I received an interesting email this morning. Someone contacted me through my Fine Art America site requesting that I make a print available. I forgot to ask how she found the image, as I hadn't even posted it there yet. Anyway, it turns out this person is the daughter of Karl Menger, who's most famous popular contribution to mathematics (according to WikipediA), was the Menger sponge, a three-dimensional version of Sierpinski's carpet. The Menger3 formula (and other forms of it) certainly seem to be some of the most widely used and popular formulas for many that use Mandelbulb 3D.

The image she was interested in was one I recently posted here at DA, Wreck Of The Menger. Eve pointed me to a very interesting video that explains the Menger sponge quite well, Mathematical Impressions: The Surprising Menger Sponge Slice. I highly recommend that you take the time to check it out! She also had this to say about the video:

"The narrator mentions that this diagonal slice was not "discovered" till 2007.  That is inaccurate.  That slice was on exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago years earlier."

While Menger3 was not the only formula used in that image, the influence is evident. I use it quite often myself as it can often lead to incredible structures of simulated fantasy architecture. While I'm at it I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all those responsible for making my artwork possible, including, but not limited to Jesse at Fractal Forums for creating the Mandelbulb 3D software, Luca (aka =dark-beam ) for creating many of the formulas and also Karl Menger and Benoit Mandelbrot for their dedicated work in mathematics which makes it all possible. Also thanks to all my watchers and those that fave my work too!!!

PS: Help support Fractal Forums. You can order a Fractal Forums calendar at the Fractal Forums shop.

Hal

Wow. I haven't done a journal in ages. I thought I would share a little trick for getting a nice clean background when you want to isolate a structure in Mandelbulb 3D. Why? Because sometimes the structures behind the main focus of your image or the main structure are either just small repeats of the main structure, or they are fragmented and in one way or another just not as interesting. Or the background might bury the foreground object in detail or draw attention away from what you really want the viewer to focus on. People strive for a lot of detail, and that's fine, and sometimes it works. But often I find that there's no main focus to frame your point of view. (Edit: I forgot to mention this is made using Mandelbulb 3D version 1.8.2 and I fixed a few typo's!)

Sometimes you're able to focus on the foreground structure through clever use of fog, lights and depth of field settings. Nothing wrong with that either, so this is just another way to  pick an object and isolate it by itself and keep a good clean image. I decided to use the image I posted yesterday (Shields Up) as a reference image as I used this technique to isolate the main shape. Below is an image in the main window similar to how I found the shape I was interested in for this demonstration. There's a shape outlined in white in the center area I liked and wanted to isolate. Out lined in red on the right is one of the settings we'll be adjusting later. (Parameters are included at the end of this journal if you want to follow along! )



Below is the 3d navi (navigator) window with settings we'll adjust outlined in red. If your navi window looks different, you need to expand the extra tools setting by clicking the two arrows I have outlined in red box #1 at the bottom right. On the bottom left is the far plane setting, red box #2  which we will be adjusting. The first thing I do when I find an interesting structure I want to focus on is to zoom in, rotate and center it the way I want. I already have it rotated and centered for a decent view as this is from existing parameters, so now I'll just get us zoomed in.



Sometimes zooming alone will clear the background some. So with fixed zoom and steps selected (see image above, red box #3) I clicked the top zoom button (see image above, red box #4) 5 times. As you can see in the below image, the zoom changed from around 10 to just over 56. Now the structure I like is centered and just about fills the screen. As you can see, this time, zooming did not clear up the background at all. Notice that the far plane setting is at 79.8. Now we can start the isolation process.



First thing we do is change the far plane setting. I usually go right down to 1. Sometimes the entire image disappears in the navi window and you have to try 2 or 5 or 10. But this time 1 worked perfect. As you can see below, the structure I was interested in is perfectly isolated. Groovy! Now let's load that puppy into the main window. Click the 'View to main' on the left of the 3d navi window and then click Calculate 3D in the main window.



Look below. Shit the bed. What the hell happened in the main window? Welcome to Mandelbulb 3d! This is a standard result when loading an image from the navi window to the main window. Things aren't always this different, but often are when you start messing with the far plane settings. I can't explain the technical reasons, because I'm not a tech expert in MB3D. And the funny thing is, if you now reload the image from your main window into the navi window, then the images will match again, but the far plane resets to 2.7. Anyway, as you can see, we need to clear up the background more, and get rid of the un-interesting clutter. We do this with the Zend setting.

In your main window, make sure the Position tab at the top right is selected and you will see the Zend setting I have outlined in red. Here it is set to -1.85019825378516. Big number! As I've said in previous tutorials, many times you can get rid of a lot of the decimal places and it won't effect the image. For the most part this is true, however it may depend on how far you are zoomed into an image. If you are zoomed way in, a small change can shift the image a lot. At the zoom factor we are at, this will not be an issue. So to start I'm going to get rid of all but two decimal places and that leaves us with -1.85 for the Zend setting. There is no visible change in the image. This is an arbitrary decision and may or may not work with other images, you may have to leave three or four decimal places, but the overall process is the same. We are adjusting the Zend, and what that is actually doing is cutting the image from the back.



You need to be patient here and go in little steps. But let's say you are me and not patient at all. Let's set the Zend to -2. Boom, all gone. I only changed the Zend 15 hundredths and the image is gone. So let's not be me, and just try changing it from -1.85 to -1.88. That's better! Only a -0.03 change and half the background clutter is gone. Through this trial and error process, you can usually clean all the clutter that is behind the structure you are focusing on. This will not remove clutter that is adjacent to your structure or other wise on the same plane, only clutter behind it!



And here is the final setting I ended up with. The Zend is set to -1.913 and all of the background clutter is gone. Also if you notice, part of the right wing tip has been cut as indicated by the arrow. This is not an obvious flaw as it wouldn't be noticed if you hadn't seen the original before cutting. It bothered me at first, and I tried rotating the structure to get the wing tip back, but then I lost the profile of the upper sail which I liked. And also be warned, if you reload this image from your main window into the navi window to rotate, zoom or otherwise edit the image further, you will have to go through the entire Zend cutting process all over again. You can however do some zooms and moving in the main window. If you want to zoom, just do it manually by inputting new zoom values in the zoom box. You can recenter the image with the move tool.



