Okay watch this thing:
Ya know, for all the power this PC has, it still is just not enough. It's never enough. No matter how much I have, I will run into a wall sooner or later.
This is my second animation test, and is much more advanced than the original one. I've learned a lot more stuff recently about all of this, and this was a good chance to apply it.
What a surprise, it turns out that animating these things is complicated. Lotsa keyframes and motion curves, which sounds fairly normal until you remember that these are fractals, and it's not easy to control them. I figured I'd show this animation off a bit, and maybe talk a bit about how these are made.
I have many, many different fractal and fractal-adjacent apps, about 12 of them. And then a few other apps, including Photoshop, for post processing and alteration of the resulting images. Each fractal app is good at different things. In a broad sense, there are 4 types of fractals I work with: Mandelbrot, flame, and mandelbulb. Mandelbrot fractals are, whaddya know, based on the Mandelbrot, one of the most famous fractals, and the Julia set, which comes from that. Mandelbulbs are 3D fractals, and are a single 3D structure that is made out of one or more formulas merged together, but you will only ever work with one at a time. Flame fractals are... er... ya know, I'm not really sure how they work. But their structure isnt at all like the Mandelbrot. They are 2D, but can be 3D as well, because why not. Mandelbulbs are the most complicated of the three, and also the most resource intensive. Mandelbrots are the least resource intensive, and can be rendered very quickly. The 4th type is simply "other", and can be things like what I call "digital magnet dust" or that oscilloscope thing. They arent *really* fractals but they're erratic and confusing in the very same way, so I'm just lumping them in there.
The thing in the video is a flame fractal. A lot of the things I make are flame types, it's the most common sort I do. I use a program called JWildfire (which can actually be found on Steam for some reason) to make these. It looks like this:
There's a lot going on here. This is the fractal in the video, in the middle of the animation. Note that this app is not just about animations, most of what you'd do with this is make still images. So the animation controls are kinda awkward.
The most important stuff is the panels on the right, and the triangles in the center. These are the things that control the shape of the fractal.
Flame fractals are made out of what are known as transformations, or just "transforms". Transforms are each made of 1 or more "variations", which create the effect that a given transform has overall. On the right, you can see that I have the second transform open, and one of the variations in it open for detailed editing. And yes that part looks hideously complicated, but variations can differ very wildly in terms of the complexity of what they do. Some have no settings at all, while others are tangled and confusing like that one there. That specific one is what creates both the shattering effect at the end, and the bit at the start where the orb sorta builds itself (which is just the shatter effect starting out intense and being reduced until it zeroes out, as a zeroed out variation has no effect). There are A LOT of variations available. Over 800, I think it is.
The other big part is the triangles in the main view. Each transform has values for stuff like position, rotation, size, whatnot, and the triangles represent that for easy editing. You can grab and move them, spin them, resize them, and so on. But this doesnt necessarily do what you think it'd do. Transform #2, the yellow one, controls both the orb in the center, and that swirling outer mess. Pull it from it's current position in the center and yank it outward, and the orb doesnt move; rather, it sorta deforms (you cant see that part though due to the shatter), as does the outer mess. The green one controls that swirling pattern in the center, and outside of it. Spinning it around, while moving the yellow one within the orb, is what causes that blue line to twist and warp, as well as all the other mess. The red one is out of view and is responsible for the pattern of lights throughout. That one is not moved during the animation, as the other two bend and twist that pattern just fine.
And that last bit is what can make these things confusing to work with. You arent working with a bunch of separate fractals here... it's just one, made of different parts merged together. Alter any one of those parts, and the others get pulled along for the ride.
Fortunately, you dont need to understand the math behind these things (I sure dont). Rather, what you want to understand is the functions of the program itself. All of the fractal apps are varying levels of freaking complex, and have many, MANY different functions. In the transform section there, you can see many other tabs that all control different aspects of that transform beyond just the variations. A ton of tabs at the bottom of the screen do things to the overall image. And there are a lot of entirely separate windows you can pull up for major functions that need their own interfaces. Fortunately, you wont be using most of them each time. But the more functions you learn, the more you can do. From there, a lot of it is experimenting, figuring out what the different variations do, how they combine, and all sorts of things. I've been doing this for a few years now, so I've learned a lot.
All of that experimenting and whatnot is a huge part of what makes these fun to me. I mean, drawing and painting is one thing... you have an idea and you plop it onto the paper, exactly as you imagine it. But there is no "exactly" when it comes to fractals. You cant go in here and draw a house, and good luck getting specific parts to have specific colors, because that's not how color works here. But unlike painting, you can EXPLORE these things. Find stuff you didnt expect within your own creation. Like this horrible thing:
I didnt set out to make a horrible face thing. Rather, I just sort of found it. I was working on a mandelbulb fractal, and I decided to jam the camera inside to have a look at the internal structure. After a lot of roaming, I just stumbled into that thing. Oddly, this is not the only creepy face thing I've gotten out of these. I never know quite what I might find as I do these.
The one big problem with any of this though is how demanding it is on the PC. These things are VERY resource intensive. That animation up there? It took like 4 hours to make a 13 second animation. That's not me sitting there doing the editing, mind you. That's just the final rendering process. The mandelbulbs are even worse. I've shown off one that's like this green metal tangle before, that was made on my previous PC, and just that one image alone took like 8 hours of rendering. My current machine is much more powerful, that same render would take like 20 minutes, but you can imagine how long a full 3D animation would take to do. Though, this issue isnt exactly unique to fractals. Things like animations done in Blender can also take 5 bazillion years.
If you want to see some editing in action, I did a timelapse video of editing a mandelbulb awhile back:
And that's really all I have to say about this.
Yeah that's a lot of rambling, but I dont exactly get to talk about this stuff very much.
