Low Iteration Flames

[C.K.]

Hey everyone, I had a brief question.  I have an interest in making flame fractals at varying iterations so that I can see the unit squares (or triangles) transforming all the way up to the final shape.  I have been using Apophysis for my flames and I've tried reducing the quality on the render (which I know is related to the iteration count), but this just makes the image fuzzy.  Does anyone know how to do this in Apophysis or could suggest a different program for me that could achieve what I'm after?  Thanks in advance!

[C.K.]

Apologies for the double post, but after reviewing a Draves and Reckase paper on flames (The Fractal Flame Algorithm, 2003), I see that flames are made by random points that approach a function rather than an iterated shape transformation.  I apologize if how I'm saying all this seems weird, I'm not quite there on the lingo yet, and I hope I've interpreted that paper correctly.

So I guess the question is is there a means that I can create fractals similar to the ones I make in programs like Apophysis but do it by shape transformation?  Let me know if I'm not being clear enough.

[lycium]

The usual approach is to skip drawing on the first 16-20 iterations, to allow the point orbit to approach the attractor (aka removing start-up bias).

[C.K.]

Thanks for your response lycium.  I think my problem was that I didn't quite understand how fractal flames were made in the first place.  I'll do some more research and trial and error and we'll see what happens.  Thank you!