And there you have it. I hope someone gets some use out of this little process for isolating structures. Here are the parameters for the image if you want to follow along with the process:

Mandelbulb3Dv18{
b.....h...Uk/...w....2A...UM.xj48q3/.rQBFlpfxWyD/X.fIXNy0znrlKSQK.1tzssbBCjEH3.k
................................aWvAeCjrX.2........Y./..................y.2...wD
...Uz......3..../M.1/.....kh....P0....E3.....os5eQi1CCnD/..........m/dkpXm1.....
z.U0LDOD12../2.........wzoAnAnAnAHyD........Mz1..........o.u1....y1...sD...../..
.z1...sD1ovy9KAXnwn6ew0BugNly8jpmti1wchjkha43SjJiuXPRmYWhmCAzO9fqAkGLCmDKJQtmGU5
QvfHeP9rXOt6zmaoKPjPf1nj......2p..............sD.6....sD..E.....................
.............oAnAt1...sD....z.rbn9.2UCj.k0uw0.Jcn9.wVCj.E8uw0.ncn9......G....k1.
.....AQxcz1.......kz.wzzz1.U..6......M1...EB.........c3....F....6/...I1.....SFL0
..UU4W1KEyzlciszsU3YzTAe906.2s..zzSi...Fbf24LNyD4Ak5eP./cz1..........2.28.kFrA0.
.Ub96aAIVz9.1se7Umvxz0........../EU0.wzzz1...........s/...................E.2c..
zzzz.............0...................2./8.kzzzD...........EA....................
/EU0.wzzz1...................................wjoG1.E./2EexkNNqC../2E.3m5U08c..2E
./oSi.8cU0.E./2EFonzTz9../2E.VSGU08c..2E./2zJ/8cU0.E./2Ez4Kd/LD../2E.VQPU08c..2E
./okulfrS1.E./2E...cU08czz/cU08cyz1cU08cxz3cU08cnAX9e/rN........................
E....A....k.....I....w....EE0x4SElKMoZaPppaE..........................k/.MU/4...
.ok.1Ak.0.UaNaNaNaN..1........yDbNaNaNaNiz1.....................................
...................................wz...........................................
.....................2.....3....A....AYQjBrQ0ZaFjl4N............................
.....MU/4MU/4........AnAnAnAnQ.EOaNaNaNalz1....................E................
........................................................kz1........0./..........
................................/....E/..../....T7LNXZ4QmxqMVl4Kn64.............
..........U3K...................rX0LD8Qx6zHQxckpX0Ltz.........zD........kz1.....
................................................................................
............................................}

Back in April I was contacted about the use of one of my Apophysis images, "String Theory", in EXACTAmente magazine. The magazine is "...a free popularization of science magazine edited by the Faculty of Natural Sciences, of the University of Buenos Aires", says Juan Pablo Vittori, the person who contacted me. He also says, "EXACTAmente is a magazine that is meant for secondary school teachers, so it is freely sent to 2000 high-schools in Buenos Aires in printed version.

Below is a Google translation (Spanish to English)of the opening paragraph of the magazine...

Physicists practitioners of string theory are perhaps those with greater and more sophisticated talents to handle a fascinatingly complex formalism. researchers other branches can hardly penetrate with solvency, not in the details, but in core concepts of a theory that is as science and mathematics but about their goal of being natural science generates divided.

Also, `Casperium had one of her images appear in the article. The image that appears is similar to her 2006 image that is also titled "String Theory." And here's a thumb of my image of the same title...

The article appeared in the April 2012 issue of EXACTAmente. If you're interested, you can check out the April issue at EXACTAmente The String Theory article can be found here, a pfd file

.

It's fun to create art, but it's even more fun when you find that someone actually likes your work enough to want to use it. A few months ago Celli, aka Earthling, from Zero 1 Music contacted me about licensing a few of my pieces for cover art on a CD they were currently making, with more in the works. He recently sent me the CD artwork for their first release and I thought I would share that with everyone.

They're doing an initial press of 1000 CD's. Here's the short press release for the CD, "Reboot".

Zero One Music has arrived. Yes folks, the Psychedelic Circus is back in town , and to announce our intentions we have assembled "Reboot" a digital manifesto of 9 of the freshest and most cutting edge tracks around today.

Featuring Veteran Psychedelic pioneers like GMS, Earthling, Hux Flux and Chromatone  once again showing us how its done. Combined with the prodigal genius of the youngbloods of the last few years , like Tron, Audio-X, MACK, Poli, Telekinetic, and K.I.M, this release intends to prove that the medium of Psy Trance has once again been re-invented... The original Old Skool spirit skillfully manipulated and re-initiated into a new and vibrant expression.

Also of interest is that Mushroom Magazine is doing an article on the "Reboot" CD with a full review. Hopefully they'll include an image of the CD, (I'm certain they will ) Earthling says there will be 100,000 copies of that magazine printed! So by far this will be the most exposure I personally have gotten. Sweet!  Here's a thumb of my original image, "Bird Cages".



Zero 1 Music is a new label for the "Psychedelic Music Scene". Here's their press release:

ZERO 1 MUSIC: Out of the aftermath of mediocrity rises a new voice in the Global Psychedelic Music Scene. Zero 1 has been slowly assembling itself on the front-line of the Cutting edge,  preparing for a head on assault upon stagnation and outmoded ideas. A gleaming new label with a crystal clear vision and a singular focus: Upgrade the Psychedelic dance music genre…

We seek to provide a transparent and democratically run platform for our Artists; serving to deliver their freshest creations, direct from their studios to the ear drums of the population.  A Round Table of talent and creative genius has been assembled to promote originality, to push through with ground breaking advances, and to cut away at the many shackles and chains of preconception.

In creating our roster we've managed to amass some of the most respected and
innovative Pioneers in the World's Psychedelic Scene around, whilst also throwing in the cream of the latest emerging young troublemakers currently blasting the underground party scene worldwide.

All of our artists and DJ's possess unhealthy obsessions with Massive sound-systems, obnoxious basslines and holographic sound. From more than a hundred years of collective experience, we have meticulously fine tuned a formula that will create a dancefloor pulsating with an usually unattainable energy.

From the intrepid minds of our digital renegades comes Binary Code for your heart and soul. Expect the unexpected, forget the way things were before..Zero 1 is about to instigate mind bending changes in the status quo. You might even call it a revolution......

This will be the third print magazine my work has appeared in. Hopefully it will help provide a kick start to more exposure and success for all fractal artists! That would be nice, very nice...

Edit: I should also mention that I did not do the CD design, I just only supplied the main Mandelbulb background image! Hope there was no confusion with that!

The 25 winners of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest were contacted in mid February to supply large format files of their winning images and also a short bio explaining their interest in fractal art, software used and general information about their work if they chose to do so. We were also informed that the first exhibit would be held in Logroño, in Northern Spain. Javier Barrallo, a Professor of Mathematics at The University of the Basque Country, Spain and also one of the panelists for the BMFAC was our contact for this. The current exhibit will be in the Casa de la Ciencia (House of Science), in Logroño, the Capital city of RIOJA until June 10th. I'll post a few pictures Javier sent further down. Javier also says he will send more pictures soon.

Also when I was contacted in February, Javier informed me that he had written an article about the BMFAC for a Spanish scientific magazine with all the winning images included in the article as well. The magazine is " "REDES para la Ciencia" (NETS for Science) which is the written format of a well known Spanish Science TV program." Also at that time he informed me that my winning image, "Gordian Twist" had been chosen by the editor of the magazine as the cover image for that issue. I was obviously quite honored and proud to have been chosen for that. I received a copy of the magazine a few days ago and all the winning pieces printed in the article look fabulous! I asked for and received permission to post the article and pictures as they appear. (Javier was kind enough to send a PDF of the article. If any of you wish a copy of it, just note me with your email address and I'll send it along.)

