Owlet 1.3
09 Feb 2017
Our little bird starts spreading its wings and we hope this is the last “beta” version of the software. This update comes with some long-awaited features, so keep reading for the details.
Render Later
That is probably the most requested feature. No worries, we’ve sorted it out. Now you can ask to render scene later right in the rendering settings window, and then see them all in job manager window. The concept is quite similar to Boxshot, but we don’t have tasks here. Each job gives you single image after rendering.
Owlet collects all the resources with the job file, so you can even place the jobs folder somewhere on server and render it with another copy of Owlet, if you like. This is yet to be added to Boxshot and we’re testing it here at the moment.
Finally, the job manager itself is simplified with less buttons and more intuitive actions like opening job folder by double-clicking it. Give it a try and let us know what do you think in comments below.
Rendering Settings
The rendering settings window got some extra parameters besides the “render later” option. You can now specify the maximum pixel brightness and photon scale. This sometimes helps to render scenes faster and get better images.
Watermarks
This is another feature you requested a lot. We added it to the scene properties panel. You can now specify an image, location and scale and Owlet will place it on top of your rendering. We again would like to hear from you about this, in case if you want it changed somehow.
Snapshots
Our old Saved Camera panel has been renamed to Snapshots and made similar to the one we have in Koru. Instead of saving just camera position, snapshots also store node visibility, transformations and assigned materials. This means you can have different scenes in one file by hiding and moving shapes around and taking snapshots.
Other Changes And Improvements
Here is the list of less significant changes we made:
- Scene tree got checkboxes controlling nodes visibility;
- New “Put on the floor” tool has been added;
- UV Mapping tool has been enhanced with extra options;
- Materials library have been updated with Koru-like materials, including print effects;
- Scene preview has been improved for speed;
- Command line options have been added and documented (including tiled mode for distributed rendering);
- Keyboard navigation has been improved in material editor and other panels;
- Resource collection command have been added to File menu;
- FBX loading improved for files with embedded images;
- Collada loader improved for better compatibility with other software;
- Color-profiled images loading improved;
- Better loading and saving of HDR images with proper gamma conversion;
- Toolbar icons have been updated to match the ones in Koru;
- Interface fonts improved on Mac OS;
- Some issues fixed in scene materials and material editor panels.
Does it look long enough to upgrade your old copy? We hope so :)
Comments?
Please leave your feedback regarding the new release below. Try the new job manager, watermarks and other features and let us know what do you think.
Cheers!