Animating flame fractals - Need some advices

[Gelco]

Hi there!

First of all, I apologise for my poor english. I'm french, but I'll try to be as understandable as possible. I'm a student in a 3D Computer Graphics degree, and I have to do a 1min short film this year. My project is named "Samba", and is about a free diver, going deep under the sea and seeing strange smokes and light at the very bottom. If you want to know more, here is the animatic of the project (an animatic is a roughly animated storyboard) :

<a href="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2611432&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;fullscreen=1&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=01AAEA" target="_blank">http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2611432&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;fullscreen=1&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=01AAEA</a>

What does it have to do with fractals ? Well, it's about the last part of the film, with the orange lights. I'm trying to create some kind of glowing underwater current... a bit like the EAC in "Finding Nemo". A friend of mine told me about flame fractals and Apophysis, and I began to look for a way to create cool shapes for my film. I did some tests, but I don't really manage to reach something truely organic : it always seems too "mathematical", and mecanic.

Some reference pictures of the type of effect I want to create

The two first pictures are screenshots from the underwater current of "Finding Nemo". The third one is, as you can see, a fractal. This one is very interresting, because it is an animated one, and I really like the way it moves. You can see it here : http://www.3dfiction.com/ (It's the #11 fractal). I really like this organic way of moving, almost like smoke. I have no idea how to do it!

My wokflow :
- Creating a flame fractal in Apophysis
- Editing / Coloring / Animating / Rendering in Ultra Fractal
- Post-Producting in After Effects

My questions :
- I there a way to create organic/smoky forms and movements with a flame fractal ?
- Do you have any advices, formulas or links that could be helpful ?
- Is my workflow efficient ?

Thanks in advance for you help !
Gelco.

[cKleinhuis]

hello there,

first of all:

flame fractals can resemble nearly every natural shape

buzt making it on purpose is very hard, there are some tutorials on how to achieve a certain outcome

introduction to the flame algorith .... more techincal, but good to know ...
http://flam3.com/flame.pdf

rule of thumb: start with a basic shape ( e.g. a circle ) then use the same shape and try to only vary the affine properties ( scale, shift, rotate )
this way you can experience how the outcome behaves ... the experience you make with those basic shapes are then applied to make
special effect, e.g. like copying a shape into infinity ...

have fun ....