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Fractalforums.com
10th Annual Fractal Art Competition 2017


Fractalforums.com is holding the "Annual Fractal Art Contest" for the 10th time in row in the year of 2017. It will be the last one in its current form, it is already a month delayed and shall celebrate what happened in the forums in the past 10 years

Christian can not continue administering this forum as it happened in the last decade, nevertheless he urges you to contribute to the competition to have something to remember. We are at the very height and at the beginning of a new era, mainstream film makers now use fractals in their productions e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Dr. Strange both where filmed with users from this forum. Christian is continuing loving fractals but needs to take care for creating something bigger to the end of his live - worldwide fractal museums - to achieve this he simply has no longer any time to administer the forum, the team has already taken action for filling a follow up forum, although it is not clear when a switch will happen, but it will. Christian spend in average at least one hour in the forums keeping it up and running and now loves to see what other thought about it so join the competition ... if the forum isnt already dead - i did not even check if something happens here, if i am writing this into the void my fault.

 
Prizes are, as every year, but this time for all the first three ranks, winning images printed on coffee cups the first ones will be the biggest.

Statement regarding voting system:
 everything stays as it was in the year before, the total sum of gained
stars in the voting process are the one and only thing relevant for the final outcome. We are aware that the process
is not perfect.


The most important link for the compo comes first, the gallery is where everything takes place, uploading
and voting. This is the link to the gallery section:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=121

Official Sponsor for this years contest is: Frontend Solutions GmbH (http://froso.de)


Time Schedule
- Submission Period begins on 1st of June at 00:00 Central European Time
- Submission Period ends on 30st of June at 23:59:59 Central European Time
- Voting Period begins on 1st of July at 00:00:00 Central European Time
- Voting Period ends on 31st of July at 23:59:59 Central European Time

Rules:

*new, not obligatory*
Please sign your work, by placing the text "fractalforums.com Annual Fractal Art Contest 2017" inside your production
you state crystal clear that you have produced it especially for the contest, and future viewers of the product will have
a straight time location from when the product was produced. This was originally meant to be obligatory from the administrator
but has been rejected by the admin people who thought that it would restrict artistic liberty too much, so make the admin happy and include it!

As every year, a contributor may enter up to 3 entries in each section of the competition,
so every contributor may enter up to 9 total competition entries.

The Competition is (as always) split up into 3 sections, which are this year "Film Postcard","Still Frame Postcard" and
as varying section we have this year the "Still Frame Wildstyle" section.

It is desirable to publish "new" stuff in the contest, do not bore us with already known stuff. Anything
already competing in another contest, or somehow already known to a wider public is unwanted. The
administration team for the contest is not strictly excluding anything from the contest
so it is up to you to either bore us to death or come up with inspiring new work. It would be to hard
to verify every entry by hand, so nothing will be disqualified, but keep in mind that something already
known wont get too much votes ...

The whole voting and submission is done in the gallery. This year video submission are submitted
by using the "Enter Video" feature of the current gallery, most of popular video hosting sites are included.

Remarks
Remark about the voting System
The winner is determined by the total sum of stars. Which means that a single 5 star vote can not outnumber
for example an entry with two 3 star ratings. Although there was an effort to introduce a new voting counting
system, it will stay this way for this year - and presumably until 10th anniversary of the contest.

Remark about Time Schedule
Time scheduling caused confusion, due to contestants spread over the whole world, each of the schedules is
a "soft" schedule, especially the entry time. If you come up with your entry half a day late ( but no more than a day),
it is perfectly fine. Consider that entries which are longer in the view of reviewers have a better impact, and that
later entered entries might get overlooked.

Remark about Voting System I
During the time of the submission period and the voting period the display of view counts and current voting is
globally disabled in the gallery.

Remark about Voting System  II
Each section will feature 2 winners, one by the most total counts, and one by the best average count. The places 2 and 3 are obtained the same way, so 6 possible winners for each section

Remark about Gallery File Sizes and Dimension
The hosting package for the website is now at maximum, the allowed image sizes have been incread immensely,
now 5000x5000 pixels and a file size of 25 megabytes is now enabled for uploads


The Competition is split up into 3 sections:

Competition Sections
Still Frame Postcard (that has actually been send!)
This competition is meant to collect the best that happened in the forums in the last decade, anything that comes to your mind, and that you personally associate with the forums may be visualised. Make it look like an actual postcard ready to be send out, perhaps even including a backface with some greetings. Make a picture of the mandelbulb, make a picture of yourself browsing the gallery when competition time, as always: be creative!

