My latest Fractrace animation

[doncasteel8587]

https://fractrace.dev.java.net/files/documents/6137/59282/job1181388443868B_109476b.mpg

[twinbee]

That is so amazing! I love the way it evolves round as it rotates. It's like a super futuristic fairground ride!

About 5-10 years ago, I created some simple but cool looking fractal trees, which are slightly similar (although not as good as yours of course!):
http://www.skytopia.com/gallery/anim/anim.html (4th anim down).

Do you have a higher quality MPEG or even a lossless AVI?

[doncasteel8587]

About 5-10 years ago, I created some simple but cool looking fractal trees, which are slightly similar (although not as good as yours of course!):
http://www.skytopia.com/gallery/anim/anim.html (4th anim down).

I took a quick look at your site, you've done some nice work. I'll have to spend some more time looking around when I get a chance.

Do you have a higher quality MPEG or even a lossless AVI?

That's the best I've got at the moment. I've been sidetracked for a couple of months trying to learn global illumination and sss techniques. I hope to merge it with the 3D volumetric fractals over the next few months.

The downside is longer render times which means more stills and fewer animations. 

[lycium]

I've been sidetracked for a couple of months trying to learn global illumination and sss techniques. I hope to merge it with the 3D volumetric fractals over the next few months.

basic GI and even SSS aren't too difficult to understand and implement (such is the beauty of monte carlo methods), however doing it efficiently is where you'll spend years of studies.

for low-resolution volumetric datasets (anything on a grid will be low resolution), i think the best way to go would be photon mapping. i can recommend henrik jensen's book on the subject, it clearly explains the algorithm and how it's best used, and even provides sample code; moreover, the details of efficient volume scattering (something quite difficult to find in the literature -- i own many rendering books and this is one of the few that cover it) are presented therein.

http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/papers/book/

monte carlo methods are somewhat ill-suited (complete overkill) to a problem like this, where you have an explicitly bandlimited volume density given by the grid resolution.