Newbie with some Apophysis 2.09 frustrations...

[mtnlivin23]

Hello all!!  So I'm new to it all, here, fractals AND software....  I was recently turned on to Apophysis 2.09 and 7x as well as Mandelbulber, and pretty much "fell in love"...  Though I have extreme difficulty wrapping my head around the math, I greatly enjoy this software for graphics projects (don't know the math, just like makin' pretty pictures...).

That being said, I've run into an issue using Apophysis 2.09 that I can't figure out.  I've been working on a composite project, trying to keep a "theme" of using the same flame in different "permutations" by capturing "stills" of script runs (ie, make a flame, render, run script and stop on ideal image, render new image, rinse, wash repeat....).  Up until a few days ago, this was working fine.  All of a sudden, it all changed (though I don't know what exactly).  As of now, I can open Apo, open or make a flame, then render, BUT, any additional changes made, do not carry over to any other renders.

Yesterday, I was working on a basic tutorial to make a "wing".  I followed the turorial, rendered, and it worked great.  I moved along to the next, making a grand Julia.  I started by using the "New Flame" button, and did the whole tutorial, but upon rendering (New tutorial was saved and paths were set for new output files, renamed, everything...), Apo rendered the wing again...  I closed Apo, re-opened, then pasted the final parameters from the tutorial, skipping all the building, and lo and behold, a "zoomed" image of the julia appeared on the preview screen, so I rendered, beautiful.  I then, using the camera adjust tool, zoomed out to get the whole fractal in view and re-rendered.  Apo rendered the zoomed image, again...  I closed Apo, re-opened and re-pasted the parameters, and BEFORE rendering, zoomed out with the camera, then rendered.  Again, it rendered the "close-up".

Basically, I cannot get Apo to render any changes made to a flame, post original settings, though all changes appear on all preview screens.  I've tried dumping the software and downloading a new copy, same problem...  I didn't change anything in my method, and figured the software dump would eliminate the possibility of my having accidentally changed a setting somewhere...

I would have moved the whole project over to 7x, but being VERY new to it all, it appears 7x requires scripts to be added, and doesn't have "sample" scripts like 2.09 (haven't really looked into scripts at all yet...), so the theme for the project would be moot...

Does anyone out there have any input for this problem?  I've scoured formats since yesterday afternoon, but I can't seem to find this as being a "common" problem.  As stated, I'm VERY new to all of this, so it's quite probable this is purely an issue of my own ignorance, but as I said, for some reason it worked, then it didn't...  I was moving along VERY well with the project until this all came about, and at this point, I'm about to pull out my hair and my teeth...

[Apophyster]

I do not know if I recognize the problem you describe accurately.
However, I think it may be related to the naming of the flames.
If you paste a flame into Apo, or use the New Flame function and work on the flame, but then use the Undo button a few times, the name of the flame will revert to an older flame name.  It depends on some few different factors, I think, what the name might turn out to be.
Usually it tends to be the name of whatever flame is highlighted in the Title pane of the Main Window.

My workaround is like this:
Before I render or save a flame, I copy it and paste it into a text editor (ie, Notepad).
Then I change the name of the flame, paste it back into Apo, and save the flame or render it.
Basically you need to try to avoid creating flame files with multiple flames that have the same name.
You may want to open the renders.flame (or renders3d.flame or renders7X.flame) to see if there are flames with duplicated names.
Apo gets all confused if there are, no matter what the flame file might be.

I hope I scoped out the problem correctly, but it could be other things
It would help probably to pay attention to the name of the flame in the Status bar, though if you use long names, the whole name might not be visible.
I hth.
Fred

[mtnlivin23]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm not sure if naming is the issue, as I did try renaming, changing paths, etc.  That's why I eventually dumped the software and downloaded new, just in case something got changed that I wasn't aware of.  I don't even know if I'm truly describing my problem properly, as I'm new and not sure if I'm using the correct terminology...

At this point, I've got a friend stopping by soon to take a look, so we'll see if we can figure it out.  Until then, I'm shelving, unless someone understands my garble here and can throw me a bone!!

Again, thank you VERY much for the response!!  I hope I can work this out soon