Hi from Swindon, England.

[Erisian]

I've been interested in fractals since the early days of Windows when a friend of mine discovered Fractint.  So far I have about a dozen fractal generators on my computer as well as Gimp.  My favourite of these is the awesome Mandelbulb 3D.  I would love it to have a save as obj button as I like using fractals in 3D terrain software.  At the moment, I use 2D fractals as height maps in Bryce's terrain editor and symmetrical lattice and have created a number of renders that still need polishing.  I only wish I understood more of the mathematics of fractals as I feel a bit limited at the moment.  Hopefully I'll learn a thing or two here and when I can get my work on the net, I'll post a link.  Nice to see some of the inspiring work here.

[Sockratease]

Hello and Welcome to the forums!

I'm a Lifelong Fan of the Finer English Ales, but the "Fineness" of the ones I like is purely subjective  

I too want a decent program for exporting 3D Models of the Mandelbox and Bulb  (Even if I am a fan of Bryce's Arch Nemesis - Carrara!), but alas - they are not easily created from a structure like this.  Unlike the Mandelbrot 3D Obj's you can get easily enough (Chaospro does it for free!).

Jesse has a way to make Mandelbulb 3D export a stack of 2D Slices which can be compiled into stl files, and converted - but I haven't gotten very far with that yet  

For now I just settle for image editing my Mandelbulb 3D Images into my 3D scenes.  

I know some people have made decent obj's of the Mandelbulb - I've seen some images - but nobody has made the models available for sharing, or even sale  (probably because they would have to be Hundreds of Megabytes!).

Feel free to post your images either in threads or in our Gallery.  I look forward to seeing your stuff.

[Erisian]

The reason I use Bryce is because I got version 5.5 free some time ago.  My funds are sadly limited so I stick to free software when I can get it.  It's an awesome program though!  Doesn't Chaos Pro only export POV files?  Bryce won't import POV and Pov Ray doesn't export OBJ so I would need a converter of some kind.  Even Blender doesn't support POV import.

[Erisian]

I might have been thinking of Fractal Explorer with regards POV export.  I've found a conversion tool anyway.

[Sockratease]

I'd love to be able to convert .pov to obj, but sadly it only works on a select few such files.  Many .pov files simply can't be converted to obj 

But ChaosPro does export obj format for many 3D fractals - just click the drop down box where it says .pov, and choose .obj 

Doesn't work for Mandelbulbs, but plain old 3D Mandelbrots are no problem for export, just sometimes the file sizes are quite large!

And I got my Carrara (and Bryce) in one of those huge sales that Daz does periodically.  If you're patient all of their software can be had for anywhere from $1.99 to $20   

[Erisian]

I must admit, Daz prices are always pretty good and when I'm a bit better off, I'll start stocking up from there.  I'm not on the net myself so I don't get much browsing time but I'll keep an eye out for those deals.  Thanks a lot.  By the way, how do I add an avatar to my posts?  (I think that's what you call them)

[Sockratease]

...By the way, how do I add an avatar to my posts?  (I think that's what you call them)

That's easy!

Go to your profile  (link up top) then from the sidebar, choose Forum Profile Information.

There you can select one, upload one  (buggy process if I recall), or link to an externally hosted one.

If you have troubles, just speak up!

[Erisian]

Thanks.

[Erisian]

That didn't work - let's see if this does.

[Sockratease]

That didn't work - let's see if this does.

Silly question, but did you click the "change profile" button at the bottom of the page after you set up your avatar?

[Erisian]

Yes on my first attempt, no on my second.  I'm trying a url link now.
Oh, I give up - I'll never be trendy!

[Sockratease]

Yes on my first attempt, no on my second.  I'm trying a url link now.
Oh, I give up - I'll never be trendy!

If you can't make it work, post the url of the image you want, and I'll see if I can't make it work from this end   

[Madman]

Hi Erisian, I remember having serious problems too in uploading my avatar. I just gave up  .

Then I put an avatar on my own website and linked to it as Sock suggested, but then I decided I wanted to be a leeeeettle more anonymous and just posted a picture in my personal gallery here on FF and linked to it. That works for sure

[Erisian]

Nice one.  I'll try the personal gallery approach as I have a couple of finished renders I want to upload.  I'll probably remove the link to my zip after that.

With regards POV, I was right about Chaos Pro, but I was trying to export a Quaternion.  Anyway, my conversion tool didn't recognize it as a genuine POV, claiming it had no vertices or faces.  I do have Xenodream but it takes forever to create a mesh on my computer.

Thanx both. 

[Erisian]

Lets see if this works

No, couldn't make that work either.  Never mind.