- VERSION 4.12: post rendering effects and experimental WebGl export - 29 August 2026
It has been a while, but I was really busy. With the current update there come two major two things: - post rendering effects, which is a separate shader pass to apply typical balancing effects, color grading effects (for example, to turn your artworks into "Matrix style"), Vignette and other effects - experimental WebGl export: this allows you to export your current scene to be rendered in a modern browser in realtime. This feature is very limited in terms of supported features, but may be lead to very cool results, though. The more simple your scene is, the better it will work. The render results are similar to the "Realtime shader" when rendering an animation, but be really realtime. The motion of motion curves will also be baked in the exported data as well as an audio file, if specified. But, be warned: especially on Windows it takes really a lot of time to compile such a WebGl sha…
- RELEASE VERSION 4.9: new container types and lots of new (flame-)variations - 14 June 2026
This major update brings a few bug fixes, some new interesting container types (e.g., a mode to create a classic ifs-iteration, including a non-linear part) and - maybe surprisingly - a large collection of 150 new variations for flame fractals. Complete changelog: VERSION 4.9.2800 (14.06.2026): - mandelbro3d: - fixed: field-mode is not saved when saving a scene with a weighted alternating hybrid container (SWAN-1608) - flames: - add new variations: tweed, weave, waves3d_decay, svensson, vine (SWAN-1636) - add new variations: wave_func, vortex, toroidal, tunneling, waves_phase (SWAN-1637) - add new variations: twist_ribbon, torus_knot, taper, threeply, weld_seam (SWAN-1638) - add new variations: superposition, tessellate, tri_lattice, wood_grain, worley (SWAN-1639) - add new variations: phyllotaxis, hammer, stereographic_plane, zigzag (SWAN-1635) VERSION 4.8.2793 (10.06.2026): - mandelbr…
- VERSION 4.0: domain rendering, backdrops and improved glass rendering - 17 May 2026
This major update brings another very flexible tool: domain rendering. You may imagine this feature in the way, that multiple scenes are rendered at the same time, and a function (the domain-partitioning-function) specifies, where in the global space, appears which scene. This may sound very abstract at first, but allows for some really unique effects. For example, you may create a shape, which consists to some parts of metal, and to some parts of glass, as real 3d structure, not just a texture. Or, you can fade in or out certain objects in a very cool way. And lots more. Also, you can now chose images to be used as backdrop. These are integrated into the 3d space as well, so react to camera movement and also are visible in object reflections. And, the rendering of glass is now much improved. Complete changelog: VERSION 4.3.2757 (17.05.2026): - mandelbro3d: - added option to add surface…
- VERSION 3.44: build update - 10 May 2026
(the first one did not update)
- VERSION 3.44: lots of refactoring and new hybrid container - 10 May 2026
For this version I made a lot of internal refactorings to improve rendering quality and hybrid-fractal-support. Also, there is a new experimental hybrid-container which uses a variation- or scalar-field to modulate the iteration-counts of the fractal formulas inside the hybrid. This creates coordinate-dependent hybrid-geometry. It is a little bit hard to setup, but a lot of fun to play with. Complete changelog: VERSION 3.44.2717 (10.05.2026): - mandelbro3d: - experimental: add new Weighted Alternating hybrid container, which uses a scalar field to modulate individual formula iteration counts (SWAN-1541) - dIFS-style-fractals do work inside hybrids (SWAN-1542) - fixed: when rendering an animation in Z-Buffer mode all frames were black (SWAN-1535) - when switching between objects, try to keep the selection of the current sub-tab (when it exists) (SWAN-1532) - added "Quadrat3D"-formula (SW…
- VERSION 3.42: new preview and new cool Tentacle-effects - 6 May 2026
I have completely re-implemented the preview now, so that it is also using the compute-shader-pipeline and produces images which are more close to the final renders. And more important, it can also render very "heavy" scenes, which was the largest problem before. You will encounter increased initial shader-compile times, but the shader compile time between preview and final render will be reduced. So, it is not really slower, even if it might feel like that at the beginning. Also there are two new Tentacle-releated features: a primitive and a Surface Effect. Thanks to Brad Stefanov for suggesting that feature! Complete changelog: VERSION 3.42.2694 (06.05.2026): - mandelbro3d: - added new "Tentacles"-surface-effect (but please beware: this one is really complex and needs a lot of time to compile!) (SWAN-1518) - created preview-images for the surface-effect-picker (SWAN-1521) - improved s…
