KPT comments and bounced message

[Alfredo Luis Mateus <almateus@globalsite.com.br>]

Hi all,

I'm glad you guys liked the idea to talk about KPT. I think there's lots
to talk about, specially the interface issues.

But first a message that bounced to me. The author should please check
what address he is subscribed to the list. You always have to post from
that address, otherwise it bounces. Welcome to Rayo, from Lurking Land
to FF!

--------------Starts here----
>From: Rayo <rayo@all7.com>
>Subject: Plugin comments and ideas
>I was approached by a guy working at MetaCreations and he asked me for
>comments, complaints about KPT and ideas for future plugins...
>...
>

Hi All,

Here's my wish list for KPT 6:

* Alternate numeric color data entry option (in RGB, HLS, or CMYK) for
all
places in UI where color may be specified.  That little color wheel can
be
a real pain sometimes, can't it?  (But perhaps MetaC fixed this already
in
KPT 5?)

* Option to have menus stay open without holding down mouse button.  

* For Kaleidoscope filter:
  1.option to resize preview area.
  2.option to apply filter to preview area only.  This would
    also either create mask of (preferred) or apply solid color to rest
of
image.

* A jewel plugin. (both smooth-round jewels and faceted jewels)

* An iridescent fish (or dragon!) scales plugin. 

* A sparkler plugin. (remember the old fashioned gold color wire
sparklers?
beautiful!)

* A lightning plugin. 

* A feathers plugin. 

* Flames and lens flare like Genesis VFX (I can wish can't I?).

* $50 (or less) to upgrade (now I'm really dreaming, eh?).

Rayo Lake
(lurker no more ;o) )

-------Ends here--------

Wow, lots of ideas here. I like the idea of the sparklers, fireworks are
a real nice thing. It could have both the more spherical, radial
distribution of sparks (like the small sparkler) up to the distorted
huge firework in the sky look, where it opens and falls down. This would
be really cool for animation. I think there's something like this on one
of the premiere or after effects plugin packages.
About lightning, that's a hard one to get right. Do you guys think
Xenofex does a good job? One of the best lightning effects I've seen
comes from an action, not a plugin, can't remember the name of the guy
now. 
The jewel is a really new one. Could come with the option of having
multiple reflections of an environment map. If you know Painter, it has
a wonderful liquid metal brush plugin. The key to metal is to give it
something to reflect (the environment map), otherwise it seems fake.
Glass has transmision, but also has reflections, specially a faceted
crystal. 
Actually, it now comes to my mind that one of the best things
MetaCreations could do right now is to increase the interaction between
Bryce 3D and Photoshop/Painter. I would love to see:
- a height map generator inside photoshop, where you could see a quick
preview of what you are doing in 3D (zoomable). It is hard if not
impossible to do a precise job inside Bryce and it is a pain to go from
one to the other all the time.
- Photoshop and Bryce could both profit from a Materials Editor plugin.
Sometimes you want to use a material in a Photoshop project and
sometimes you would like to modify a texture using photoshop's tools.
And the texture generator in Bryce is sometimes more interesting than
the one in KPT, specially the deep materials editor.


Alf