Engimatic murals in a decimated power -1.5 mandelbox

[nameinuse2]

Playing around with the power -1.5 mandelbox in Mandelbulber, I came across this really odd configuration with Tglad's folding limit at 0, folding value 2:



Looks innocent enough, but it's very "dusty" and setting a low distance estimation step factor (0.025 in these shots) seems to help.  Heading in to one of the long, thin shards along the top edges and looking back out at 90 degrees:



A whole bunch of Egyptian looking hieroglyphics that seem to be recounting the tale of pac-man (or infinitely many pac-men).  Anyone care to translate?



The whole box is filled with interesting and weird symbology carved into its walls and wafers.  The folding limit at 0 really shreds up the mandelbox so I guess you're seeing cross sections of all the cusps and hemisherical features from the box at higher folding limits.  It's fascinating to explore, and there are other strange bits all over the place.  I found a kind of terraced mall like something out of Logan's Run, but of course cant remember how I got there or at what scale it was...

I made a a little video flythrough: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/a09Uze9EvQk&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/a09Uze9EvQk&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>  The artifacting is sometimes bad - I think the DE step factor is still not low enough, but don't really know - a sort of z-buffer zippering.  Anyone have any hints on how to clean it up?

[Thunderwave]

It's Pandora's Box!

It looks awesome!  I think it foretells the future of Pacman games, as they never seem to die.  There's always a new take on it and pacwoman is it? Or was that Mrs. Pacman?  Was she married to Pacman?  Hmmmm, perhaps this box holds the secret.....

[knighty]

Nice finding

[Tglad]

"Anyone have any hints on how to clean it up?"
Not sure, but looks like not enough z buffer precision. If you bring in the far clip plane to say 4, and push out the near clip plane, it should improve. If you didn't know, the z-buffer is a 1/distance system, so doubling the near plane is as effective as halving the far plane.

[nameinuse2]

Woah the man himself.  Thanks for the reply Tglad, love your work.  This beasty could probably benefit from 64 bits of precision in any case, I'd like to give that a go before delving into the render code.

[The Rev]

Am I the only one thinking, "Hellraiser"?

The Rev