				Pennello 1.0 Release Notes                                
				10/07/94

Thank you for buying Pennello!  The following are a few known bugs, tips,
and issues of which you should be aware:

Saving effect libraries in Release 3 of 3D Studio:

IMPORTANT:  If you are using Pennello inside Release 3 of 3D Studio, your 
library names must be 7 characters or less.  Saving 8 character library names 
in Release 3 causes Pennello to hang.  7 character and fewer library names 
are fine.  If you are running Release 4 of 3D Studio, you should be able to 
work with 8 character library names.

Also, if you create a new library and save it under a unique name, you will 
still get an over-write warning.  If you are sure your new library name is 
unique, simply disregard the warning.

Changes to the tutorial:

On page 38 of the manual, you should choose "markd.tif" as your
brush file, instead of "64oilthk.bmp".

On manual pp. 57, 59, and 62, you should load "sphereg.tif" instead
of "sphere2.tif".

800x600 Main-Display Requirement:

Pennello requires that your 3D Studio Main-Display be set to 800x600 
resolution, or higher.  8-Bit support has been included in this release, 
although we recommend that you run Pennello at 65K colors, or higher 
(i.e. configure 3D Studio Main-Display for 65k or higher) .  At 65K colors, 
you do not experience any real performance hit as compared to 256 colors, 
but the brushing looks much better and you will be able to more accurately 
preview effects.  

Placement of "Xaos" directory:

The "Xaos" directory must reside in the directory pointed to by the 
IMAGE-PATH parameter of the 3ds.set file.  The 3d Studio default for this 
is the "3ds3\images" directory.  If you have edited your 3ds.set file so 
that the IMAGE-PATH parameter points to a different directory, that directory 
is where the "Xaos" directory should go.  You can either specify that 
directory when you are installing Pennello, or else manually move the "Xaos" 
directory after installation.  IF THE "XAOS" DIRECTORY  IS NOT IN THE 
DIRECTORY INDICATED BY THE 3DS.SET IMAGE-PATH PARAMETER, 
PENNELLO WILL NOT LAUNCH. 

Gamma:  

The images and previews in the Pennello User Interface are not Gamma 
Corrected.  To ensure that your final rendering closely resembles your 
preview, and that any parameters set to vary by image attributes such as 
value or saturation vary accurately, it is recommended that you turn Gamma 
correction OFF in 3D Studio when rendering with Pennello.

Working with Large Images:  

Pennello allocates memory through 3D Studio for Source stand-in and Transition 
images at the time that you invoke the UI.  The memory required for these 
images is considerable: for example, a 3K by 3K source image takes 
27 Megabytes (3000x3000x3, 1 byte per channel for r, g, and b channels.)  
If you have transition enabled, this number is doubled: transition images are 
always scaled to source stand-in size.  Consequently, if you are 
working with large source stand-in images, disable Transition in the 
Preferences dialog to reduce your memory requirements by half.   

Since setting Max Source Size large in Preferences severely degrades 
performance in the Pennello UI, it is advisable to set Max Source Size to a 
reasonable image size, no larger than is necessary for that session.   Also,  
work with scaled down versions of large (for example, slide or film 
resolution) images and simply set source scale and max target size 
to the destination resolution when creating effects in the Pennello UI.  

Working with Large Images and Low Disk Space:

If you are working with large images in Pennello and run out of memory, 
Pennello will (through 3ds) start swapping to disk.  If you run out of disk 
space, Pennello is not notified, and continues to try to swap until it 
crashes.  To avoid this situation         
	- Work with scaled down versions of your images to create and preview                                                           
	your effect in Pennello.        
	- Disable Transition when working with large images.        
	- Calculate the amount of memory you will need to load your source 
	stand-in and transition images in advance, and make sure that you 
	have ample disk space to handle any swapping.

Save Preview/ Last Saved Preview:

The legal formats in which to save previews are .tga, .tif, and .bmp.  The 
other formats' compression destroys the checksum which associates the preview 
with the effect.  If you attempt to save a preview as a .jpg, .gif, .cel, or 
explicitly type in the .fl* extension, you will get an error message, and the 
preview will not have been saved.  If you enter the filename and select the 
.FL* button, the preview will be saved as the last file type you loaded into 
the UI, and the Last Saved Preview/Load Preview function will not be able to 
locate it.  There is a bug with 3ds file naming where, if you have rendered 
in the Keyframer using sequential file numbering during the current session 
of 3d Studio, the save file dialog appends the number of the last file it 
rendered to the filename you enter into the Save Preview dialog.  Pennello 
can't find these files, since it is looking for the name you typed in.  
Therefore, these previews won't load with effects.  To get around this 
problem, save previews in a 3D Studio session in which you have not done any 
KF rendering.  

Vary by Hue:

Hue in Pennello varies linearly from hue=0 and hue=255.  Attributes such as 
size, angle, and opacity when set to vary by hue vary from hue=0 to hue=255, 
not really from Warm to Cool as stated in the docs.

Progress Bars:  

The Pennello Progress Bars are, indeed, red on a green background, with no 
visible text, once you have toggled the display to the rendering screen and
back.  Due to some peculiarities of being an IPAS routine, we 
ultimately had to choose between these progress bars or no progress bars at 
all.  Because the various parts of the brushing process can take a while, 
particularly as brush density and brush size increase, we decided 
the progress bars were necessary.

Pennello in 3ds3 vs. 3ds4:

Pennello is fully compatible with Releases 3 and 4 of 3D Studio.  One 
difference you might notice in Pennello's behavior between  the two releases: 
in Release 3, a new Pennello instance will open with the images and settings 
of the last Pennello instance used.  In Release 4, a new instance will open 
with the default settings and no images loaded.  

Pennello on Low Memory Systems: 

Pennello has been reported to exit ungracefully when launched on a low memory 
(8 Megs of RAM) system.  We recommend a minimum of 16 Megs of RAM for 
reasonable results and performance when working with Pennello.

Loading Sequential Image Files:  

If you enter too few characters of the base filename before the asterix 
(for example, abc*.tga rather than abcd*.tga for a sequence of files 
beginning with abcd0000.tga) when loading Source Stand-In, Transition, or 
Brush files into Pennello, Pennello appears to hang.  A few moments later, 
it returns an "ERROR: can't find file...." msg.  Avoid this by 
entering the full base filenames when loading sequences of files. Also, as
in the Video Post dialog, if you type a period but no file extension 
after the asterix (as in abcd*.) you will get an error message.

Making Brushes:

Pennello ships with a directory of brushes, for your use.  You will probably 
find that you get unique and exciting results with brushes of your own 
making, however.  We have found applications such as Adobe Photoshop and 
Fractal Painter to be of great value in making brushes for use in Pennello.  
3d Studio and Autodesk Animator Pro are also a great source of still and 
animated brushes.  The Maximum brush size that Pennello allows is 512x512 
pixels.  We suggest padding brushes with a row of black pixels on all sides 
(i.e., not allowing the brush image to extend to extreme edge of the image 
area,) as there have been reports of brushes having the bottom and left edges 
of the image cropped slightly.  Additionally, using smoothed gradients in 
brushes reduces the appearance of aliasing in final, brushed images.

Network Rendering:

Pennello works beautifully over a network, with the hardware lock on only the 
master machine.   One detail to bear in mind:  the "brushes" directory must 
be in the MAP-PATHS of all the network slave machines, so that brushes used 
by effects can be found at render time. 

Enjoy! 
