Wishlist

Mandelbulb 4D (M4D)

must have features list

*** List created from discussion at http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?topic=24293.0 ***

3D scene

• Importing/exporting objects (entire scenes) as Wavefront .obj files:
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_.obj_file
  • http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/51785/how-do-i-export-multiple-separate-objects-in-an-obj-file
  • https://github.com/syoyo/tinyobjloader
• The 3D scene setup (all of the different objects, lighting, camera, atmospheric effects) should be editable as a node editor
  • It should be possible to save the node configuration as a human readable file.
  • Allow for loading custom node graphs - lots of possibilities to programmatically create scenes
• Support for alpha channel:
  • OpenGL GLSL alpha channel
    • https://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/showthread.php/175008-using-alpha-blending-with-shaders
    • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28079159/opengl-glsl-texture-transparency
  • Allow for transparent image background
  • Various texture maps
    • Diffuse
    • Normal
    • Specular
      • http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_types
  • Load texture maps with alpha channel using libpng
    • http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
• Support for lightmaps
  • Lightmap wrapping
• Support for heightmaps
• Be able to load ".map" files for gradients
• Texture parameters. Support standard things from current 3D programs:
  • Bump
  • Displace
  • Reflection
  • Refraction
  • Fresnel IOR
    • http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=513458
  • Mix multiple images
  • Etc. ...
• Ability to precisely modify coordinates (position, rotation) for various scene objects:
  • Lights
  • Fractals, and non-fractal objects
  • Camera
  • Heightmaps
  • Textures
  • Etc.
• Easy controls for camera:
  • Allow for easy reset of camera view angle to the basic directions (1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), etc.
• Unlimited number of lights
• Real global lights
  • Lights that can cast parallel shadows
  • Global illumination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_illumination
  • All of the common light sources from existing 3D systems http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-different-light-types/
    • Spot Lights
    • Point Lights
    • Area Lights
    • Volume Light
    • Etc.
• Real-world atmospheric effects
  • Sun
  • Clouds
  • Stars
  • Snow
  • Rain
  • Fog
  • Earth sky atmosphere
• Unlimited number of objects (fractals, and non-fractal objects)
• Different materials
  • Reflection
  • Refraction
  • Fresnel
    • http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-rendering/introduction-to-shading/reflection-refraction-fresnel
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_equations
• Be able to apply different maps to different parts of an object

Rendering

• GPU support:
  • When generating fractal data points, use GPU and CPU together.
  • Use OpenGL GLSL for rendering simplified preview image. Needs to be real time to allow for exploration of scene (navigator).
  • Should be able to run on different hardware. Will use OpenGL 3.2 since it is supported out of the box on latest Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
  • When rendering high quality image, use GPU and CPU together.
    • Some current state of the art things to consider:
      • "Implementing a Practical Rendering System using GLSL" by T. Hachisuka (paper can be found on author’s web page http://www.ci.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hachisuka/ ).
      • https://launchpad.net/glsl-transform-feedback
      • https://www.opengl.org/wiki/Transform_Feedback
      • https://www.khronos.org/opencl/
• Lighting - global illumination, approximation
  • Implement different modes:
    • Faster renders for preview and navigation through the scene
      • Ambient occlusion
      • Phong shading
    • Very high quality for the end result render. Several algorithms (far future of project):
      • Photon mapping
        • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_mapping
      • Voxel based
        • http://gigavoxels.imag.fr/WhatIsGigaVoxels.html
        • Three Dimensional Fractal Exploration using a Scale-Adaptive Sparse Voxel Octree
          • http://www.errollw.com/assets/eww23_part2_diss.pdf
      • Some kind of probabilistic method (Monte Carlo based)
        • http://www.fractalforums.com/programming/fast-fake-montecarlo-for-raymarching-(not-sure-what-to-call-it-yet)/
      • Simple ray-marching with approximated lighting, shadows, and coloring
        • http://blog.hvidtfeldts.net/index.php/2011/06/distance-estimated-3d-fractals-part-i/
• More realistic depth of field
  • Use a realistic camera model, not a pinhole model
    • “A Realistic Camera Model for Computer Graphics”, Craig Kolb, Don Mitchell, Pat Hanrahan [1995] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=218463
    • “Camera Models and Optical Systems Used in Computer Graphics: Part I, Object-Based Techniques”, https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~barsky/VisRendPapers/survey1.pdf
    • “Camera Models and Optical Systems Used in Computer Graphics: Part II, Image-Based Techniques”, https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~barsky/VisRendPapers/survey2.pdf
• Selectable rendering modes
• It should be possible to configure the Navigator renderer so that it matches (closely) the high quality end result.
  • Allow for controlling level of details of the Navigator
  • Allow saving to disk from the navigator window
• Control over far plane and near plane for DOF
• Deferred shading
  • Deferred rendering which makes it possible to change coloring ...etc. very fast.
  • Post processing (Shadows, Reflections/Transparency and DOF) as well as Lighting and gradient changes after the render.
  • http://learnopengl.com/#!Advanced-Lighting/Deferred-Shading

