Animation Software Used with Fractals

[Adam Majewski]

c/gcc, Bash, Image Magic, ffmpeg2theora :

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quadratic_Julia_set_with_Internal_binary_decomposition_for_internal_ray_1_over_3.ogv

[3dickulus]

Fractal Software:

Fragmentarium (3Dickulus version)
SFTC (Superfractalthing ported to C++ from Java (still experimenting ) )


Preferred Format:

png images to h264 video

Other software:

GIMP for post processing and image effects

Code:

ffmpeg -f image2 -s 640x360 -i filename_%05d_640x360.png -r 25000/1001 -b:v 2400k -bt 3400k -vcodec libx264 -coder 0 -bf 0 -refs 1 -level 30 -bufsize 1835k -maxrate 30M filename_640x360.mp4

...or...

Code:

mencoder "mf://filename*.png" -mf fps=25 -vf unsharp=c3x3:-0.5:l3x3:-0.5 -o filename_640x360.mp4 -ovc x264 -lavcopts vcodec=libx264 -x264encopts qp=18:crf=25

size, framerate, bitrate etc adjusted as needed

thank you Syntopia and MrFlay  

[claude]

I usually render 24bpp PPM frames from my own software (PPM is raw uncompressed RGB with a simple ASCII header), and make a soundtrack of the correct length (export 16bit stereo WAV from Audacity).

Then I make a lossless (PNG + FLAC in Matroska container) movie file for archival purposes (note that ImageMagick's 'convert' can create greyscale or indexed PNG files for some frames, but most players prefer all frames the same format, so I use 'pnmtopng -force'):

Code:

flac --best --verify soundtrack.wav
for i in *.ppm ; do pnmtopng -force -compression 9 < "${i}" > "${i%ppm}png" ; done
avconv -i "%05d.png" -i soundtrack.flac -acodec copy -vcodec copy lossless.mkv

Usually I stick to the default 25fps.  Then I can delete all the input files (particularly the PPM which take up huge amounts of space) and transcode from the lossless.mkv to various formats, usually h264 video (with CRF constant-quality single pass option) with Vorbis soundtrack:

Code:

avconv -i lossless.mkv -crf 18 output.mkv

For animated GIF, I use 'gifsicle':

Code:

for i in *.png ; do convert "${i}" "${i%png}gif" ; done
gifsicle --delay 4 --colors 16 --optimize --loop *.gif > animated.gif

But animated GIF is generally much larger and lower quality than a video file, even if you heavily reduce the number of colours to reduce the size.

[quaz0r]

seems like one may as well use x264 to create the lossless archival version also

[Aura-Indigo]

I render fractal animations with M3D or JWildfire...
> Import image sequences to AfterEffects...
> Working on soundtrack for the animation...
> Combining all the parts (animation, audio, titles etc.) in AfterEffects and render final video.

[Svarvsven]

While I, mostly, use my own program to make the images (prefer PNG format) this thread is probably mainly about the animation software.

If I want to upload it to imgur hosting it as a GIF I have to stay below the 200 mb limit. That would limit the amount of frames considerably if I want to have at least 720p, and I would use GIMP to make the GIF.

Instead if I want to upload it to youtube I would go with FFMPEG to generate the mp4.

(yes FFMPEG also have support to make GIFs since not that long ago)

Both programs are a bit of a mess to get used to, it takes a lot of trial and error before getting the hang of it (and / or google for howto).

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFmpeg