Critique of fractal art

[Alef]

Well there are lot of fractal pics and videos. Wast majority of videos are random eyecandy shapes with meaningless names like "Steampunk techno garden of cubes" with "Fly throught". It soon gets boring.

In theory 3D fractal programms are enought poverfull to create some kind of meaningfull videos. Say "Flight throught fractal Milky Way and asteroid belt with landing on Uranus", "Big city fractal life" or "Tartigates in swamp" or "Swim throught underwater coral reef".

Maybe 3D zooming and forward movement is a weak spot. Often are hard to just fly forward throght some box, maybe too small scale and unexpected results mixed with zoom and movement, not shure. In 2D it is lack of instruments, it don't have objects, naturalistic lights or direction where to fly.

So this could be a right direction where to move. (better zooming capabilities and different pattern box formulas) and some thematical creations.

Thematical but not so fractal:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/lBfWfzZRnYA&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/lBfWfzZRnYA&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

There are few interesting Buddhabrot pictures. Some are cosmic, some are like comb jellies, but they are very few. There is not so mutch Buddhabrot renderers, at least one buddhabrot renderer with many formulas and switches could be a righ thing. Ultra Fractal implementations of buddhabrots are somewhat plain, single channel with Fractints map don't have enought colour dimensionality.



Buddhabrot and comb jelly





In deviantart.com portal the most popular are Fractal Flame images who looks somewhat similar like buddhabrot images. And not Ultra Fractal escape time pictures, throught Apophysis don't have many formulas to research and have just terrible interface if compared with UF. But fractal flames just looks smoother, deeper, more natural and more 3D. Just smooth pauldebrot renders can compete with fractal flames. Throught now Mandelbulb3D started to beat Fractal Flames, but it still are much high tech, and some like more natural pictures.

4th the most all times popular in deviantart, and IMHO the best.


Anyway fractalforums is specific place with folks inclined towards exact sciences and having specific tastes for all new tech so deviantart with lots of professional artists could be a better indicator. Of corse my artistic skills are somewhat bleak, but I can allways criticise or appreciate others;)

Long time ceased to develop Fractal Explorer still beats Ultra Fractal when it comes to smooth aesthetics of the final result, throught UF have more content and layering. This should have very mutch to do with colours and colour mapping offering more effects than one dimensional gradient.

So alsou more beautifull colours, 3D colour effects would be right direction. Maybe Fractal Explorer like colours on 3D fractals.

[David Makin]

Please remember that UF can do *anything* that Fractal explorer can do - you don't have to use gradient colouring.

[Alef]

But it would be pretty hard to implement colours just like in Fractal Explorer. Especialy without source codes and guessing how it worked. But fractint style mapping don't allows to have one colour beinh washed on another so it probably somehow mapped 3 channels independently.

[David Makin]

But it would be pretty hard to implement colours just like in Fractal Explorer. Especialy without source codes and guessing how it worked. But fractint style mapping don't allows to have one colour beinh washed on another so it probably somehow mapped 3 channels independently.

That's just direct colour mode in UF - actually it would be pretty easy to write a plug-in direct colouring that allows *any* UF plug-in colouring separately for any number of channels and then re-combine any way you like

[CeleXaoS]

http://orbittrap.ca/?p=3542
http://orbittrap.ca/?p=3510


 

[taurus]

Please remember that UF can do *anything* that Fractal explorer can do - you don't have to use gradient colouring.

Yeah, yeah, you claim that often.
And with a tooth brush you can do *anything* you do with a broom.

[cKleinhuis]

lol what is the homepage of the fractal explorer !? i just find some programs who are NOT able to read uf params

[David Makin]

lol what is the homepage of the fractal explorer !? i just find some programs who are NOT able to read uf params

?? AFAIK the only programs that can read UF params are UF and ChaosPro...

[David Makin]

Yeah, yeah, you claim that often.
And with a tooth brush you can do *anything* you do with a broom.

FFS that analogy is nuts - it's more like you can do anything with a multi-puropose cleaning tool that you can do with a brush !!
However you do need to RTFM.

[David Makin]

BTW I seem to remember someone either on FracFan forum:

http://woosie.net/fracfan/index.php

Or possibly on the UF mailing list, or at deviantart has got the last source code to Fractal Explorer, unfortunately I can't remember who it was

[taurus]

FFS that analogy is nuts

Oh, I never awaited to convice you, as you once wrote here http://www.fractalforums.com/ultrafractal/boxplorer2-4-mac-with-dof/msg48913/#msg48913:

Since it's possible to make UF do anything Photoshop or even say Maya can do (plus a whole lot more)...

THIS is nuts!

[Sockratease]

Oh, I never awaited to convice you, as you once wrote here http://www.fractalforums.com/ultrafractal/boxplorer2-4-mac-with-dof/msg48913/#msg48913:
THIS is nuts!

Now let's be fair - I got him to qualify that later in the same thread.  David is just a bit over enthusiastic about the capabilities of UF, that's not a bad thing.  But it does lead to the occasional ...  exaggeration   

[Alef]

http://orbittrap.ca/?p=3542
http://orbittrap.ca/?p=3510


 

There are different opinions;)

lol what is the homepage of the fractal explorer !? i just find some programs who are NOT able to read uf params

http://www.eclectasy.com/Fractal-Explorer/index.html

Fractal Explorer is a freeware fractal generator that can produce mysterious and beautiful mathematically-based images. Not just a tool for professionals, FE can provide hours of entertainment for beginners and experts alike !

Site news:
January 2005 Fractal Explorer 2.02 has been released.
Welcome to the download page! 
 

But I found some Fractal Explorer spot files ( .FRS) in fractalforums.

[David Makin]

Just to add to that what I think of UF's capabilities also holds for ChaosPro though I still find ChaosPro a little unstable at times.

[taurus]

No harm meant, David. In fact UF is a great software tool for 2d fractals. And while chaos pro can handle the same formulas, uf is far superior when it comes to intuitive work. I just felt like having to return the faux pas with that maya/photoshop comparison...

On the other hand one of my all time favorite fractal artists is jennyfnf - a real FE master. I never saw something similar from UF.

It is not allways a case of what's technically possible, often it is more important what's possible with an artistic ease...