Tag Archive: Apophysis


Ok, an announcement. I guess I’m back.

I’ve decided to return here for good. Some changes might happen though but they aren’t exacly definitive. I haven’t also explored what is new in terms of security and plugins to find if there is still interesting to be added to the site, but the basic that will happen from now on is;
1. Images won’t be added to galleries, unless I change my mood. They will posted individually, sometimes with a short description of anything relevant (where I got its name inspiration, how many time it took to render, etc), sometimes just with the name of the image. it’s too boring to add each image again, add a description, etc etc. Let the galleries for my old images. They might also be trimmed down at some point, removing images I don’t care much about them anymore. As I’ve said, there was a period of my “fractal life” where I was somehow compelled so to speak (by stupid group of users) to make a huge number of images in a short period of time (come on, you must be creative they said), and it became a job. with NO rewards. And 99% of the images didn’t satisfy ME. A couple (a dozen or more, actually) images that have been made in a year or so an posted in my FB page (that might or not have appeared here in the past) will be posted here as well. Actually, the FB page is… http://www.facebook/mundofractal/ (I guess), I’m not sure if you will be able to reach it from here.
2. The images won’t have a bookmark anymore most of the time, unless I find the image is a real “masterpiece”. If thieves want to steal it, they will. It’s quite easy and fast to add a watermark, but it’s even faster to cover it. The images won’t be posted anywhere else by me, I am not part of any digital community, forum or FB group. If they are posted without my usual internet nicknames (Mr. Mandelbrot, marcusbacus, fractallland, etc. etc….), they were probably stolen. Fuck that.
3. I have a Facebook page about it now as well just for posting images and a very small comment (a name or of the image and a line or so), but both here and FB have a giant annoyances to make you post stuff when you have made a few more images you like. Here I have a little more room to post and not care much if it is being sen or not (it is…), and the FB annoying “BOOST THIS IMAGE FOR JUST $5 TO GET MORE 10000 VIEWS in every single fucking post is really annoying, hence I’m trying to go back here. No, I don’t want to boost these posts neither make Mark more rich. Fractals is my hobby, not my income. Or his.
4. I might add an email account again  (I lost my account where I registered my UF account so I can’t even get updates or re-registering my copy when I need an instalattion of my old registered – expensive! -copy of the updates since version 5 so I’m still using the v. 4something) just for dealing with any subject that might appear here – questions, comments that don’t fit in the comments page, and other random things. If it goes to a spam list, it’s gone.
5. I still am hating Apophysis. I am in a very very “old school” phase, so it will be more just very common spirals, midgets and some other popular images that will be the core of the next posts, I suppose. Eventually there will be a bit more abstract stuff like in the past, but I need inspiration.

6. It’s very sad to hear about Paul N. Lee’s passing and all his major fractal archive of softwares, tutorials, formulas being gone.

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Pretty!

This is now my favourite image. It’s been a while since I made something new, but I really liked this one. It’s so pretty that I decided to post it by itself. It’s kind of a cheat, though as I’ve used an Apophysis script to create it with just a few tweaks. It looks wonderful and with a lot of details with its original 4000 pixels size. Might be included in my Zazzle prints sometime.

Empty head fractal

Empty head

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This is why I should keep going

Many thanks to the guys at Orbit Trap to have quoted my opinions, to slightly discuss them and more, to understood them perfectly. I’m more than anything learning to be honest with my own feelings (artistically and in everything else) so whatever I’ve said here about my disappointments with fractal stuff in general that was repercuted by Orbit Trap is absolutely true. Whenever I say I am hating Apophysis for example, I really do. But I’m hating the Deviant kind of Apophysis – the mass-produced, randomized thing.

I don’t have any personal or commercial links to any of these people (from the evil or the good side of the force) so I just said what happened to me and my creative process during all these years and how to following the self-similarity flock was making me a worse artist and making extremely bored. And I think I could only understand what was going on when I read these posts at Orbit trap pointing me to some obvious things that most people (comfortably) refuse to see, better still have your comment box filled with friends pats on the back than making something you’re enjoying.

I’m touching some sensitive fields now I guess trying the Mandelbulb images (and I’m starting to like them despite hating it at first), as they seem to be the latest hit of the moment, but as there isn’t much of a community or group dedicated to that (not that I have seen) except the few posts at the Fractal Forums neither too many tutorials in the common corporate fractal galleries, which I try as much as possible not to read unless i’m looking for a fix for a problem, I am a bit “isolated” from whatever kind of “style trend” in Mandelbulbs that might be en vogue (sorry for the french) so far and I’m very pleased with the images I’m making even though I can make only an image a week or something. I see a lot of posts mentioning “whipped cream”, “cathedrals” etc. etc. but I have no idea how to do that neither I want to do that kind of thing. I’m using Mandelbulb 3D just like when I first started Fractint: using my instinct. I liked what I did? OK, I’ll save and post. I didn’t like? Let’s start again.

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Mandelbulb compositions?

From my few experiences with the Mandelbulb, most of the images I could make so far that didn’t look like something that has been done by other fractal artists or that don’t look too much like other fractals remind me of coral reefs. A lot of them, actually. Or it’s a coral reef or it’s a futuristic building. Not bad, because I am not really stuck or am being forced into a certain picture style neither I have the need to make just common 3D fractal images by the dozens (that many other people are doing anyway), but it would be very interesting if there was a way to import some other 3D objects (non-fractal stuff) into that, like for example… fish.

This could lead though to a lot of cheesy mixed images like some we see at these online communities, with odd Poser nude girls mixed with colourful fake landscapes done in Bryce and some Apophysis things scattered here and there for a final touch, but if used right and done right, it would make things very interesting in this new 3D realm.

Also in images like these futuristic cities some other details could be added – spaceships, “cars”, fractal trees, people, ETs… again, without making it look too much like some of these furry porn characters, that look more like a bad acid trip than something really creative and ingenious.

There is a way to import background pictures in Mandelbulb 3D, but these are useful only to create sky textures I suppose, with a few planets and clouds. If there was a way to add actual 3D objects, things would get a bit more interesting sometimes, if one wants to move a bit away from the chaos and fractals and the random abstract things. In these reef images for example, 3D fish or other critters could really make the images very interesting. But again, purists would cry their hearts out saying it’s not a fractal (it isn’t… nobody said it was in the first place!).

I’ll start posting some of these images as soon as I have about half a dozen of them, maybe they will have their own galleries as they are of a different kind of fractals. I need to get better with the software first, I’m having some difficulties to understand its rendering parameters and I’m getting some images with artifacts and grains and other unwanted things that are ruining some possibly interesting images. As there still aren’t good tutorials on Mandelbulbs, I’m still lost and going on my own.

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The Fractal Factory, once more

I was bored and started to look for fractal tutorials. And of course, I ended up at Deviant. Then I found this (sorry) hilarious tutorial for Apophysis.

Hopefully this person could have changed his/her mind about the process of creating a good fractal as it seems that this tutorial was written in 2005, but from what you can get from this tutorial, it’s all “random, random, random + luck” the ingredients you need to make a decent Apophysis image.  Ah, and patience as well. Forget about understanding how to use the several edit features, just wait and maybe one of your 1000 randomly-generated images will be worth the posting at one of these sites.

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