Javier also says... "Feel free to share this report and also to encourage (you or others) to write a similar article about the exhibit in any science magazine from other country or prepare a similar exhibit. If so, I can provide all the necessary data and help."


Below you will find 6 images of the article titled "EL ARTE FRACTAL" by Javier Barrallo. The article appears in issue 23 of "REDES para la Ciencia".  The article is in Spanish. Also included is the cover image. Unfortunately I can't translate the article to any other language. If anyone would like to translate it to English or another language, let me know and I'll send you the PDF and then include a translation at the bottom of this Journal.

Edit: I replaced the cover image with a better version and included an index image of a fractal collage.



















Below are three pictures that Javier sent. Two are of the exhibit and one is of the poster for the show. "The images from the magazine (cover, arrangements) where chosen from the editors, the images from the poster and brochure were selected by the House of Science of Logroño." says Javier.







I'll get a better image of the magazine cover uploaded soon. So once again, congratulations to all the selected winners of the BMFAC! I'm sure we'll all get a kick out of having our work in a print magazine and seeing them hanging on a wall in large print format. I know I did.

Yeah, I'm still missing in action. I did get my second book published on Amazon though! And of course I wanted to thank everyone who bought a copy of the first one. I've been on DA for about three years and not sold a single piece of art here. (I will keep trying!) I've sold about a dozen books thus far so I felt it was worth the effort to get the second one published.

The new book is called Standard Affair: A science fiction adventure. Here's a little description of it. Standard Affair is a science fiction adventure that takes you away from earth and gives you your first taste of contact with advanced alien races. A morsel that may just leave a bad taste in your mouth. Owen Ricks, a retired military officer, is unwillingly thrust into the role of ambassador of earth when he hitches a ride on a disabled space craft that he helps repair. Though he is an uninvited guest, his training proves useful and the captain of the ship enlists his help as a bounty hunter of a different kind than what you might expect. It doesn't take Owen long to realize that the captain is being less than honest with him. While constantly being reminded by the captain that earth humans are backwards and uncivilized, Owen sees it differently and has to learn how to deal with aliens that can be just as devious and cruel as earth humans. This book is around 65,000 words, a short novel.

I don't write 'hard' science fiction, so the stories in this book are not tech heavy. Most of them do however incorporate my warped sense of humor and sarcasm. A few are a bit dark, but for the most part, they should put a smile on a readers face, or if I'm lucky, make them chuckle. There are 16 short stories that total around 60,000 words. (About equivalent to a 200+ page novel). I also have a collection of horror shorts in the works as well as another completed science fiction novel. Here's a link to Waves In Time if you want to check it out.

For those who don't own a Kindle, you can get a Kindle reader for the PC free. (Kindle for PC) A lot of people don't know there are many free Kindle books as well.

I just thought I would toot my own horn (again) real quick here. The reason I've been missing the past two weeks is that I was in a fractal dry spell. I then decided it was a perfect time to gather up a collection of my Sci-fi short stories and get them published for the Kindle at Amazon.com. After many hours of finishing up a couple of stories, re-writing others and then editing them all, (several times) I finally uploaded Waves In Time yesterday.

I don't write 'hard' science fiction, so the stories are not tech heavy. Most of them do however incorporate my warped sense of humor and sarcasm. A few are a bit dark, but for the most part, they should put a smile on a readers face, or if I'm lucky, make them chuckle. There are 16 short stories that total around 60,000 words. (About equivalent to a 200+ page novel). I also have a collection of horror shorts in the works as well as another completed science fiction novel. Here's a link to Waves In Time if you want to check it out.

For those who don't own a Kindle, you can get a Kindle reader for the PC free. (Kindle for PC) A lot of people don't know there are many free Kindle books as well. I enrolled in a special program where I can offer the book for free, and still make a little from a special fund Amazon has set up for authors, but I don't know when I'm going to do that yet.

I'm happy to announce that I had a piece selected as one of the 25 winners in the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest! I'm so thrilled to have my work chosen along with all the other fantastic pieces that were entered. I also had a piece selected as an honorable mention. I can't thank the judges enough and also all my friends at Deviant Art who have supported me all along. By the looks of the winners, it looks like the Deviant Art community made a good showing! Congratulations to everyone who has been selected! See all the winners here ~ [link]

Gordian Twist

Well I'm sorry to suck you in by that devious title! I haven't mastered anything, but I did finally put together all the useful advice given in comments from a recent journal ([link] I wrote on navigating with the 3D Navi tool. The funny thing is I brought up my solution to navigating at Fractal Forums back in May and ~FractKali responded with a much better solution than mine, and I either didn't read it thoroughly or simply didn't understand it. So I want to make it clear that I am simply passing along advice from the comments I've received here and at Fractal Forums. I just want to organize and better explain the procedure in case any have missed some of the comments.


I almost always offer this disclaimer. I readily claim that I am far from an expert with MB3D. If beaten over the head with information enough times, it eventually seeps thorough the cracks in my skull and worms it's way into my brain pan. Proof that I am not an expert is obvious by the convoluted and tedious solution to navigating I gave in the past journal. The following solution is much more elegant and just simple.


So here we are once again, stuck in a piece. You have navigated to a point with the 3D Nav tool and are stuck. Sometimes you can still move left or right or up or down to a certain extent, but not always. And now you find that you can't move forward (zoom or walk in) or backward (zoom or walk out). At this point, most everyone knows you can expand the nav box by clicking the little arrow located in the bottom right corner of the 3d nav window. When you do this more options become available, one of the most important (concerning our problem) being, 'fixed zoom and steps'. This has been beaten into our heads on many occasions so I'm just as sure that many know of this as well.

So if we select this box (click on it and a check mark will appear) it will allow us to once again move freely about in the nav window.  (I always reload my parameters into the nav window after selecting the 'fixed zoom and steps' box, just in case I've made some changes I've forgotten about.) You can now walk in our out to your hearts content. However it does raise several other issues. The reason we are stuck in the first place is because we are either inside a structure or running up against a structure when we tried to move in or out. With the 'fixed zoom and steps' box selected, when you 'walk' you actually are cutting your way into or out of the structures that have you trapped. You may not want to do this as it will spoil your current view in your piece.

Here's the part I didn't understand or realize until a week or so ago. I can be thick at times, and I noticed on occasion an extra set of zoom controls sometimes appear in the 3d nav window directly below and to the left of the image, but I didn't know why they were sometime there, and sometimes were not there. Well I rarely used the 'fixed zoom and steps' function so it didn't occur to me that selecting 'fixed zoom and steps' is what triggers the extra zoom controls. Below is an image of the nav controls. Circled in red is the control that expands the nav box so more options are available. Circled in blue is the 'fixed zoom and steps' box which you want to select if you are stuck. Circled in green are the extra zoom buttons that appear if the 'fixed zoom and steps' box is selected.