- VERSION 3.39: new surface effects and other additions - 3 May 2026
Another update with a lot of new stuff and fixes: - the flame skies now finally work (there was the problem, that *.exr-file-support is removed from exported Godot-builds, so I had to create my own ExrLoader class) - new surface-objects (by a new container-type) which can be applied to both fractals and primitives - new primitives and corresponding DEcombinate-formulas - some new useful fractal formulas - general fractal-hybrid-container-overhaul - the preview can now be paused, which helps to create more complex setups where not each intermediate step needs preview, and therefore needs not a re-compile of shaders - general optimization of the shader generator - and more... Complete changelog: VERSION 3.39.2670 (03.05.2026): - mandelbro3d: - added a feature to export/import camera/object motion (SWAN-1461) - added "Koch Cubic" fractal formula (SWAN-1485) - added "SinY" fractal formula (…
- VERSION 3.35 - 30 April 2026
VERSION 3.35.2629 (30.04.2026): - mandelbro3d: - added sun primitive (SWAN-1440) - added moon primitive (SWAN-1441) - added support for really transparent portions of surfaces, for example needed by some of the new sky objects (SWAN-1443) - dont include procedural textures into the deafult scene (in order to reduce shader compile time at startup) (SWAN-1444, SWAN-1446) - fixed: rendered preview images were black (SWAN-1447, SWAN-1448, SWAN-1449) - fixed: exporting a morph-container as mesh/point-cloud does not respect the morph state (so the first object is exported) (SWAN-1450) - removed the black background from the Meteor Shower primitive (SWAN-1451) - removed the black background from the Starfield primitive (SWAN-1452) - The "Group into Container"-button opens nowthe container-type-item-picker to be able to select the desired container type first (SWAN-1438) - The "Group into Hybri…
- VERSION 3.32 - 27 April 2026
Changelog: VERSION 3.32.2597 (27.04.2026): - mandelbro3d: - use formula-picker when adding a new primitive (SWAN-1414) - use formula-picker when adding a new fractal formula (SWAN-1415) - objects and lights can now also follow the camera (SWAN-1416) - added "headlamp" preview mode for consistent preview-lighting, nevertheless where the camera is (SWAN-1418) - fixed: when entering a numerical value for an attribute the preview is not refreshed (SWAN-1417) - after deleting a light, the detail-panel of the next, automatically selected, light is not activated (SWAN-1279) - fixed: after the recent changes to the bound sphere not all object fields are initialized properly, cause for example the "Meteor Shower" primitve to be a blank disc (SWAN-1413) - splitted "Grid Morphosis" into 3 procedural textures which different topologies, in order to reduce shader code size (SWAN-1419)
- VERSION 3.31: BIG update - 26 April 2026
With this update come really many new things: - introducing wall-objects: helping to combine classical architectural elements with fractals - a collection of new sky objects - a collection of new ground objects - a large collection of new procedural textures - the ability to use flame fractals as HDRI sky for interesting lighting effects - the ability to use flame fractals as procedural texture for even more texturing options - fractal formula transforms have been unified: they work now the same in single fractals as well as inside hybrids, and you edit them at the same place - some new (optional) generic fractal transforms, which work for any formula (watch out for the "Fractal Transform"-tab) - variation-deforming transforms can now be defined for any formula as well, either as pre- or as post-transform - the preview-renderer was re-written to handle "heavy" scenes much better - proce…
- VERSION 3.16: added hair/fur, new item-picker, lots of textures, ... - 19 April 2026
