Welcome to Fractal Forums

Hi All,

I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to playing with fractals. I think they are fascinating and beautiful, and I have played with them a bit with FractInt (years ago), but I am more of a dabbler than a guru, unlike many of the posters whom I have read on this site.
I did read Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gelick a few years back but that is the limit of my mathematical knowledge on the subject.
One thing that I would like to do is to learn to create fractal landscapes and planets. It sounds like this might be an involved process using several programs in series, but I would welcome any input on what first baby steps to take down this path.

Thanks for a great forum!

Dave

Hello and Welcome to the forums!

What do you mean by Fractal Landscapes?

I often use "obj files" of fractals in 3D Programs to create landscape features, and sometimes composite 2D Images into them to create stuff, but don't know many ways to create them directly  (some 3D Programs, like Carrara, offer "terrain primitives" which can be adjusted with parameters very much like fractals - Perlin Noise being the most common).

What is your final goal with these?  Static Images?  Animations?  3D Models for games?

All are possible, and all can be achieved by many different routes.

I'm sure you'll find the help you want here!

Feel free to post some of your images (even those older FractInt ones!) in the Gallery, or to ask any questions you may have   O0

I look forward to seeing some of your work.

Hi Sockratease,
Thanks for your response and thanks for making me feel welcome in the forum. ;D
I guess my overall goal is to create some static images just for my own interest. I am playing around with the idea of writing some fiction stories just for the fun of it, and I would like to be able to create some planets as seen from space and then some landscapes on the planet itself as seen closer up. I have experimented with Fractal Mapper and Fractal World Explorer. they let you design fractal continents, but only in outline without any cool 3D landscape features such as mountain ranges. :sad1:
Some of the gallery images that I have seen thus far on this forum are absolutely stunning. The mandelbulb and box images in particular seem pretty 'world like'. And I seem to recall seeing some cool planets as well.
Anyway, fractals are cool all by themselves, and not just as a story aid. And as you said, it looks like there is a whole world of insight that I can get from participating in this forum. I think it'll be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it.
Thanks
Dave

For just static images, I'd suggest ChaosPro as a free and highly versatile starting program  ( http://www.chaospro.de ).

Here's one I did in FractalWorks  (a Mac Only Fractal Generator created by Duncan C - Another member here):

(http://www.fractalforums.com/gallery/0/162_29_05_08_12_17_30.png)

Then I took it into Particle Illusion and made an Alien Sky to go with it!

(http://www.sockrateaze.com/stuff/scape.jpg)

So while there are only a few programs that cam make a finished scene all by themselves, many programs working together can make interesting results   :evil1:

Just keep playing until you find the software you get along with  (not all programs "feel right" to all people - it can be very subjective selecting the best software for you to get what you want!), and then start Creating.

hello and welcome to the forums, landscape generating is an iunteresting point recently,
i think we will make up a new board in the theory section for discussing various methods, as a starter try perlin noise :D after that there are many possibilities to enhance the appearance of your land....

@sockratease,

Your landscape and sky are most impressive! This is just the sort of thing I am wanting to explore.
Thanks for recommending ChaosPro, I actually downloaded it several days ago. I appreciate the reassurance that the program is a good path to check out. I see that the author of the program has a very complimentary view of the intelligence of his users since he feels that we can pick up most of what we need 'intuitively' :dink:. The program has a really nice GUI as opposed to the text interface of FractInt, but I'm not fully convinced that any user interface is as intuitive as we might like to think. In particular, I am finding it challenging to learn how to map a fractal to the surface of a sphere in ChaosPro. I know it can be done. It is just that ChaosPro appears to be an extremely versatile and capable program, with a degree of complexity of input parameters to match. Oh well, I like the learning process as well as the final result. Looks like fun :D.

@Trifox,

Wow, a fractal landscape board would be wonderful.
Thanks for the perlin noise tip, I will check it out. :dink:

Thanks to both of you for pointing this newbie in the right direction!

Dave

 I've been using ChaosPro for years and never thought to map a fractal to a sphere in that program!

If I wanted to do that, I'd use a 3D Program (I use Carrara - free alternatives include everything from Blender to Daz 3D Studio) and use a fractal image as a texture map.

Then I could spin the sphere in animation, as well as deform it as I pleased.

In ChaosPro there is an "open GL" option in the 3D section.

That will allow you to map a fractal to the inside of a sphere, with the 3D fractal in the center!

Like this:

(http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/opengltest-small.gif)

You can even map images to the surface of a fractal, like this:

(http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/th_yup.jpg) (http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/?action=view&current=yup.mp4)
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/?action=view&current=yup.mp4


So yeah, the possibilities really are Infinite!

Greetings, and Welcome to this particular Forum !!!    :)

Yes, the majority of people that have had experience with fractals over the years usually has tried and/or used FractInt (http://www.Nahee.com/spanky/www/fractint/fractint.html) (or one of its spin-off versions).


There have been many ways to accomplish this, using various fractal generators.  One of the better ones is Fractal Explorer, with the Fractal Landscape add-on.  I also used to like taking a fractal image into Bryce to create terrains, using height mapping.  Another tool would be something like Terragen.
 

Yes, ChaosPro is definitely one of the top ten fractal generators one should spend time trying out!!!   :)


After you have played with a few hundred fractal programs (there are over 600 available), one tends to develop a knack for understanding the various interfaces that each programmer comes up with.  Some get a bit crazy at times.   :crazy:
 

Paul,

Thanks so much for the great tips. I appreciate the encouragement about ChaosPro and I will see about checking out Fractal Explorer.

Thanks.

Dave