Still Frame Wildstyle Gallery section
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=122

Film Postcard

If one image is not enough use this section to celebrate anything that comes to your mind regarding last decade and fractalforums in special. Again enter the state of mind of how you would make a remembrance of the events that happened in the forums, to name a few: the moderator struggling for help and the forums takes care for everything, paying server bills ( the largest payment came from india !!! ) to keep the forums alive... the history of the competition with just 10 people or so participating in the beginning ... fractalforums calendar attempts with now having people participating in the calendar now participating in actual hollywood movies (guardians of the galaxy, dr. strange) ... the mentioning of the discovery of the mandelbulb in many many scientific magazines and even popular magazines mentioned it back then ... the even more exciting finding of the mandelbox by tglad (which is what is actually used in guardians of the galaxy and dr. strange) ... even more hollywood movies like bighero6 featuring the mandelbulb ... a fractal forums user meeting in san sebastian ... invitation of christian by university of mexico to talk about 3d fractals ... and so on ...


Gallery section
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=123

Still Frame Wild


Still Frame Wildstyle Gallery Section:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=124

The film also have to be in postcard style, like a "living" postcard?
Tricky with a 360° video  :hrmm:

The few images that I had prepared with this years contest in mind have already been published (very recently) because I wasn't sure if/when this contest would happen so my entries may be conspicuously absent because I want to abide by the rules and don't want to throw something together in a rush.

The "end of an era" indeed! It sounds a little ominous.

I have certainly enjoyed the people and topics here, a priceless resource to be sure. I hope the next incarnation of this forum is as compelling as this has been. Who will host the site? is there a plan in the works? I assume the name won't change but is someone prepared to step up to ensure this forum continues? I really really hope so.

 :beer: :beer: :beer: to all of the contributors, members and mods  :beer: :beer: :beer:

I certainly hope the forum isn't going anywhere...

I probably have nothing to submit this year as most of my work focuses on "deep zoom" mandelbrots or abs fractals. Last years was certainly awesome though. ;)

Please, can you change the limit per day while the competition is running?

The categories are open to interpretation   O0

The idea is simply to do something that in some way reflects what this site means (or has meant) to you.  It's an odd choice, but it's what Christian wanted for his last time hosting the contest.


Fear not!

There is a new site already up and running and in the final phases of construction    :dink:

We'll be having a "Public Beta Test" of the site begin either during the contest or immediately afterward.

There's a lot to clean up before we let the general membership in, and we want it to go smoothly.

As for your entries - feel free to post a previously released pic in the contest.  That has never been a rule, just a suggestion!  If you want to delete it from the gallery before the contest, feel free  (I don't know if that is a permission that is set or not - if you can't do so, and wish to do so, just PM any moderator and they can help out!).

Finally, to your concerns about someone prepared to step up to ensure this forum continues, it's already done.

Most of our active staff have been involved in our "Alpha testing" of the new forum, and we'll be inviting people in soon.  We wont have a single Administrator at first.  It will be a group effort.  But we did designate one of us (not me!) to be the final arbiter in any big decisions which split opinions.

This site will always remain as an archive.  There is too much valuable information here to let it vanish.  It will simply lock down from posting and registering and discussions can be carried over to the new site.

It should be a much better forum once we get rid of all the errors this old version contains.  We're even trying to keep the look and feel as close to this site as possible   :police:


Again, we aren't going away - just growing!

Your deep zoom is a welcome video entry - especially if it was made with software from here  (like MandelMachine or Kalles Fractaller and the like).  Perturbation was refined here as a technique and it is a big part of the history of this site, so it surely counts!

Again, the topic is very open to interpretation.

I think the important part is describing your rationale along with your post.


We do that every year!

It goes up to 9 - since there are 3 categories with 3 entries each.  Yes, personal gallery posts count as part of the 9, so just be careful of that and all should go smoothly.

Sorry I don't understand... I currently still have a limit of one image per day  :'(

Apologies.

I thought Christian took care of that   :hurt:

It should be up to 9 now.

