file had high quality motion blur option checked (even if "motion blur" option was not checked), then passing the "-blur" parameter on the commandline would use high-quality motion blur instead of regular.
When no motion blur is used, saving alpha, and not starting at frame 1, the frame before the first of the sequence is saved but with black RGB channels.
Would crash If WMV was picked as the output file type and no profiles were found.
If User has no write access to Program Files folder (in a limited account), no preview image or log could be created. (Will now write them to user Application
Support folder).
Compression controls may not reset correctly when a new CODEC is picked.

What's new in particleIllusion 3.0.3

(Changes from version 3.0.2)

Minor Changes

Holding SHIFT key while scrolling the stage window accelerates the scroll by a factor of 5.

Added "Use new method of loading AVIs" preference. When checked, will load AVIs using the new movie code. This option should be used when AVIs don't load correctly.

Added Newtek SpeedHQ codecs to list of codecs that support alpha channel.

When can't connect to server, will allow updates dialog to be opened still.

When no updates available, still opens updates dialog instead of showing message.

Added "Do not request accumulation buffer" option to OpenGL preferences. (Should take care of issues with cards being put into software mode.)

Added "-noupchek" commandline param to disable update checks at startup (in case long timeouts at initial updatecheck cause user to force app to quit)

Added "checking for updates..." status window when checking for updates.

Bug Fixes

Would still put dropped emitters in wrong place when drag and dropping in library window (sometimes). Not 100% sure if this is fixed.

After dragging a folder to relocate it, the emitters in that folder could not be relocated.

After dragging a super emitter (in the library properties dialog) to relocate it, clicking the "particles" tab would show nothing (wouldn't select the first particle type of the emitter).

When "Save As" library with a new name, the library button (below the preview window) would not show the new name)

Would skip the first frame of some AVIs that were loaded.

Sometimes when dragging emitters in library window (or when doing a very slight drag when selecting emitters) the emitter would move to the end of the last folder.

When stage zoom was not 100% and saving output (answer "no" to automatically setting it to 100%), the output image size was still 100% size. For example, 640x480 stage, 50% zoom, output image size was 640x480.

If Panasonic DV codec was installed, would crash when loading a DV AVI.

Made changes to prevent crash with "bad" codecs (like Arcsoft Mpeg Writer)

When saving image files with weird widths (631, 721, etc.) could crash or produce corrupted images.

When saving output with fields and layer offset had a "break" in it, the frame at the "break" would render one field at a significantly wrong location.

Would show "No Internet Connection" error message 4 times when check for updates couldn't find connection.

Would show "no updates available" message when update check occurred at startup (now only shows that message when "check for updates" is done manually)

What's new in pIllusionRender 3.0.6