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Comments on: Fractal flair

Everyone has seen those cool images made from fractals. Learn how to make your own with an open-source fractal-flame editor and screensaver.

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by calallen68 January 13, 2009 9:50 PM PST: ArtRange....a wonderful system to create paintings. Easy to use, even for childern, contains all sorts of tools to create texture and color, endless fun for virtual art. Great for all ages and talents.

Tim; Like this Reply to this comment


by MafiaPenguin January 13, 2009 11:37 PM PST: Those mating sheep scare me.; Like this Reply to this comment


by janm45 January 13, 2009 11:40 PM PST: Apophysis is definitely addictive. A truly beautiful application to create stunning artworks.
Loads of tutorials at Deviantart also. Scott Draves is one of my heroes. He has changed lives by making this program open source. Glad you finally got around to the world of Flame fractals.
Cheers
Janem; Like this Reply to this comment


by symbubsy January 14, 2009 1:34 AM PST: I've been making fractals for many years now. Probably the best and easiest to use free fractal program available is Fractal Explorer. It can create wonderful fractals of the Mandelbrot and Julia variations plus many others. Another great free fractal program is ChaosPro, which is consistently updated and can create wonderful images which can be tweaked to your liking. The learning curve is a little steeper than Fractal Explorer which is really easy to use. I also use Ultra Fractal, which is a shareware program with unlimited potential, and creates gorgeous fractals. There are other good fractal progams such as Sterlingware, Dofozon, Vichra, Tierazon, Fractal Zplot; all of which were once freeware, but are now shareware. If you search the web you can still find downloads of the freeware versions - and everyone of these programs create absolutely gorgeous images, all of a different style.

Hope This Is Useful to all that are interested.

Michael B.; Like this Reply to this comment


by ampersandd January 14, 2009 2:40 AM PST: There is a great fractal prog. AGONY which can be found on FLICKR.; Like this Reply to this comment


by PatRx January 14, 2009 8:27 AM PST: Over the last 10 years, I've used a number of fractal applications...all freebies that were on the 'net. I started out using some of Stephen Ferguson's applications and others.....the Kaos-Inkblot, Flarium, Sterlingware, Iterations, Sterlingware, TieraZon, Ktaza, Vchira, etc. Each was somewhat easy to play with, but once I started using the Apophysis, I was hooked. It is addicting....fractals can be addicting. In my opinion, it is that a person can't wait to see what will emerge from the screen each time one opens the application. What I love about Apophysis is that I'm able to create fractal 'transparencies' that I'm able to layer together to create collages of landscapes and more. It's surprising how many design forms in nature that are reflected in the fractals. One can visit DeviantArt.com and view many great fractal images that were created by Apophysis users. One caveat to those potential addicts...the number of images that one creates and saves can really fill up a hard drive in a short time...LOL
(A fast computer and at least a gigabit of ram drive makes for quick computing. I remember my pre-Pentium machines took hours to calculate the images....now they can be done in minutes with my Pentium 4 with a 2.4GHz processor.)
For all you readers who plan on downloading Apophysis or its beta versions, welcome to the fractal addiction...:-) And, I hope to see your 'works' at DevART sometime soon.
Pat P. aka PatRx
patrx.deviantart.com/gallery; Like this Reply to this comment


by isabelcnet January 14, 2009 9:01 AM PST: Peter, thanks for the coverage - I am the business manager for the software artist Scott Draves and I have a correction for your story. Scott created the Fractal Flame (not "Flare") algorithm in 1991-1992 (not 2002).

The reason the images derived from this algorithm are so much more complex than ones from the other fractal programs is because Scott's invention is not just fractals, it combines fractals with a particle system. Because his program was open source, it was included not just in Apophysis but many other design applications such as Photoshop and AfterEffects. You see Flames all over the place these days and they're all from the open-source code originally released in 1992.

Your more technical readers may be interested in reading Scott's scientific paper about what's behind the Flame algorithm: http://flam3.com/flame.pdf; Like this Reply to this comment


by taxiguy250 January 14, 2009 9:27 AM PST: I've been having fun with ChaosPro since 2001. It's great for generating fractals.; Like this Reply to this comment


by echolalia January 14, 2009 10:49 AM PST: I've been playing around with a program called Tierazon for about a decade. While having fun, I've generated some very interesting ? dare I say it? ? art.; Like this Reply to this comment


by azoooz002 January 15, 2009 2:26 AM PST: gtrhtyjuyjy gntjmtmtty yuluio;io;0i;9
jyujkuykytktuill li;i;i; Like this Reply to this comment


by W N W January 15, 2009 8:35 AM PST: Apophysis is really cool, no question or doubt. A similar program I have used and also like very much is Chaoscope (http://www.chaoscope.org/), which not only does fractals and variations thereof, but also allows different degrees of solidity (gas, liquid, light, plasma and solid) for the renders. One feature of which I am particularly fond is the ability to move your design three dimensionally to achieve <i>exactly</i> the right angle and viewpoint prior to rendering. This is good, because the render times can be a minute or more, depending upon the complexity of the design and the speed of your computer. The learning curve is a little high, but once you get into it, you can make some really amazing things. It is also freeware. On the main website, you will find galleries, manuals, tutorials and of course, downloads.
I love freeware!; Like this Reply to this comment


by nate2650 January 15, 2009 11:58 AM PST: If you like fractals you should watch the PBS show "Hunting for Hidden Demensions." It can be watched on-line at PBS.org under /TV Shows/Nova/Watch on-line. It is about 50 minutes long.; Like this Reply to this comment


by Chalice17 January 15, 2009 4:11 PM PST: How do you open it? It says that it doesn't recognize the file type.; Like this Reply to this comment


by Ross_Hilbert January 18, 2009 12:54 PM PST: I use the Fractal Science Kit (www.fractalsciencekit.com). Check out some example fractals at http://www.fractalsciencekit.com/tutorial/examples/examples.htm; Like this Reply to this comment