If you are stuck, do this:
1) Select the 'fixed zoom and steps' box by clicking on it.
If you want to ONLY zoom in or out, do the following:
2) Use the extra zoom buttons to navigate in or out, (buttons circled in green) NOT THE WALK CONTROLS!
If you want to cut further into your piece:
3) Use the walk buttons to cut into your piece.

Here's some more info to absorb. If you select the 'fixed zoom and steps' and then try to zoom in with the extra zoom buttons and it doesn't work, then you are probably already zoomed way in. In this case you can do one of two things. You can still cut your way in by using the walk controls, but obviously this changes the looks of your piece. If you still want to zoom in without changing your image or cutting, first ZOOM OUT with the extra zoom buttons, then WALK in by cutting until you get back to the view you had before zooming out. Once you get to that point, then you can zoom in with the extra zoom buttons and with no cutting.

Another thing that many are aware of is that if your image disappears while you are zooming in, then you can raise the 'far plane' setting' at the lower left corner of the nav window. Some people don't realize you can use this in reverse as well. (Obviously) If the background of your image is too busy looking or you can't seem to make the background fade or fog up by using the depth slide in the ambient lighting, then you can lower the far plane setting in the nav window.

And once again I want to give credit to all those who commented and gave tips in the previous Journal. By looking over those comments, I hope I've clarified as well as simplified using the nav window to a certain extent! booyah!

This is the second flash mob inspired Inspiration Station and features ~Zueuk. I can't believe I had never visited his gallery. He is one of the most important and influential people in the early and mid development of Apophysis. If you're like me and have missed a look at his gallery, there's no better time than now to give his fantastic work a long overdue look! Here's just a few samples....

  

  

   

The details have been released on the new fractal contest here at DA. `SuicideBySafetyPin announced a few weeks ago that a big contest was in the works and today, `FantasyStock posted the official announcement. Back To Fractal Class is a contest for fractalists. (Or anyone who wishes to give fractaling a try)  Click on the link to check out the details and all the amazing prizes! Good luck to everyone!

I thought that title was good as sometimes it's difficult to navigate MB3D pieces. It may only be me who has difficulty, I don't know. I Don't use the 3D navigator exclusively like many do. So it occurred to me that some of the pieces that I've posted parameters for may be difficult to tweak if you use the navigator exclusively. If you don't have any problems with the navigator, just disregard this journal, otherwise, read on.


Of course not. Everyone has their own techniques and favorite ways to explore. To think there is only one way to explore in MB3D is ridiculous. And I'm certainly not saying there is a best way either. What ever works for each of us should not be shoved off on others as the best or easiest way to go about things. What I'm discussing here will be how I go about it and how that might present problems to others if I happen to post parameters on a piece. Or perhaps you suddenly find that after adding a formula to your piece or changing some values in the formulas you are using, the navigator suddenly becomes uncooperative.


This is the way I work. I usually load up one of my existing parameters. I keep everything. I may post a piece that I had saved 5 or 10 different versions of before I was satisfied with it, so I have a ton of parameters to choose from. I do my main tweaking in the main window. Why? Simply because the view is much clearer and bigger. That's nothing against the navigator, it's just a simple fact. Minor changes of the values in formulas may not show up at all in the navigator. (I'm sure that is common knowledge) So because I see the details and formula changes better in the main window, I use it more for rotating and zooming as well.


Yes it is. But it may be just as likely that suddenly after a few formula changes and tweaks, it quits working. I didn't use the navigator at all a while back because of this. A lot of people were stunned by that. Over time, I forced myself to use it and finally found most of the little tricks to get results with it. I know I've done a lot of really nice pieces but I still don't consider myself an expert with MB3D. I just don't know the technical stuff and may never learn it. So as I tweak away, I may rotate my view in the main window as well as using the move tool and zooming. All of these tweaks may mess with the navigator functions. I'm sure many of you have found at one point or other that this happens. You may just undo changes until you get the navigator to function again, or you may know other ways to fix the problems you have. The following is just one way to fix a particular problem that crops up.


That may be better known as the "I'm having a nightmare and the monster is coming after me and my feet are glued to the floor and I can't move" scenario. So you've tweaked away and go to the navigator and try to look around and a): either everything disappears, or b): you cant move. The "everything disappears" thing is easy to fix and I think almost everyone knows the solution. You just adjust the far plane setting (to a higher value) in the navigator. The "I can't move" thing, while a little time consuming, can be fixed as well. I only know of one way to fix this, some of you may know of other ways. If you know of other ways, please tell all in a comment in as clear and non technical way as possible!


Teleportation my friend! Somehow you have teleported inside your piece. You can't backup, (zoom out) walk forward, (zoom in) and often can't look side to side either. In other words, there is some structure behind you and you bump into it while trying to move, or you are actually right inside a structure that is holding on to you. For a long time I simply abandoned the navigator when this happened. So how do you fix this? One way is to cut your way out. (There may be other ways, but I only know this one way) It's kind of like opening a door behind you so you can back up. The neat thing is if you open that door behind you, it also allows you to move forward and side to side as well so you basically restore the full functionality of the navigator.


Trial and error is not such a bad way to learn. It's time consuming but often the lesson sticks with you better. So let's cut away! So you are glued down in the navigator and can't move. The first thing you have to determine is what plane you are facing. I did a tutorial a while back that covers the basics of cutting (Mandelbulb3D Tutorial 3) so I'll not go over cutting in too great a detail here. So assuming no cutting plane is selected, click on the cutting tab and select the x,y or z plane. I start at the top or the x plane. You select the plane by clicking in the empty box and a check mark appears. The x plane is now cut at 0.0 (zero). Click calculate 3d and then RELOAD your parameters in the nav window. See if you can navigate. If no, then change the cut value in the x plane up or down. Go for a large value to shorten this trial by error solution. So lets use 4 as a value. Click calculate 3D and RELOAD parameters into the nav window. See if you can navigate, if not, repeat above changing the value to -4. Reload parameters and try navigating again. Usually if 4, 0.0 or -4 doesn't fix the navigating problem, then we are working on the wrong plane and we would move on to the y plane and go through the same trial and error.


Sorry about that! So yeah, by the trial and error described above we found the plane we wanted but our piece is totally destroyed because we cut it to ribbons. Well that's because we're not done yet! Let's assume we found that we are looking at the y plane and it is now cut at a value of 4.0. It looks totally different because we cut too deep. We can navigate now but we went way past the nice area we wanted to explore. All we have to do now is fine tune the y cut value. Assuming we are at 4, lets lower the value to 3, then 2 and so on (clicking calculate 3d between each change) until we get back to the view we had before cutting. Let's say we have to go all the way down to a -1 value on the y plane cut. Now our view is the same as before we started, but wait! Navigating is broke again! So we went a little to far. Try -0.8 or -0.6. You have to fine tune to make this work and keep the same view. You may end up with a y plane cut value of -0.17 or anything. It takes time but once you do it a few times it's fairly quick and easy.


