Origami 2.5
15 Aug 2017
This version got a new rendering engine and although it doesn’t look that new when you see it, lots of changes have been done under the hood to make the further improvements possible. Read on for more details…
Why New Rendering Engine?
Origami was mostly about folding shapes and we had no plans for adding further effects like foil, but as you guys want it we’ll eventually have to add them. The problem is that the rendering engine (the one that displays a preview) was quite simple and had no options to implement that nice things.
So we’ve upgraded the rendering engine to support shaders and can now add new features on top of that. So far the rendering looks exactly as the old one, and our main goal is to make sure that it works as before on as many computers as possible. If by any chance it doesn’t work for you - let us know.
Best of all, the new engine lets us switch between hardware and software rendering on our weakest platform - Windows. Origami tries to detect the best possible option for your hardware and then uses the most appropriate driver. We also need to test that on as many computers as possible before going further. Contact us if something goes wrong.
Finally, according to our internal tests the new renderer works even better on poor hardware, compared to the old one.
Artwork For Cardboard Side
You can now put a texture along the shape’s side:
Origami comes with some pre-defined textures for most common cardboard formats. You may need to manually select them in paper editor or simply reset the list to see them:
Use File -> Open Side Images Folder… menu item to access the textures folder and upload your own images.
Flexible Origami Layers Naming
Starting from this version, Origami doesn’t require you to name its layers strictly “Origami” or what you set in settings. Instead, Origami now looks through the layers and gets the first one that contains its name. See here for more details on how the new system works and why it is done this way.
Top Marker
Another feature you requested is “Top” marker. It works exactly as “Front” and “Bottom” ones, but lets you specify the top plane of the shape. It is useful if the shape doesn’t have bottom, but you still need to align it somehow.
Origami first tries to put the shape on its bottom, then it checks the “Top” marker and applies it, finally it looks for the “Front” marker and applies it, as well. If the markers conflict, the order of applying them will define the resulting angles of the shape.
High-DPI Displays Support
As promised, the new version of Origami comes with high-DPI (Retina) displays support. Texts and artwork should look much better on these displays. Enjoy the crispy pixels :)
Rendering Proportions
Origami now uses preview screen proportions for saving images and rendering to clipboard. This gives you exactly the same rendered image as you see in preview.
We’ve added View -> Preview Proportion menu item that lets you apply the most common proportions to the current scene. Let us know if you want this list to be enhanced.
Cheers!