Project Dogwaffle Howler
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Hi all, we have most of the recent tutorials on youtube at www.youtube.com/pdhowler
There's a set of older gen tutes also in the staigerman channel, see or access them all from here:
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/tuts
There are some tutorials in the PD Particles collection that you souldn't dismiss even when using Howler or PD Artist, as there are commonalities between the tools. PD Particles is a small subset of PD Artist, and PD Artist is a subset of PD Howler.
There are a few tutorials that are particularly useful as introductory / getting started tutes. Look for the Playlists in youtube channel.
Or for the "What's new in ...." on Howler at thebest3d.com/howler/features
I hope this helps. And please don't hesitate to ask questions on this thread, I do seem to get email notifications so I know when someone asks a question.
We try to put keywords on our videos in youtube so hopefully this will help, doing a Search there for 'painting with PD Howler' or similar terms in the search with painting, pigment lifting, watercolor, blending, brushes, natural media, realistic paint, etc...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=painting+with+PD+Howler
I will take a look
Thanks staigerman and dart!
I recently picked up PD Howler on the DAZ store for a very cheap price, been playing with it tonight and have been very impressed - and I feel like I am only scratching the surface at this point. For those of us who are very long in the tooth, it reminded me quite strongly of DeLuxe Paint for the Amiga! And having looked it up, the developer was apparently a fan of DeLuxe Paint and used a few concepts from that in designing Dogwaffle. So for me, it is almost like going back to the roots of my compuiter graphics work!
its nothing like Deluxe Paint ( which I used for years )
this post edited by headwax at 12.01
Actually it is very much influenced by D-paint. Personally, I've not had the pleasure to experience the Amiga/D-paint, but I sure have heard and read Dan talk about it a lot, very lovingly. There are lots of commonalities. Example: 'j' to jump to a Swap buffer. The only other program I know that has that too is from a German developer, Cosmigo. Or wait, perhaps there's something similar in TVpaint? I don't recall. TVpaint also has some connection to the Amiga if I recall. Maybe not through Deluxe Paint, maybe through another program that was not animation/video oriented than painting oriented. I may get things mixed up a bit, too, it's been a long day.
There are a lot of differences too, of course. We have layers, though not opaque ones. We have GPU support for 3D terrain, particle foliage brushes with ambient occluded self-shading,... but we have a bunch of things in common. Dan Silva - Dan Ritchie, two Dans with a common passion.
Learn more about this Dan's passion here: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/about
By-the-way, does anyone know what happened to Dan Silva, where did he disappear to?
Just for clarity, I am not saying they are the same, or that Dogwaffle is a recreation of DeLuxe Paint, but there are definite similarities in things like the swap buffer and brush handling, including animated brushes. PD Howler can clearly do much more, some of the filters are amazing, almost like separate programs in their own right!
By-the-way, does anyone know what happened to Dan Silva, where did he disappear to?
last time I hear any thing - they said he was sick .
Do you know in what part of the world he lives? I never could find social media contacts. He seemed to have disappeared after DPaint 4 was done.
According to his LinkedIn profile:
1990-200 Helped design and implement 3D Studio, and 3D Studio Max, programs for 3D rendering, animation and visualization, under contract to Autodesk.
He is now listed as an independent computer software professional, living in the San Fransisco Bay area.
Interestingly, prior to his work for Electronic Arts where he developed in house graphical tools for game development, and designed and programmed Deluxe Paint, he worked for Lucasfilm for a year and prototyped user interface designs for the Xerox Star system at Palo Alto - that's quite a CV!
Phil,
Just in case you haven't tried it yet, here's a fun one for Howler:
Paint yourself a height map. Simple method would be to use: Filters > Render > Plasma Noise (keep changing or tapping the scale key to get a new random result (shuffle))
Now go to Filters > Transform > 3D Designer and mess around with it in 3d! :)
Once in 3D Designer, you might not (at first) see the "More" button up top. Please find it and try that stuff out too.
Also notice that, at the bottom left of the 3D Designer dialog, you my store various maps and/or export your work as an OBJ file for use in Carrara! :)
(This is my tool layout and interface scheme: "Hero")
Also, don't forget the every so wonderful interactive undo! Upper right corner by the minimize and such. ;)
Man, how do we get images to show in posts? Anyone know?
Ahhh... Thanks! :)
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If you get a broken Icon like that one, remove the attachment and try again.
Check out some of the new work being done behind the scenes for the up-and-coming Howler 10!
https://youtu.be/osiDfdJAmBg
getting close to twistedbrush 22
So mostly interface and workflow improvements by the look of it.
Dart... where's your pics? I have had Howler for some time now based on your recommendation and have only used a mere fraction of its feature. Will be checking this out.