Well sure, it's just something I do to get the most out of a piece. If you abandon some parameters you can no longer navigate, you might be missing a real beauty. By the way, if you can't navigate a piece that is already cut, then you just have to adjust the existing cut value to fix it. The bad news is that this cutting trick sometimes doesn't work very well, particularly if you are looking at a plane at an extreme angle. You can still fix the nav problem but you will not be able to quite get back to the view you started with. So I'll be happy if this helps even one person, and if not, it at least gave me something to do on a rainy Friday afternoon...

PS: Also made a new journal skin!

Hi all! This feels kind of funny because it's like tooting your own horn, but I wanted to share it anyway. Back in late March I received an email through Facebook inviting me to participate in an art exhibition called "The Digital Palette" sponsored by an organization called Paper New England. It was to be held at THE ARTSPACE GALLERY in Hartford, CT. Here's a  [link] to the announcement for the event on the PNE site.

Paul Selwyn was the curator of the show and the person responsible for inviting artists and an exhibitor in the show as well. The show ran for three weeks in May and was quite a success he says. Here's a quote describing the show: "...a selection of prints created by artists who utilize digital technology in their creative process. This exhibit includes artists from a digital art community that is worldwide, yet connected with only a few keystrokes."

I had been in a lot of community art shows in the past showing my pottery but nothing like a professional show. I was quite the newbie and Paul helped me through the process with encouragement and advice and I wanted to thank him for that. You can see some of his digital art at this [link]

I sent five pieces to the exhibit and was fortunate enough to sell two prints. I sold a 36x36 print of "Time Machine" (which I deleted from DA accidentally) and a 12x18 print of "Menger Madness". [link]

I wanted to thank everyone here at DA as well for all the encouragement and support that our tight knit community offers on a regular basis. And also to offer encouragement to others to continue their hard work with their art in hopes that a small measure of success and happiness can find us all sooner or later.  

Hal Tenny

I played Team Fortress, a sort of Quake spin off. I was 'thehal'! Fun stuff. So as I became more involved, I got connected with a TF news site (with 'spaceman spiff') and helped report on the game and also had a feature called "Hal's Rant-o-matic". So just consider this a little rant-o-matic, 'thehal' style...


MB3D has become a fairly popular fractal program. I had a hard time learning it as the interface was so different than Apophysis, the first fractal program I learned. But once I began to learn MB3D, I shared my somewhat limited knowledge by writing a few tutorials, and that (in part) had something to do with the explosion of MB3D users. I never found a single tutorial to help in that learning process. (Not saying there wasn't one, but I never found one.) The folks at Fractal Forums were more than happy to answer questions on MB3D though. And I did learn a lot through visiting there and playing with the parameters that were posted by the members.

In fact, that's what really opened up MB3D for me. I saw a piece posted by ~mario837 (here at DA) where he gave credit to parameters posted by Lenord at Fractal Forums called Spudsville. This is all pretty common knowledge by now, and pretty much the subject of this rant-o-matic.


While these are two entirely different fractal programs, there are many similarities in the popularity of them. Tutorials are written, parameters are posted, the users and their communities benefit. Many times when a new tutorial is written, there's new interest generated and quite often a flood of pieces based on those tutorials. You can often look through peoples galleries and you'll see where they experimented with a new tutorial. Sometimes those experiments look like everyone else's, sometimes they don't. That's the whole idea of tutorials, to enhance the learning process. Sometimes, no matter how much you play with a style, it will always be recognized as a certain style such as the two piece below...

   

And then other times you're able to take the style and knowledge you gained from playing with it beyond what is easily recognized, such as the next examples...

      

Some of you may recognize that the above are all splits. But the three directly above pose little resemblance to the first two.



So who's to say you aren't doing enough or you really need to move on? I'm just wondering. Because I think as long as you are still experimenting and having fun and in the process still learning and coming up with different things in the 'same style', then go for it. If you want to move on then fine. If you feel like you have to use a different combination of formulas and invent something new that's great. I've seen some comments on DA and also off site that indicate a weariness of certain styles and I'm a bit peeved about it. Who are you to say I need to move on? Why do I have to invent a new style? If you are tired of, or sick of, or just plain don't like a style, that's just fine. I happen to like what I'm doing, and while most of my recent pieces are all the same style, that doesn't mean I'm not experimenting every day. I'm not going to say I'm sorry if it all looks the same to you. I'll say I'm sorry if you can't see the wide variety and sometimes subtle differences and changes in a style. I doubt there is a single artist out there who expects everyone else to like every piece they post. I certainly don't.

In conclusion, I'm not saying people shouldn't have their own opinion, likes and dislikes and preferences. I'm simply saying I'm happy where I'm at and with what I'm doing. I'll decide when I think it's time to move on. Below are a few more pieces showing where I started with Lenord's style and how far I've gone...

      

      

      

That's pretty much all I wanted to say.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive my second DD yesterday! The piece was Could Be Trouble. Many, many thanks to DragonWinter for choosing it and the kind words she used to describe it! And of course thanks to all those who took the time to comment and fave the piece!



This is more for the beginner who may be discouraged. I was just wanting to offer some input on a few things. In the past few months or so (actually the past year) I've had a bunch of time off from work because the construction industry is so slow. Because of that I have had an extraordinary amount of time to play with fractals. And it is partially due to those circumstances that I have been able to create a lot of nice pieces and also learn MB3D. I'm only saying this because I wanted people to know that while I have an eye for 'finding' interesting things, it has much to do with the time I spend looking. And once I find something, it is a constant rabid attack on the variable settings to tweak the piece that produces the end results. After constant tweaking, you do get a feel for what changes are made to your piece by playing with the formula settings. But it takes time.

The first few times I opened MB3D, I messed with it for a while and was sorely disappointed that I didn't come up with anything worth posting. I saw a lot of great pieces floating around and just couldn't seem to get anywhere near the beauty, complexity and composition I was seeing. So I gave up for a while. Then I tried again and gave up again. And then I didn't give up! I stuck with it and it paid off. All I'm trying to say is you have to invest the time if you expect to get results.

And the real point I want to make is that you may have something staring you right in the face and you simply don't see it, or aren't looking hard enough. I hope this doesn't put anyone off because it's not meant to. I found I'm guilty of the same thing at times. While I save a ton of parameters, I often abandon them if I don't get results right away. For every one piece I post on Diviant Art, I have five or six or more rendered that I don't post because they aren't where I want them to be, or I've overlooked something. But by saving the parameters I'm able to revisit them and explore them more at a later date.



So now that I've gotten my boring, self indulging lecture out of the way I'll give a few practical examples. All of the following images are located in my scraps and obviously you can click on the thumbnail to get the enlarged view.

