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I've been experimenting with rotated mandelboxes lately (especially negatively scaled boxes) and I was wondering what formulas tend to work best for bringing out waves, spirals, etc?  I've been having better results with scalings between -1.3 and -2, with lower rotation numbers (-30 to 30 or so).  I tend to get more waves and mushroom-like shapes in the surface distortions with those numbers, but have yet to pull any good spirals or other shapes/textures out of them.

What kinds of formulas do you like to work with for best results?

Thanks,

The Rev

Let's try again... I just wrote heaps of "good" advice and then pressed a wrong button somewhere so, all's gone  

Most of the time I just stumble across something I like and go on from there. I find that if I try to look for a specific shape, I tend to miss the beauty that's in a certain set of parameters, just because I'm not looking for it. If your looking for spirals though, your best bet would be in the middle of the edge of a cube (I know that bib told me this in another thread, but I can't find it anymore...). I've never used one of those though, but rather the ones that just turned up somewhere else where I wasn't looking for them

Until now I probably haven't helped you a whole lot, so I'll stop rambling and tell you where I like to explore. First, my mandelboxes tend to have a scale between -1 and -1.3. I do try lower values from time to time, but I find myself ending up in this range most of the time. They seem to have a more "organic" feel in this range, and that's something I like. I would call the rotations you mention large. I do occasionally use a rotation of +/- 30 degrees around max one axis, but in most cases I keep |_rotate| < 20 °.

These values alone give you a good starting point. Then it's time to explore. Sometimes you'll have to zoom in pretty deep before you find something, and since there are lots of areas to zoom into, you do need some patience... Especially if you go closer to -1, rendering takes longer, because you have to increase the maximum number of iterations.

Hope this gives you some insight in my way of thinking / exploring and maybe helps you a little in your effort

P.S: Just saw that while I was typing, Buddhi already posted a reply, which says the same in a lot less words. I'm gonna post this one anyway, since it took me long enough to write it!

And have a look at my comment here: http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=4806

Sometimes the global shape looks very very weird, but when you explore it carefully you can find little wonders.

Those formulas are at the end of the first post in this thread by Jesse
http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbulb-3d/formula-update/