yFract 1.1.5 released - 3D Terrain Mode

[yv3]

Hello to everyone,
im proud to present you the new release of yFract! I implemented a fourth operation mode called "3D Terrain Mode". Now you can press F10 in Explore Mode or Render Mode to watch the current fractal as a 3D Terrain, fly around, change its shape and lightning:


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You can also create Terrains from any image file that is located in the "Render To File"-Folder. High resolution Heightmap Files can be generated using the "Render To File"-Function and enabled when selecting an image for a Terrain. Here are some terrains i generated during the development:


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I also added a new Fractal called "Mandelbrot Variation Crossover". It produces images like this:


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You can download the latest release with an updated manual at my Homepage.
Visit the Manual Page for more information.
Direct link to installer: http://yv3.bplaced.net/files/yFract.exe
Try it out and have fun!

Greetings Dawid

[Sockratease]

Wonderful stuff!   

Will yfract export these as obj (or any other 3D model) format?

They look great   

[yv3]

You like it? cool
Regarding your question: no, im too lazy for that, furthermore i think its not neccessary. It seems that most of the common 3d applications like 3ds max or blender support simple heightmaps images to create terrains out of them. Let those applications do the work for creating the 3d mesh. You can create heightmap-files in yFract in resolutions up to aprox. 260 megapixels. The heightmap-tga-image contains the last iteration step of each pixel converted to a grayscale-value between 0 and 255. The fractal image (any format) itself holds the colors for the according position and can be used as a texture for the terrain...
greetings

[Kali]

3D heightmap feature looks nice, nice work, I'll give it a try

[cKleinhuis]

using iters as heightmap is easy going, nice rendering, but the iter bands always leads to "nasty" stepping stairs
btw. i see this program is developing quite stable, i will create a sub-board in the software section and move the entries
to there, throughout this week

[yv3]

@Kali: Do it, you should find some of your formulas there!

@cKleinhuis: A sub-board?! Its like a big dream come true! Thank you very much!!!
Regarding the aliasing effect on the 3d mesh: yes its nasty. Its because i just convert the pixels into "3d bars" that are joined together. I think i will improve it some day. Currently you can press M too smooth the terrain, that will help a bit.

[cKleinhuis]

check this out:

board
http://www.fractalforums.com/yfract/

gallery
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=71

[SCORPION]

Author stopped supporting this wonderful program?