The above image is a very good example of how you can easily overlook something. I'll post the parameters at the end of this journal. The image is off centered because I wanted you to be able to zoom right in so you could see what I mean about missing things. The zoom is currently at 0.5. Default zoom is usually 0.18 or something like that, so I zoomed in a little to show some detail. If you glanced at this and didn't properly explore it you might think it is nothing but junk. So load the parameters and click calculate 3D. Now change the zoom to 12 and click calculate 3D again. You should have something like the following...
Example one
That would be easy to miss if you were impatient, in a hurry or not paying attention. Below are two more examples found in these parameters with only a little moving, rotating and zooming...
Example two  Example three
So that's three we've found with no tweaking to speak of. And again the point is you have to look around, then look some more! So those three are decent pieces and could be posted. But you still need to see if you can improve them! If you can't, then fine. But through the process of tweaking you may come up with 2 or 3 more versions, or five that are so different that they could be posted as well. Here's where the time factor comes in. If you aren't prepared to spend the time trying for something that might be better, well then you can forget about improving your skills. (Pretty harsh eh?) So here's some tweaks of example two to show you what I mean.

Above I changed the Min R in amazingbox from .2 to .5. I changed zoom from 8 to 10. I added the _rotate formula from the adds tab in the formula window and switched the order of the formulas so that _rotate is the third formula, and folding int pow is the forth. I set the _rotate values to X= -5  Y= 5 and Z= 0. This could go on for hours. But that is how you tweak and if you're wondering how I make my pieces, that's how. I constantly switch, add or subtract formulas. I constantly change formula values. I constantly reset the view and start over. I sometimes start with the 3D Navigator, sometimes I don't. And I often look in every nook and cranny I see and with a sharp eye for detail, I'll spot something I can work with.

So that's it for this little mini info session! I hope it encourages the beginners out there! Let me know if you have questions.



Mandelbulb3Dv16{
M.....h...EZ/...61.........S5iEUrTb2.9CK2trk/c4E3sT03cWxmyvho4/e5fM/.nqvhha1V6/k
........................................Uz1........Y./..................Y.2.....
................/M.//....6k8/...C/....E0.....2NKEvc97VrD/..........c./...w1.BnAH
z.EnAncD..../2......................OaNaNaNaB.A.......................sD...../..
.w1...6EPMUVmUpwWvXLiH.Qm1slySrHP6MU65lDOtNHtuD4Bvv8C146ijS2zWn5icIVDDgjFv24bzal
Fw1/VBZG2GXmyGe6MBBOqAij......o5......................sD..kz0...................
.............................UJRa4.upNO.sNbd/UkRa4.arNO.cUbd/U9Sa4..............
................Yzzzz1.....U..6.L....o0...UA....21...E0...U0....J....621..EiJF12
...U.ydelyjeYFnzTeOgzf8No.6.1c..zzzz.MQizccZWGyD7EdGkxmWcz1...........k.8.kXWF1.
QvM93P58iz9GMmnWK2zwz0..........V2V0.6oKp/U.0PJWp1PyzEmYEkti4xvD..........E.Gc..
mcV0.MxuvBTuCfujKjySnbiney9..........2l28oTITs/...........Um3yuedc8tz42Ra9hwxv.k
/6V0z5FAZ............oklrlkCx9yjW9wTJHz2Vz1...6E..EHVM/.XMlzwa5.cxo7..6Evqxz.g5P
D/UYZt6Ul/kF.V1.Fcrz9T7.B3W3.gZTUSH7.oI6K.Uly/uBZ.EHVM/.Nw5crI0.B3W3.QsTUSH7.oI6
K.kZz/uBZ.EHVM/....crI0.zzFoTu2.yzngi84.xzZX.45.................................
E....A....E/....2....A....EEh3aSdtqNU6oPs/UQ..........................k/9.......
.....................dNaNaNaNawD........kz1.....................................
................................................................................
.....................2.....3..../....wpIkVKNmJaFjl4NdtqNl.......................
6....MU/4MU/4................./E........kz9.....................................
................................................................................
................................m....M....k.....4x4PYZaPb/GGiF56ExqR............
..........U0.U............................2........7.rAnAnAnAP.E........kz1.....
................................................................................
............................................}

Just wanted to mention (In case you didn't know) that version 1691 of MB3D came out Friday. You can grab it at Fractal Forums and here's the link to it! Mandelbulb3Dv1691

Also of note is that some new formulas for MB3D are now available. DarkBeam at Fractal Forums has released a package of 12 and here's that link. New Formulas (The zip file is under this post! It's called final.zip). And Jessie who created MB3D also put up a couple of new formulas as well, along with a couple of sample parameters. Here's that link! Jessie's new formulas. And here's a link to that thread... [link]

If you have questions about MB3D, The Fractal Forums section for MB3D would be a good place to head off to. Search the forums first to see if your question has been answered! Here's a link to the MB3D section. MB3D Forums


The most asked question seems to be concerning smooth renders. One of the main things is to make sure you are rendering on high setting! I select the high setting where it says preview, video, mid and high... This has a default render size of 3072x width by whatever height. The reason being that when you size it down for posting or viewing, you are basically showing more resolution in a smaller image. Think of it this way. If you take a 50x50 avatar and enlarge it to 1000x1000, it will look like crap, just a bunch of boxes. The reverse is true when you take a large image, say 3000x3000 and reduce it to 600x600. It will help make it look very clear! So always select the high setting.

The setting I usually use on high are as follows: (I'm not saying these are the best settings, they are simply what I use.)

DE stop: 2
Raystep multiplier: 0.05
Stepwidth limiter: 1 - (New setting in version 1691 I leave at default)
Step count for binary search: 12
Smooth normals: 7 (I've read that anything above 2 or 3 doesn't help much but I use 7 anyway )
Any boxes that are checked by default, I leave checked.

Here are a few more tips from Fractal Forums:

From Jessie: "... if you decreased the 'Raystep multiplier' to 0.1 and there are still noisy surfaces, you can decrease the 'Stepwidth limiter' in the new version 1.6.9 also down to 0.1 or below to get rid of it."

From Lenord: "Low Raystep, higher max iterations will smooth surfaces and alleviate most artifacts, for Noise use the  Normals on DE and/or First step Random...works for me anyway. Edges being "Stepped" (jagged) is an Anti-aliasing function, solution=Render very large and save at 1:2 for 2xAA or 1:3 for 3xAA or as I do save at 1:1 and do Anti-aliasing in Post work."


These are a few of the MB3D pieces I have favored. No special order and I've mixed in a few of my own because I'm a ham!

        

        

:thumb191884971:      

      

    

    

Edit: Dark Spiral Tree by Bib993 was made with Mandelbulber, not Mandelbulb 3D, My bad!



Just for reference, here are links to my tutorials and etc...