SIleneUK
ETA: Twisted Brush looks interesting!
Yes, it is very feature-rich. Another cool addition is the Space-bar Tool selector: Hold down the space bar and scroll through brushes, sort by category, select colors, etc., no matter where your mouse is pointing. Pretty cool.
What sort of images would you like?
Here is a raw render followed by the version after slightly dosing it with Howler:
Raw Render
Howlerized
Great postwork Dart, makes it look very atmospheric!
Thanks, Phil! I've never felt more "at home" performing post work than I do now with my wonderful Howler.
It did take some getting used to... granted. But I'm already more used to Dogwaffle workings than any other image editor I've used - which, to tell the truth, wasn't a whole lot of them. Just Gimp, PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, and a few early-learning tools I've picked up as samples that came with printers and other sorts of demos. I really love how endless Photoshop is, but I just can't cough up enough $ to stay current (or even close) with that one. PaintShop Pro reminds me a lot of Photoshop, and I do keep fairly current with that one, though I barely use it now that I've got so familiar with Howler and the Dogwaffle way of doing things - which feels to me to be more like art than geometry or other math. It has less of a 'software' feel and more of an art room aura about it and its tools... but that's me.
I must say that I'm incredibly hyped about the new improvements to Howler 10! Did any of you try the very recent version of Particles ("Particles 9" is a very scaled-down version of Project Dogwaffle - if all you need is a fantastic scribbler/sketchbook/storybook-maker)? It has undergone a whole facelift of the interface with all new beautiful thumbnails for the various brushes and such. Well Dan has taken a lot of that type of improvement design into the formidable Howler, making it even more of a pleasure to use as an artist. One of my favorite new things is the "Space-bar selector": Hold down the spacebar to get brush shape/type/color accessibilities wherever your mouse may be on the window! But I've been trying out a lot of the other new features when I can and I just love the new Howler!
Want to try out the new Howler 10 before it's released - and save some cash in the process?
Here's an offer that the author has going on right now for upgrades or full versions that gets you the full release upon completion as well as a stable beta build to use as you wait!
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/newsletter/111-the-Top-10-of-v10-and-the-first-pre-Order-offer/index.html
I can relate, for sure! It did take me a while to wrap my head around how to use this thing best for what I need to do. For me, magic began happening the moment I taught myself to worry less about using layers, and get more into storing selections and combining them, subtracting them, etc., blurring the selections (or not) and then performing some of the many filters and tools - which I'm still working on getting to know better... there are SO many! Using the curve tool allows me to make animated selections across my video clips - which is real magic for me - a process called "Rotoscoping". Beyond the curve tool, like Carrara, many of the tools in Howler can be animated across all frames, even changing them during the animation via keyframes which follow either a linear or bezier path through the timeline.
Particle brushes come in many varieties and can be most welcome for dealing with things like poke-through or other rendered-in blemishes that could otherwise send the image (and the time it took to render) to the ol' recycle bin! A big help for me towards learning more about the brushes and how they work is to right-click the brush icon from the tool bar, bringing up a large selection of brush choices. Then I just play around with them, getting acquainted with what they do. After some time I start to get favorites for certain situations.
There is a printable pdf instruction manual, but I have found that the easiest way to get into how many folks work within Howler (or any Dogwaffle product) is to watch Phillip's videos on YouTube. Here's a link to his Tutorials page at "theBest3d.com" which has links to some great tutorials.
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/tuts/index.html
I have found that it can require a certain amount of patience to get into it and the YouTube videos can take some time before it all starts to make sense - so I made it a point to watch them in order for quite some time. Just tid-bits of time here and there, if I had some time to kill, I'd watch a few videos. Next thing you know, I'm wanting to do something that I've seen in one of those videos. So I go in and try to find the right one, which can be difficult because sometimes the info I was thinking of comes in a video of an entirely different topic! LOL So eventually I started to get more and more used to which videos or series of videos covered the stuff that I really wanted to get down. Then I'd practice, watch, practice, watch... learn.
Now it's just plain fun!
I updated I hope I can get into it and start using the features I seem to be in a stuck mode now.. anyone got a crowbar..
Just for you, Sir. ;)
Sorry, I seem to hve misplaced my crow bar. I think my Son borrowed it. Here's my 1der bar to use in its stead.
Phillip has the rough job of trying to teach every aspect of Howler - a daunting task of which I feel that he does a great job. It just takes a bit of time and patience to find the instructions you need to get going on your project. To help in this, I'm hoping to (soon?) release some workflow videos of my own, just to add yet another take on how to use this fine piece of softy!
Great tutorial format...it's easier for me to get acquainted with the written word than with flipping back and forth bwt vid tuts and trying things out. I will have two screen soon, but until I get a better idea of any new tools, I like to read first.