Fractal Explorer Animation?

[chaos_crystal]

Whoah, I'm in this subforum all by myself...

Was wondering about how to create animations in Fractal Explorer...?  it's still my main program, basically because it's the one I know best and can use to make images worth showing (I am only just barely literate with M3D and such, but anyway)... I was twiddling with the julia sliders and the "Real Part" and "Imag. Part" section, resulting in a very cool preview that seemed to make an "endless loop" of sorts. I hit the Animation button but I'm not sure just how to use it? Anyone know how to help with this? Can't find any tuts online... I've never tried to make a fractal animation before but I suppose it's about time....lol

[mclarekin]

Hello chaos_crystal

Its been a few years since i have done this as i can't get Fractal Explorer 2.03b3 to work on Win7 64bit.

Anyway the best way to show you is by example.

Load the attached .frs file

Open the tab for modifying parameters

Vewing the preview screen, click the P1 Imag.part from 1.200 down to 1.000 by using the second decimal arrow. (You could just enter the number, but by clicking you can view the changes being made to see that you have not moved thru an unintersting area.)

Now write down your new Imag.part ie 1.000 and the close this window

Click the Animation Tab
Click Julia/params animation
The left hand column is the origional parameters and the right column is for your new parameters, so change the bottom righthand one (P1. I) to the new 1.000

Click create AVI, this opens the AVI setup window.

Leave the Frame rate at 15 for now (change to say 30 later for a better frame rate per second).


Change Count Of the frames to say 45 (45/15 = 3 seconds of animation for this trial.)

By the way your resolution should still be the default 300x300, you should increase this later when you are happy with your animation and want to render your final version.

Click start rendering

Enter a file name and click save

The video compression window appears,

click OK

and wait (if the frame rate was 30 and the resolution was say 800x 800 this would take much longer)

when its finished click on Play AVI and you should have your animation. If you are happy then you can now render at 2x15=30fps, Change Count Of the frames to 2x45=90, and with a higher resolution.

Or maybe Change Count Of the frames to 180 and this will slow it down to 6 second long.

Now an alternate way which is quite useful is with the AVI setup window you have the option of ticking the "Save seperate frames box" and choosing BMP, Jpeg, PNG etc)

Instead of an AVI you get a batch file of images anim0000 etc which will appear in the ANIM subfolder in FE. From this you can use VirtualDub to make your animation. (BEWARE the files in this folder are overwritten next time you use it so move them if you want to keep them).

Whats also good about this method is that you can open the ANIM folder and watch each image appear as hey are rendered and see the flow of your animation. (Its also good way of hunting for a nice still image. Set it up, walk away and come back later to view).

NOTE in this example all i have done is change the Part Imag. parameter from 1.2 to 1.0. You can change all four ie Julia Real, Julia Image, Part. Real & Part Imag if you wish but more care is required

Now you would have noticed when you hit the Animation Tab you also had the choice of making a Zoom  animation or an Iteration clip.

I have in the past made an animation where i first used an iteration clip to create the fractal from a black background, then zoomed into it for a while, then from the zoom final frame  i continued as a julia/params animation. So you can mix and match if you want. I used the Save Seperate Frames method and changed the anim0000 type file names with a bulk renaming programme to achieve this.


Hope this is semi-clear for you to understand.






 

[Apophyster]

@mclarekin: hi, I just wondered if you've tried earlier versions of FE? I'm not sure I even knew there was a 2.03 - I use v2.02.  But I only compute in a 00100000 bi-bit system. ;-)

[mclarekin]

@apophyster. I started with V2.02, cannot remember if there was much difference with V2.03, but I don't think so. I liked playing with the 3D terrain islands, and the animations were cool as well, but then I found Apophysis and dropped FE. I never fully learnt FE as tutorials were few whereas Apophysis there was plenty of help. Cheers 

[Haven]

Hello,
I was wondering....when I try to do a julia video, I can only change Re. and Im Julia, but you mentioned changing the other parameters (P1-P4) in the dialogue window as well? Those I cant change for some reason. I am using version 2.02. Also I wanted to ask, dont you have the libraries for the 3D please? or anybody...unfortunately the website where they were supposed to be no longer exists thanks a lot!

[mclarekin]

LOL didn't notice you had already read this post.  It is along time ago, but the choices of parameters  is depended on what formula you have chosen, some have only one or two parameters, others have several