Welcome to Fractal Forums

Hey guys,

I'm a french student fond of fractals. I discovered fractals 2 years ago (thanks to my Math teacher), but I had no idea that it was possible to create and make our own fractals.
I thought it was only a mathematical concept, viewable in some natural vegetable  ;D (Romanesco).
So, a few months ago, while I was randomly surfing on the net, I found Mandelbulb 3D and Don Whitaker's tutorials, that helped me a lot to learn the basics of MandelBulb 3D. (thanks a lot Don)
I watched a lot of fractal videos on the web and I really want to make my own trips in those iterations... I started to do some animations, but the compilation takes a lot of time, it looks like this kind of stuff requires a lot of patience  :) . I've only done some low quality .gifs at the moment to see how to manage the quality/speed/movements/rendertimer etc ... Can't wait to master those video settings :)

Anyway, I was just wondering if there's a way to add some formulas in Mandelbulb, or to create our own formulas?

Also, is Mandelbulb 1.8.9.0 the latest version available? I first started making fractals with Mandelbulber but I prefer MandelBulb 3D a lot more. Does Mandelbulber have features that Mandelbulb doesn't have? Are there huge differences between those 2 programs?

And, are there some other programs that can help in the conception of fractals? Like Fiji/Zbrush to export them as meshes and brushes for example.

If there are some topics/threads that have to be read by a begginer feel free to share them here :-)

Peace  O0

 

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Yes, fractals can take a long time to render, and animations even moreso, but worth the wait if you get it right   :D

Adding formulas to MB3D is ...  borderline impossible.  Possible if you know assembly language - impossible if you don't or can't learn it  :alien:

Differences between Mandelbulber and Mandelbulb3D are primarily in the user interface.  I haven't tried the new one released for Mandelbulber 2.X yet - but I plan to do so.  Not sure of the status of animation in Mandelbulber,  There are entire subsections of the forum for each program and they may already have topics about things you want to ask.  Check here to start : http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbulb-software/

Feel free to post your work in our gallery and ask questions in the forum about any specific problems you may be having.

I do make fractal meshes from time to time and there are tutorials in the various sections.  In the MB3D also search for the word Voxel or the phrase Voxel Stack.

Hope that helps and have fun with it!

EDIT TO ADD:  OOPS!  Forgot the Biggest difference between MB3D and Mandelbulber!!

MB3D Development has stopped, and yes you have the most current (and final) version.  Jesse, the creator, has moved on and the project has been retired.  It's still a great program but Mandelbulber will continue to develop while it is unlikely MB3D will ever see another release   :sad1: :sad1:

Since Mandelbulber v2.0x is still in development, there is room for improvement. Could you describe why you prefer Mandelbulb 3D over Mandelbulber?

I have some experience in adding formulas to Mandelbulber v2.0x , so I could help you with adding formulas to Mandelbulber.

Ok Thank you Sockratease for these precious informations :) I'm sad to hear that Mandelbulb3D development has stopped, but hopefully it's quite enough complex to have fun with it :)

@youhn: I had an old version of Mandelbulber (1.3 if I remember right), that's maybe why I felt such a difference ... and the tutorials I found were for Mandelbulb3D so I sticked with this one. I'm gonna download the latest version to have more experience with those 2 programs.  ;D