Let us know if I didn't get that right.

thx sock, there is some points to clarify from my point of view which i do at a later stage, for now lets celebrate the last decade, even images that have been submitted to previous competitions would be fine now, lets see what comes out of it, later this evening i remove the views/votings for the images to not give any hints of current standing, and prepare some nice banners to be displayed at top, nice to hear for the warm acceptance of this years circumstances :)

and the newsletter is not even quarter finished to inform all members about current competition, will continue the sending throughout the evening and when more adjustments to gallery system have taken place

Now it's working properly, thanks! :)

i think i need to clarify by what is meant by the fractal postcard section, it is mean to be understood as postcard actually send from any time in the fractalforums history, with greeting text or something, it is not meant to be a "fractal postcard" but a "fractal postcard actually send"

updated inspirational texts to what is actually meant in the sections it is a huge manifest i want to realize throughout the process am i the only one believing this forums has already a huge impact to the world or am i just megalomaniac ? (what i am certainly am, but is it just fake that hollywood studios are using stuff that has actually been discussed here long before they used it??? )

for anyone missing the mentioning of haltenny by the director of guardians of the galaxy2 at about the last this interview:

https://vimeo.com/216007654

and now express this through a picture/movie

everything is possible and the possibilities are endless - be aware of that. and as i try to express, its about what has brought you to the forums, what you like, what you think could make it to a postcard when send from that time a video would try to somehow package that in a story ... or just a winking mandelbulb in the void saying "greetings from the bulb"

Hello, I can't find the "Enter video" function and I have decided to publish by introducing the YouTube's direct link for the video. Now it happens that when I see the publication on my computer doesn't appear the YouTube's embedded player, however on my mobile phone I can see it.

Can someone tell me if have the same problem and how to solve it?

It shows and plays fine from here.

The only issue was that it took about a minute to load and show at all.

Not sure why it took so long, but it worked.

You did just copy and paste the url from the address bar of your browser, right?

Don't use any embed codes they give, just paste the link from the address bar of the browser - the embed codes are problematic on this particular forum.

Yeah, I just paste the direct link. Thank you very much!

I just did the ritual disabling of stuff in the Gallery for the contest.

Christian usually does it, so if I broke anything, please post here!  I was careful, but can undo anything I did easily so if there is an issue which I can't see - just let me know!

For those who don't know, we disable the ratings during submission period and re-enable them for "voting."  We also disable the things like "most viewed" in the main view so it doesn't influence the voting.

Again, if I did something wrong, let me know!

I believe that fractalforums had impact. You see, new Euronews house looks like something computer generated with holes like of Mandelbox. Just a coincidence?
(http://www.designboom.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/jakob-macfarlane-green-cube-euronews-headquarters-lyon-confluence-france-designboom-01.jpg)

Here they are building sierpinsky triangle:
(https://archaeology-travel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/grand-egyptian-museum-in-construction.jpg)
Of this:
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/5c/af/f0/5caff064191a9fda7cb7e5a97a8d2cfe.jpg)

And this is largers resource about this. Its not the direct influence but its spreading like waves of thrown rock.

i am so sad no one recognizes this forum outside the forums, and even forum members dont mind participating, so i am very disappointed about how i managed the forum that it became so non recognised by any public, and the low interested in this years compo i see as simple fail for me ... nevertheless i need to make a teaser video before compo ends, love you all people


so big movie companies take advantage of the efforts here but no one even seems to be able to celebrate, really really really pittiful and sad situation here for me ... i am just not able to pull publicity out of it ... goddam it






which might lead to a total shutdown of the forums, keeping content alive, but i wont be supplying any more time in a forum that is just taken advantage of but no one seems to like giving back,  like sponsoring or even publicly mention it goddam .... and so i wont be hosting the forums2 supposedly ... i am shameful for the situation of not pulling out a kais powertool publicity site although he is working with member of forums here,
 its really such a silly situation that it puts out impact but no one recognise it... and since this years competition is not going to change it a bit since no one participates i take it as fluff of and make my own thing perhaps i do manage to create a fractal museum in 10 years but this is a reallly really really fluffing disappointing fluffing situation damn it not even deviantart users of forums outcome celebrate this site what a horrible situation i am feeling like i did nothing accomplish in the years

Working on my submissions  ;D

I feel it too :( FF is a rare collection of talent, maybe in the terms of use, or the footer of every page, you could add a clause that states the "collective" (members) own all ideas, research, proofs, papers, code and formulas displayed here in and that full credit must be given for use of said material or derivative works.