This update brings new fur/hair-controls which can be combined with any material. But, please note, that computing fur is a real heavy operation. Even compiling the shaders can take up to minutes! If you encounter GPU-timeouts during rendering, decrease tile-size and/or quality budget. But, it can give really nice results! Also, there are a lot of new procedural textures. To improve the handling in the user-interface, there is now a generic item-picker for textures, fractal formulas, primitives and deforming variations, which is sorted by categroy and also shows (for many of them) a preview-image. Some preview images are not good yet, or even missing, this will improve from release to release. And, again, the pre/post-transforms at formula-level where generalized again/more and there also more transforms available, like a variation-deform or spherical inversion. These work with any frac…
- VERSION 3.10: many new procedural textures and some other useful features/fixes - 13 April 2026
Complete changelog: VERSION 3.10.2353 (14.04.2026): - mandelbro3d: - also added a "Pick Position"-position for light sources (SWAN-1147) - fixed: hybrid fractals sometimes render different in preview than in hq/hq+ mode (SWAN-1157) - fixed: Godot sees not the OIDN-executable under when Windows when added to PATH variable (SWAN-1146) - added new Mycelium-procedural-texture (SWAN-1148) - added new Diffraction-procedural-texture (SWAN-1149) - added new Tesselation-procedural-texture (SWAN-1150) - added new Topographic-procedural-texture (SWAN-1151) - added new Circuit-Trace-procedural-texture (SWAN-1152) - added more example scenes for procedural textures (SWAN-1154) - randomize Default Scene and add random procedural textures (SWAN-1156) VERSION 3.9.2343 (14.04.2026): - mandelbro3d: - moved texture-controls of primitives to a separate tab (SWAN-1155) - added buttons to copy texture parame…
- VERSION 3.6: procedural textures and new shapes - 12 April 2026
This update introduces procedural textures for primitives (colormaps, bumpmaps, material maps and emission map) and comes with some new shapes, both as primitives and as DEcombinate formulas. Also, a few bugs have been fixed. Happy rendering! Complete changelog: VERSION 3.6.2316 (12.04.2026): - mandelbro3d: - created Turbulence-procedural-texture (SWAN-1111) - created Voronoi-procedural-texture (SWAN-1112) - created Wood-procedural-texture (SWAN-1113) - also allow to use image maps as texture (SWAN-1114) - implemented material-textures for primitives (SWAN-1117) - implemented emission-textures for primitives (SWAN-1118) - fixed: the visible switch did not work for fractals inside hybrids (SWAN-1084) - created example scenes for procedural textures (SWAN-1119) - fixed: sometimes the gizmo-display is permanently deactivated and can not activated again (SWAN-1120) VERSION 3.5.2307 (12.04.2…
- JWildfireSwan 3.0: bridges another gap between (fractal) worlds - 9 April 2026
JWildfireSwan 1.0: Flame Editor Initially, JWildfireSwan was intended solely as an editor for flame fractals. Admittedly with high ambitions, but only for this type of fractal art. Then came the extension to AI-assisted fractal art (“ai img2img”) based on flame fractals (I know that the use of AI in art is a subject of controversy in some quarters, and I share some of the concerns. Nevertheless, I believe it is a very useful extension that can certainly achieve breathtaking results. In JWildfireSwan, this feature is disabled by default and not even visible, so that artists who reject the use of AI do not have to deal with it at all.). JWildfireSwan 2.0: Flame Painter Version 2.0 introduced the ‘Flame Painter’ extension, which combines algorithm-based art (flame fractals) with more direct human influence. It allows for the drawing and construction of complex artworks, whereby individual…
- JWildfireSwan 3.2: big renderer update and useful object-positioning tools - 9 April 2026
I have made some fundamental changes to the ray-marcher, which should improve the render quality on small objects with many details substantly. But it may be the case that some existing scenes of you need adjustments to give the right results. If you encounter "incomplete objects", try the following (in this order): - set "Max Distance" to 60.0 - increase "Work Budget" to 20000 - set "DE Factor" to 0.5 - increase the number of iterations at formula level - slightly decrease Epsilon (e.g. from 0.0002 to 0.0001, but not 0.000001) Complete changelog: VERSION 3.2.2279 (09.04.2026): - mandelbro3d: - replaced global-movement-gizmo by camera-direction-movement-gizmo (to help positioning objects from within the camera view, the global movement can achieved by using the sliders) (SWAN-1078) - added generic julia-mode to fractal formulas (SWAN-1065) - added generic pre-rotation/offset to fractal…
- VERSION 3.0 RELEASE - now with MandelBro3D (true 3d fractal rendering) - 5 April 2026