Mandelbulb3Dv1691
Mandelbulb3Dv168
Mandelbulb3D Tutorial 3        
Mandelbulb 3D Tutorial 2
Mandelbulb 3D Tutorial 1
New Formulas by DarkBeam
Jessie's new formulas

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has recently faved my newer pieces that were based on lenord's piece called Spudsville that he posted on the Fractal Forums site! The parameters made for some fascinating play time in Mandelbulb 3D!

For those who haven't seen it yet, I made a new Mandelbulb 3D Tutorial to help others with their play time in Mandelbulb 3D, also based on the Spudsville parameters!

(Those words are from Diablo II!) I know a lot of people are short on time and sometimes don't read all the journals they receive. (I'm guilty too!) So for those of you who happen to click on this journal entry and actually read it, I'm going to post some starting parameters for one of my M3D pieces! Have fun playing!



Mandelbulb3Dv16{
J.....h...EZ/...61........UOW7Mlvp17.X1NLFkmuR/EFXIU7iNbnzfSOWnseEi1.lLW7Mlvp1.k
........................................kz1........Y./..................kz1.....
................/M.0/....6kH/...C/....E......2NKEvc97VqD/..........c./...w1.BnAH
z.EnAnYD..../2UaNaNaNaNmz.........yj........6.2.................................
........sloCXx6afzvnjJaWIA1szENQrfIZZZrjT1F37oRs/zPhUyBfzBDnzKkegxNBNvyDPUHJlR97
Tz1RYX.pj3euzwRb4HUS02xD......27.........................2kz0...................
.............................UTRY4.WqFO.MQ5d/UuRY4.CsFO.6X5d/UJSY4..............
................0..........U..6.f....E0....B....o/...E/...EH....c....s31..EnQF1.
...U.ydelyjeYFnzTeOgzf8No.6.1c..zzzz.MQizccZWGyD7EdGkxmWcz1...........k.8.kXWF1.
QvM93P58iz9GMmnWK2zwz0..........V2V0.6oKp/U.0PJWp1PyzEmYEkti4xvD..........E.Gc..
mcV0.MxuvBTuCfujKjySnbiney9..........2l28oTITs/...........Um3yuedc8tz42Ra9hwxv.k
/6V0z5FAZ............oklrlkCx9yjW9wTJHz2Vz1...uBZ.EHVM/.sNGoTu2.cxo7.oPHnueM.g5P
D/k.pt6Ul/kF.V1.fx5crI0.B3W3.MtTUSH7.oI6K.Uaz/uBZ.EHVM/..z5crI0.B3W3.oxTUSH7.oI6
K.ktz/uBZ.EHVM/....crI0.zzFoTu2.yzngi84.xzZX.45.................................
E....6....E/....2....A....EEh3aSdtqNU6oPs/UQ..........................k/9.......
.....................fNaNaNaNawD..........2.....................................
................................................................................
.....................61...U/....1....MoPgFKOiR467t4RU.pPr/......................
8..0...........................E........k.A........2./........zD................
................................................................................
................................}

Wow! I haven't done a new journal since I got fooled on April Fools day! So seeing as I have worked with dc_linear and dc_triangle a little, I thought I might share some fun.

`XyrusWorx's Apophysis 7.14 allows for the use of direct color. I'm a mental midget on a lot of this stuff so while there are certainly explanations on or about direct color out there, they seem to be more to the technical side rather than the practical use. This is no criticism of those explanations, (such as ~IDeviant's blog at Apophysis on direct color), but rather a more hands on, non technical approach. Think of it like this: I know gas explodes, and if you put it in your gas tank, the car makes the gas explode in a controlled way such that it makes your car go! To most people, this is all you have to know. It's all I need to know. My point? You can use direct color without the technical understanding behind it. This is a good thing for all of us who are technically challenged, like me!

Disclaimer!!! I've said this time and time again, I make no claims as to being an expert with Apo. I simply have fun with it and have managed to use it without a need to understand anything more than the basics. So this is meant to be a simple basic guide on how I have been using dc_linear and dc_triangle and not necessarily a guide on how to use it properly or how it was intended to be used.

First off, you obviously need a working version of `XyrusWorx's Apophysis 7X.14 installed and working. The exe creates a new apo folder called Apophysis 7x! Included in this version you will find dc_linear, dc_carpet, and dc_bubble among the other plugins. (the dc_ obviously means it is a direct color enabled plugin) I downloaded `XyrusWorx's dc_triangle plugin separately. A word of caution here: You can add your own favorite plugins to the new plugin folder in the Apophysis 7X directory, but I as well as others have had a few problems. If you run Apo 7x and find that a lot of the randomly generated flames are not showing up in your editor and adjustment windows, then it appears to be a plugin issue. Try opening the options tab and deselecting all variations and then selecting just a few at a time for generating random flames. Onward!


Having no idea on how to use dc_linear myself, I did what I believe any of us might do. I opened Apo 7.14, went in my options tab and deselected everything! I then selected a few variations, (plugins) to experiment with. For starters I chose dc_linear, linear, julian and splits. While in the options tab I also set the number of transforms, (triangles) to 4, and the number of flames to be generated to 25. I closed the options tab and hit control B to generate a new batch of flames. The first sample below is a simple example of what dc_linear did. I didn't tweak any of the variables for dc_linear in this one. Eventually, I deleted one of the transforms and added a final with spherical in it. The dc_linear is what created the colored bands. It used the same colors in the same order that are shown in your gradient. If your gradient has smoothed transition (blurred) between the colors, then no color edges between the colors will show. If edges do show between the colors, you can blur the gradient to help eliminate them, though it will obviously change the looks of the flame. I chose not to blur the gradient on this one and if you look closely you can see the transition of the colors...


This particular sample uses dc_linear, spherical (for the holes), linear and splits. The first image is with the default variable settings on the dc_linear. Once again on the first image you can see the gradient changes clearly. (If you take the time to view the full image!)



On the second image we have fixed that problem by blurring the gradient. For those who don't know how to do that, in your adjustment window, select the gradient tab. Just off to the right of the slider you will see where it says Rotate. Click that and then choose blur from the list that appears. Now you just have to blur the gradient (move the slider by clicking on the right side button) until the colors blend almost seamlessly. Depending on the gradient, it shouldn't take much. I think it only took 5 or 6 clicks for this one. Open both of these images in tabs in your browser and click between the two and you can more readily see the difference the blur makes... Don't confuse this with blurring with the a blur variation! We are not blurring the entire flame or individual xform, but rather we are only blurring the gradient to take the edges off the color changes...