Ya know, for all the power this PC has, it still is just not enough. It's never enough. No matter how much I have, I will run into a wall sooner or later.
This is my second animation test, and is much more advanced than the original one. I've learned a lot more stuff recently about all of this, and this was a good chance to apply it.
What a surprise, it turns out that animating these things is complicated. Lotsa keyframes and motion curves, which sounds fairly normal until you remember that these are fractals, and it's not easy to control them. I figured I'd show this animation off a bit, and maybe talk a bit about how these are made.
I have many, many different fractal and fractal-adjacent apps, about 12 of them. And then a few other apps, including Photoshop, for post processing and alteration of the resulting images. Each fractal app is good at different things. In a broad sense, there are 4 types of fractals I work with: Mandelbrot, flame, and mandelbulb. Mandelbrot fractals are, whaddya know, based on the Mandelbrot, one of the most famous fractals, and the Julia set, which comes from that. Mandelbulbs are 3D fractals, and are a single 3D structure that is made out of one or more formulas merged together, but you will only ever work with one at a time. Flame fractals are... er... ya know, I'm not really sure how they work. But their structure isnt at all like the Mandelbrot. They are 2D, but can be 3D as well, because why not. Mandelbulbs are the most complicated of the three, and also the most resource intensive. Mandelbrots are the least resource intensive, and can be rendered very quickly. The 4th type is simply "other", and can be things like what I call "digital magnet dust" or that oscilloscope thing. They arent *really* fractals but they're erratic and confusing in the very same way, so I'm just lumping them in there.
The thing in the video is a flame fractal. A lot of the things I make are flame types, it's the most common sort I do. I use a program called JWildfire (which can actually be found on Steam for some reason) to make these. It looks like this:
There's a lot going on here. This is the fractal in the video, in the middle of the animation. Note that this app is not just about animations, most of what you'd do with this is make still images. So the animation controls are kinda awkward.
The most important stuff is the panels on the right, and the triangles in the center. These are the things that control the shape of the fractal.
Flame fractals are made out of what are known as transformations, or just "transforms". Transforms are each made of 1 or more "variations", which create the effect that a given transform has overall. On the right, you can see that I have the second transform open, and one of the variations in it open for detailed editing. And yes that part looks hideously complicated, but variations can differ very wildly in terms of the complexity of what they do. Some have no settings at all, while others are tangled and confusing like that one there. That specific one is what creates both the shattering effect at the end, and the bit at the start where the orb sorta builds itself (which is just the shatter effect starting out intense and being reduced until it zeroes out, as a zeroed out variation has no effect). There are A LOT of variations available. Over 800, I think it is.
The other big part is the triangles in the main view. Each transform has values for stuff like position, rotation, size, whatnot, and the triangles represent that for easy editing. You can grab and move them, spin them, resize them, and so on. But this doesnt necessarily do what you think it'd do. Transform #2, the yellow one, controls both the orb in the center, and that swirling outer mess. Pull it from it's current position in the center and yank it outward, and the orb doesnt move; rather, it sorta deforms (you cant see that part though due to the shatter), as does the outer mess. The green one controls that swirling pattern in the center, and outside of it. Spinning it around, while moving the yellow one within the orb, is what causes that blue line to twist and warp, as well as all the other mess. The red one is out of view and is responsible for the pattern of lights throughout. That one is not moved during the animation, as the other two bend and twist that pattern just fine.
And that last bit is what can make these things confusing to work with. You arent working with a bunch of separate fractals here... it's just one, made of different parts merged together. Alter any one of those parts, and the others get pulled along for the ride.
Fortunately, you dont need to understand the math behind these things (I sure dont). Rather, what you want to understand is the functions of the program itself. All of the fractal apps are varying levels of freaking complex, and have many, MANY different functions. In the transform section there, you can see many other tabs that all control different aspects of that transform beyond just the variations. A ton of tabs at the bottom of the screen do things to the overall image. And there are a lot of entirely separate windows you can pull up for major functions that need their own interfaces. Fortunately, you wont be using most of them each time. But the more functions you learn, the more you can do. From there, a lot of it is experimenting, figuring out what the different variations do, how they combine, and all sorts of things. I've been doing this for a few years now, so I've learned a lot.
All of that experimenting and whatnot is a huge part of what makes these fun to me. I mean, drawing and painting is one thing... you have an idea and you plop it onto the paper, exactly as you imagine it. But there is no "exactly" when it comes to fractals. You cant go in here and draw a house, and good luck getting specific parts to have specific colors, because that's not how color works here. But unlike painting, you can EXPLORE these things. Find stuff you didnt expect within your own creation. Like this horrible thing:
I didnt set out to make a horrible face thing. Rather, I just sort of found it. I was working on a mandelbulb fractal, and I decided to jam the camera inside to have a look at the internal structure. After a lot of roaming, I just stumbled into that thing. Oddly, this is not the only creepy face thing I've gotten out of these. I never know quite what I might find as I do these.
The one big problem with any of this though is how demanding it is on the PC. These things are VERY resource intensive. That animation up there? It took like 4 hours to make a 13 second animation. That's not me sitting there doing the editing, mind you. That's just the final rendering process. The mandelbulbs are even worse. I've shown off one that's like this green metal tangle before, that was made on my previous PC, and just that one image alone took like 8 hours of rendering. My current machine is much more powerful, that same render would take like 20 minutes, but you can imagine how long a full 3D animation would take to do. Though, this issue isnt exactly unique to fractals. Things like animations done in Blender can also take 5 bazillion years.
If you want to see some editing in action, I did a timelapse video of editing a mandelbulb awhile back:
And that's really all I have to say about this.
Yeah that's a lot of rambling, but I dont exactly get to talk about this stuff very much.