Then leak to the press that certain unnamed film studios may have derived ideas, formulas and/or code from this forum...

it could generate a buzz ;)

@cKleinhuis You've done an outstanding job and I personally thank you for allowing me the opportunity to explore where no one has gone before  :beer: :beer: :beer: don't let it get you down buddy!!!

just my thoughts :)

cKleinhuis:
Yes it's like we are naive people.

I wouldn't put lack of public interest on you. I've been working on a submission for this year, but fractal rendering is a relatively niche interest that doesn't have much public presence besides its inclusion in special effects for a few big-name movies recently. Even then, most people probably didn't know what they were actually looking at with stuff like the mandelbulbs in Big Hero 6 or HalTenny's contributions to Guardians of the Galaxy 2. The forum is a great resource for people who already have an interest in fractal rendering, but that's a really specific hobby to have and most people probably wouldn't have reason to find this place unless they were already looking for it.

I have recognized the same thing. I don't really even post here, but in my mind this website has a huge amount of street cred.

Just want to add that I really feel a huge debt to this forum and always have...
Been linking to ff many many times from my works.
Been contributing to the contest every year, this year has been very busy with my work and 3D prints and I have not been able to be as productive with images as I used to, I will contribute with a special piece as soon as I am finished with it. (and if I have time there might be one or two more...)
Love this forum. Thank you Christian and all you folks who makes this place DA SHIT!

Here is a postcard I made for the forums for the contest in 2013, click image for full story posted on Deviantart.

(http://t00.deviantart.net/EcUI5hd7tQUcDE1Qmbf6PZ8ejdI=/fit-in/700x350/filters:fixed_height(100,100):origin()/pre14/06ca/th/pre/i/2013/153/d/0/the_solution___and_the_cow_playing_hide_and_seek___by_mandelwerk-d67jl2t.jpg) (http://fav.me/d67jl2t)

I'm having trouble submitting images, after the image uploads I get taken to a blank page and nothing gets submitted.  Tried on both Chrome and Edge.  Image is under the max file size and max dimensions. :hmh:

i remember having that problem on some occasions before.  i forget what the problem was.  might have been the result of some adblockers or such...

Thanks for the idea, but I tried it across multiple computers and browsers and still am getting a blank page.   :sad1:

actually im remembering now the last time it happened to me i ended up trying to change the resolution by a few pixels or something and then it worked.  so probably a site bug?

I got it to work!  Just had to reduce my image width down from 5000 px.  Thanks!

Voting period delayed as well?  :police:

I am unsure.

Technically, it's already delayed by the same interval as the submission period, right?

Today is the day of transition anyhow - some people and their calendars are not on the same dates as others.

But that final decision is up to Christian!  He's hosting this thing.

I would guess that entries will be cut off within 18 hours or so of this post, and "voting" will begin.

I guess we'll see...

 :thumbsup1:

Looks like it, but it doesn't matter for we will vote, if not today...tomorrow ;)  I myself already started the voting periode today by watching the movies for the first time. (even twice)   Tonight with  a beverage I will look at them again on the big screen and check my notes and make a descision.  I keep the video of the "Chill(heimer)"  for last, for it takes some  time to have it slowly sink in ;) and like he sid himself will be very relaxing, so very good before I go to sleep.  

Tomorrow I will start with watching the pictures one by one for they all deserve to be properly looked at.  So nothing different than other years.  Just start with how you do it normally and you will be ready to vote the moment we can  :)   Right?

I was still able to get my submission in, but I'm not sure if it really counts at this stage since it's July 1. If Christian wants to declare it past the cutoff that's fine with me.

Voting started just in 2 sections of 3.

Dwat - That was me trying to figure out the gallery settings - I may have missed something!  I thought I turned rating on for everything...

Christian never let us touch them before and it was my first try at this.

But there is no voting anyhow - not as such.

Did you see Christian's Announcement regarding this year's winners?

Yes, of corse. So now I can count miself as little bitt winner. Pretty cool.

Everyone winner!?
I looked that competition didn't end!
How long duracing 10th compo? 3 months? If so , fortunethly I have yet 10 superb fractals to posting here to join at competition
 :hmh:

No.

The contest ended as scheduled!

That was clearly posted.

The confusion may arise from the fact that Christian never told us how to change the banner category at the top of the page, so it still says "Enter Now" - but the contest is, and has been, over.

Until Christian helps us reset the gallery any new entries will be moved out of the contest category.

Sad I missed this competition! I haven't used this forum very long and even I'm emotional about it coming to an end  :'( This forum opened my eyes to the amazing world of fractals