Now let's see what some of the dc_linear variables do! This sample was generated randomly. I moved the transforms about a little, re sized them a little and just played with it in general. (I'll post parameters at the end!) Xform one has splits, xform 2 has linear and dc_ linear and xform 3 has linear, dc_linear and spherical. It also has a final xform as I was experimenting with some stuff but it only has linear in it now. It could be deleted and just spun around a bit with the rotate function. First image is with the default variables for dc_linear on xforms 2 and 3. The three variables to play with are offset, angle and scale. In the second image I have changed the default scale setting from 1 to .3 in both xforms 2 and 3. As you can see it increases the number of 'ripples' by making them smaller. Increasing the scale above 1 reduces the number of ripples by making them bigger. In the third image we have changed the angle of the dc_linear in xform 2 from the default of 0 to .5. This does exactly what you might think in that it spins the 'rippled' effect, in this case clock wise. A negative number will spin it counter clock wise. And finally in the fourth image, we have adjusted the offset of dc_linear on xform 2 from the default of 0 to .905. (Compare image 1 to image 4 and you can see the difference.) Offset basically slides the coloring effect of the 'ripples' across the influence of the xform you are adjusting in your flame.



And that's pretty much all I know! I think it's enough where you can play with it a little. You can try adding a little dc_linear in some of your old flames to see how it affects them too. I find that piggy backing dc_linear with other variations works well for me. I also experimented with dc_triangle but left the variation variables on default for the most part with that one. Following are some examples with dc_linear. dc_triangle and crop...



And here's the parameters of one of the examples!


<flame name="dc_linear_scraps3" version="Apophysis 7x Version 14" size="720 450" center="0.667828457301105 0.166079495640604" scale="198.3" oversample="1" filter="0.5" quality="50" background="0 0 0" brightness="8.73913043478261" gamma="4" estimator_radius="9" estimator_minimum="0" estimator_curve="0.4" enable_de="0">
   <xform weight="0.25" color="0" splits="1" coefs="0 -0.674092 0.674092 0 1.055621 0.780576" splits_x="-0.119" splits_y="0" opacity="1" />
   <xform weight="0.25" color="0.333333333333333" linear="0.290391133632511" dc_linear="0.709608866367489" coefs="-0.129792 0.690176 0.690176 0.129792 0.307489 0.681712" dc_linear_offset="0" dc_linear_angle="0" dc_linear_scale="0.3" opacity="1" />
   <xform weight="0.25" color="1" linear="0.895785" spherical="0.005" dc_linear="0.061215" coefs="0.167102 -0.429792 0.429792 0.167102 0.106338 0.266782" dc_linear_offset="0" dc_linear_angle="0" dc_linear_scale="0.3" opacity="1" />
   <finalxform color="0" symmetry="1" linear="1" coefs="1.240655 0.370248 -0.370248 1.240655 -0.487142 -0.768186" />
   <palette count="256" format="RGB">
      543C1D4932163E2A1135220D2B1B092114041A0E01160B00
      130A001109001008000F07000F0600100700120700150800
      170A00190A001C0B001D0C001F0D00200E00200E00210F01
      21100322110523140826170C2A1D1233261C3D3228483E35
      544C426059516E68607C776F88847C918E8697948C9A968E
      9A968C989289938C828C847983796D776B5D6B5C4D5F4E3E
      5342314B3928412E1D392513321E0B2E18052C16032D1703
      301A05341D073A22093F260C462B0E4E32125638155C3D18
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</flame>

Have fun!

Someone hacked my avatar. Don't know if this is happening to others. I don't have time to deal with it this morning. I'll inform DA when I get home from work and see if I can fix it.

I thought it might be interesting to see what kind of hardware people are running their favorite fractal software on. And operating system as well. Kind of like a survey I guess. With the economy the way it's been the past 18 months or so, I for one haven't been able to upgrade squat. I'm still running an old Pentium D Celeron 1.66... heh... Just kidding!

Actually I'm lucky enough to have two machines. I render on my machine in the basement (by way of remote desktop connection) where I have my mini recording studio, and while that machine is rendering, I work on new stuff on my second machine out here in the shop. (I have a woodworking shop in the attached garage. I practically live out there!) Also while stuff is rendering in the basement, I answer comments and give thanks for the faves I'm lucky enough to get!

I remember back in the day when I used to do online gaming a lot, I just had to get those hot new video cards as soon as they came out. Remember the Voodoo III and Matrox Millennium? The Matrox wasn't as good for gaming (as the Voodoo) but it was for everything else at the time. Anyway, those days are over for me, now I buy yesterdays video technology at cut rate prices that seem to plummet almost on a daily basis.

I also build all my own stuff. It's not that hard. It's a bit nerve wracking when you first power up, but I haven't had any major problems yet! So right now I'm running parts that were dropping drastically in price a year or more ago when I built my stuff. Which is to say it was getting old then! But at least we don't have to pay $300 bucks for a 500 meg hard drive now days. Or $150 for 4 megs of ram! Hard to believe isn't it?

In the basement I have an Intel 4700 (2.66 GHz) dual core with 4 gigs of ram. (Windoze only sees 3.5 gigs) Video card is GForce 7300 GS. One 160 gig hard drive and the case is a Raidmax Dirk Tooth with 500 watt power supply. I have an old, old 19" View Sonic ctr hooked up and use a Logitech MouseMan Marble.

This is my main computer. I have a nice desk out here, my guitars and effect boxes, (V-Amp 2 and M-Audio Black Box Reloaded), Yamaha keyboard and Altec speakers. All that has absolutely nothing to do with fractaling but it's here for when I get rambunctious! I call this machine 'Woody' for two reasons. One is it's in my wood shop! The second being that when I built it I was going to build a nice wood case for it. I almost had it finished when I found another Raid Max Dirk Tooth case on sale though so I bought it instead. It has an AMD Athlon X2 6000+ 3.1 GHz dual core with 3 megs of ram, 400 meg hard drive and an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT video card. Also a 19" View Sonic wide screen LCD monitor. I have two Logitec mice on 'Woody', one wireless for when I sit back and recline and watch movies or surf, (I put the wireless mouse on my big belly!), and another wired Logitech MouseMan Marble for when I sit up like a normal human being. I almost forgot to mention, I'm running Winders XP Pro on both machines.

So if you want to share your specs just for the heck of it, comment!

Well I don't have any tips today other than just keep experimenting! Keep doing tutorials so you learn! You can play with flame packs, (I do) but if you do you should deconstruct them! Delete xforms so you can see what effect they are having. Delete or tweak variations and their variables. Don't just move xforms around, change variations, weights and variables. Duplicate xforms and move them around, add a final xform if the flame doesn't already have one. Play with post transforms and Xaos weights! But most of all, just have fun! Don't pull your hair out trying to be better than someone else, just pull your hair out trying to be better or as good as you can. It'll all come around to you if you expend the effort.

I wanted to thank `FarDareisMai (Our new fractal GM!) for featuring Radar Meltdown in her Hot Off The Press Triple Featue and also for featuring Hall-Of-Records in Hot Off The Press XXV! I'm humbled to be included with all the wonderful fractalists she has featured. Also thanking ~Felka-wolf for featuring Toxic Spill in her journal and I don't believe I ever mentioned I was lucky enough to come out on top in `f--l--A--r--k's Apo challenge #8 with Swirling Tiled Spiral!

I'm finally getting around to adding some stamps. I'm in a few clubs so those stamps are here. I'll add some more as I see fit...