User interface

• Minimalist look and feel if nothing complex is going on
• Cross platform UI toolkit
  • https://github.com/ocornut/imgui
• UI skins (themes). The program look should be configurable.
  • Imgui UI library can be made to use different themes.
  • Soon imgui will have different color themes out of the box. See https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/707 (also some older issues https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/184 and https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/438 )
• Node-based editor for hybrid formulas:
  • https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/306
• Navigator view:
  • A switch to enable/disable camera-object collision checks.
• Allow for a multiple window workspace
  • For those with multiple monitors this is a must
  • Everything inside a windows can be rearranged (repositioned), or moved to another window
• UI should behave well on a high DPI monitor
  • Everything should scale nicely
  • Ideally, it should be possible to zoom out/in on any part of the interface

Additional functionality

• Batch render mode
  • Setup several scene files (animations), and let them render over night.
  • Should be possible to stop and resume a batch processing operation.
• Scripting/plugins
  • Create an API which can be used by other applications. This way if someone wants to implement different UI, they can just use the API to get core functionality.
  • Python scripts to add new functionality to the main program, or automate tasks
    • Embedding Python in Another Application https://docs.python.org/3.5/extending/embedding.html
  • Client-server architecture is ideal for separating UI from core logic
• Massive parallelization/render farms
  • Be able to easily split work between multiple PCs (cloud virtual instances)
  • Handle very large scenes (10-50 gigabytes) by splitting scene into several parts
  • Client-server architecture is ideal for scaling application to many PCs
• Real time statistics on application performance
• Mutagen
  • The mutation algorithm should be very configurable
• Human readable program configuration files, save files, scene description files.
  • Use JSON for the file format
    • https://github.com/nlohmann/json
• Ability to import original MB3D save files (parameters, etc).
  • It should be possible to recreate almost the same image in the new system
• Output to different image formats
  • PNG http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
  • JPEG http://www.ijg.org/
  • TIFF http://www.libtiff.org/
  • BMP http://partow.net/programming/bitmap/
• Portability
  • Support out of the box
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Mac OS X

Fractal formulas

• Availability of all original custom formulas from MB3D
• Inside the program, formula browser with preview images.
  • Search the formulas database by tags, description text, name.
  • Better category tree (categorization) to organize formulas.
• In-program formula editor.
  • Use a JIT
    • http://llvm.org/
  • Formulas coded in pure C
  • Also possibility to have GLSL formulas
• Formula database separate from main program. In a dedicated formula Git repository.
  • Easy update mechanism from within the program. Click a single button - and new formulas will be brought in from the formula repository
    • https://libgit2.github.com/
  • Don’t need to release a new version of the program just to update the formula list.
• Formulas distributed as a set of 5 files:
  • C source code
  • Additionally (not required) GLSL code for calculating formula on the GPU
  • Image preview
  • Readme file
  • Config file
• Unlimited number of formulas to create a single hybrid fractal
• Hybrid fractals:
  • Alternate formulas
  • Interpolate between different formulas
  • DEcombinate
  • Coupled Mandelbrot Set (need to investigate if this is possible)
    • http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbrot-and-julia-set/coupled-mandelbrot-sets-(cms)/
• Ability to create a new hybrid fractal from several hybrid fractals

Animation

• Easy synchronisation of video and audio
  • Video animation timeline in milliseconds
• Much better (improved from the original MB3D) animation support:
  • Node based timeline editor for frames, key frames
  • Easy tweaking of parameters and their animation curves
  • Preview animation
    • Update only the frames that actually changed after some fractal formula tweaks