This is a major update bringing the fascinating realm of true 3d-fractals to you, as a free update! Rather than creating a separate app, I have integrated it into swan as new module, which is called MandelBro3D. There are many features which work the same for flames and 3d-fractals (like the motion-curves-editor or audio-support), and MandelBro3D also uses the same proven render-pipeline as the flame-renderer. And, you now have a really powerful fractal toolbox for generating both endless worlds of flame fractals and 3d-fractals, both with full GPU support and awesome render results. You will probably also see some features you did not see in other fractal apps before, like bridging between flame-fractals and 3d-fractals by applying flame-variations to 3d-fractals and primitives or 3d-mesh-import and more. In general, there are really tons of features, making the app both very powerful…
- VERSION 2.17.1764 - 23 January 2026
now I finished the first playable version of the fractal-breakout game. Have fun!complete changelog:VERSION 2.17.1764 (23.01.2026): - chillout bricks: - first working/playable version finished! (SWAN-548) - created levels 51-60 (SWAN-492) - created levels 61-70 (SWAN-493) - created levels 71-80 (SWAN-494) - created levels 81-90 (SWAN-495) - created levels 91-101 (SWAN-496) - separate level generator from flame-file-handler (allowing to vary the flames for each level) (SWAN-385) - optimized rendering settings for improving the number of reached fps (SWAN-384) - motion-curves: added a new "kick"-type of formula, which can be used for motion-curve-modulation. It mimics the kick of a drum sound (SWAN-546) - motion-curves: added a new option to smooth the generated fft data (this does not change the actual data, and you may use an different smoothing setting for each motion-curve) (SWAN-547)…
- VERSION 2.16.1753 - 14 January 2026
complete changrelog:VERSION 2.16.1753 (14.01.2026): - chillout bricks: - added option to quit the game in pause-mode (SWAN-399) - create video about adding audio to flames and creating audio-synchronized animations (SWAN-545) - improved handling of save window-position of the main-window which sometimes reset automatically (SWAN-162) - fixed a bug in the calculation of the "juliac"-variation (SWAN-464) - added new video links to the info-section (SWAN-544)VERSION 2.15.1748 (12.01.2026): - chillout bricks: - created "gothic"-theme (SWAN-534) - created "wedding"-theme (SWAN-533) - created "autumn"-theme (SWAN-521) - created "pastel"-theme (SWAN-520) - created "ink"-theme (SWAN-537) - created "random"-theme (SWAN-486) - created "candy"-theme (SWAN-485) - save also the maximum reached level of the player to the highscore list (SWAN-402) - created a video about animation flames (SWAN-34) - m…
- Merry Christmas! VERSION 2.9.1682 - 25 December 2025
Merry Christmas!This free update brings 3 new major things:hdr-image-outputnew help-module with links to the user's manual and official videosmajor ui overhaul: elements are now better grouped and distinguishable from each other. Also, you can add/remove multiple points at once on motion-curve- and gradient-editorAnd, much more.Complete changelog:VERSION 2.9.1682 (24.12.2025): - added separate options for move/rotate/zoom of layers (currently can not to be animated) (SWAN-460) - fixed: zoom/move for layers in flame-painter was not working (SWAN-442) - made the appearance of flame-thumbnails more consistent (aspect ratio sometimes was off) (SWAN-457) - make the different application-themes more consistent (e. g. same corner radius for fields) (SWAN-458) - added different background colors for different themes (SWAN-459) - removed selection-border around tree-views and item-list-views (SW…
- VERSION 2.0.1603: free version 2.0 upgrade! - 5 December 2025
After 500 commits, 10000 file edits and completing 200 tasks I finally finished JWildfireSwan 2.0 which comes as free update!Together with some minor enhancements there comes a brand-new module: flame painter.In short, flame painter allows to visually compose flames of flames by using an instancing-like approach.It is a substantial extension to the "classic" fractal-flame-algorithm.It allows to render an unlimited number of copies of the same base flame (with different attributes) at the same time.So it can be compared to the instancing-feature of 3d-packages like Lightwave3D, which allow to render a large number of copies (instances) of the same 3d-object in a very efficient way to generate detailed structures like grass.In flame painter you can do basically the same, but due to the nature of the fractal-flame-algorithm it is even more powerful.You can replace most single attributes of…
