I've found my people

[Hannibal]

Welcome! As I've said before this site can be challenging if one is still working through issues.

Thanks! I'm enjoying it so far. I like that there's no trolls / BS and everyone seems willing to work together.

 

[OkRad]

@Hannibal ----My icon is the Other Hannibal! The original, Hannibal Barca! Only on this forum could there be TWO HANNIBALS!

 

[Varzar]

Oh yes, conventions were great before Covid, now they're just bloody dead. Feh. The lack of them is a source of stress to me for various reasons... nothing that can be done though.

Gaming now, that I could rant about for pages and pages, though of course with so many different genres there's not necessarily a match really. I tend towards roguelikes and such... I used to be into turn-based RPGs, waaaaaay back when (I'm talking like NES era) but after not too long they started to get WAY too easy... like "just hit attack over and over, who needs all those spells" sort of easy. Need a challenge for anything to even hold my attention, so... yeah, switched genres. Well, USUALLY need a challenge. Sometimes a game like Animal Crossing is just right, eh? I remember the Gamecube version, boy was that a treat. I havent played the new one.

Also enjoy watching gameplay too! Do you have any specific Youtubers you like to watch? (or things on Youtube in general?) There are certainly some games that I much prefer to play myself, while others I will just watch through instead (like Resident Evil 8, watching that lately). Definitely understand the appeal of watching those. Overall I tend more towards indie games though, but still, any can be good.

As for what fractal art is, er... frankly the explanation is a headache.

Here, have a look for examples: ScrapFractals - Hobbyist, Digital Artist | DeviantArt

Those are things I've made! Ignore the pair of godawful eldritch meat face monsters, most fractal artists dont do stuff like that, though they are still fractals. I'm bloody strange though so I made them anyway. Because I can.

Fractals are... I guess you could say they're made of math (which you dont have to understand to make them). A visual representation of some crazy algorithm... if you've ever heard of Mandelbrot, that's an example of a fractal (and it's the most famous example). Making the things is a very strange process... with normal art, you just decide "well I think I'll draw a frog today" and then sit down and start with a blank slate and work till you have a frog. With fractals, you start with some bizarre nonsense shape and sort of twist and tweak it until you get something that doesnt suck... it's a very "exploratory" form of art. Sometimes literally, as the 3D ones often involve diving deep into them with the camera to find interesting shapes. And all the while, you can tweak parameters to make the shapes of the things change... the possibilities are endless (and so are the individual fractals, they tend to be infinite). As you can see in the gallery there, they can look wildly different. The process of creating them is a strange one and the programs used are horribly complicated yet nowhere near as hard to get started with as they look. I only started on this about 2 months ago.

They also tend not to take all that long to make. Some of them take a few hours, others take like 3 minutes, even if they LOOK horribly complicated. But, they can take long to RENDER. Very... very long. Animations made out of them, in particular, take an absolutely stupid amount of time to render.


How about you, got any examples of the sorts of things you make? I'm sure everyone on here would love to see them.

Really love your fractal artwork. Particularly enjoy Void Tangle, Maze and Clash.

Also, for anyone that's ever played games with procedurally generated terrain/trees/whatever, that's mostly making use of fractals as well. They are the best thing since sliced bread.. except maybe toilet paper..

 

[Hannibal]

@Hannibal ----My icon is the Other Hannibal! The original, Hannibal Barca! Only on this forum could there be TWO HANNIBALS!

Is this a challenge, other Hannibal?

 

[Varzar]

Is this a challenge, other Hannibal?

Long dead general vs. fictional cannibal. Hmm, who would win? Do we place bets somewhere?

 

[Hannibal]

Long dead general vs. fictional cannibal. Hmm, who would win? Do we place bets somewhere?

Only in our imaginations could such a legendary battle exist. It would be too much for this world.

 

[Sherlock77]

I have heard of fractals before, don't do them...

I've seen them related to photography sometimes if I'm not mistaken... I do photography but more along the lines of documentary style

 

[Varzar]

Mandelbrot Set:

 

[tree]

 

[Hannibal]

View attachment 68086

Thanks so much!

 

[Misery]

I love indie games too. Personally speaking, I'm a huge PS, Nintendo, card, and PC fan. I plan on indulging in PC gaming like I used to again... double monitors curved and everything. Some of my favorites on PC have been the Portal series, Skyrim series, The Stanley Parable, Don't Starve, Oxenfree, Silent Hill series, Little Nightmares, Undertale, and many more. I have HEAVILY considered getting into Danganronpa. Games on other platforms I loved are Detroit: Become Human, The Last of Us, I was obsessed with Destiny for about six months, the Fallout series, and more. A couple of these I was heavily involved with including the fandom aspect.

Undertale was freaking great. Chara is one of my cosplays, actually, which I admit was mostly because it was super easy to do due to my appearance (aka, I barely had to do anything to make it work, yay for laziness). Dont Starve is also great! Very bloody hard and I just adore that artstyle and all of the characters. I really wish they hadnt branched stuff off into Dont Starve Together though... there's a ton of content and also story stuff that only shows up in that one, and there's no point in playing that one as a solo player. Little Nightmares I havent played yet, I just got a copy of it a day or two ago. I dont really play AAA games much... after finding the indie side of the industry (and after the AAA companies started to get nasty) I just have not had much interest... but I did actually play Destiny a bit and it was pretty good (though I'm fantastically awful at FPS games).

Lately though it's mostly been Binding of Isaac, since the Repentance DLC finally dropped. Not only my favorite game, but also the one that pulled me into indies in general. And then Repentance took every issue I had with it and fixed all of it. Bloody amazing.

Honestly I could rant for like 20 pages about so many games. I rather suspect you could as well. Also I dont hesitate to admit that I'm a big FNAF fan. Just wish the fandom for it wasnt so... well... you know. Though, I guess the Undertale fandom is often not much better. Well, ANY big fandom, really. They always get a tad weird/intense.

I am a huge YouTube fanatic. My interests jump all over the place. In the gaming area, I frequently watch CallMeKevin, sometimes I watch JackSepticEye, and RTGamer. I am more passionate about other subjects on YT though, like shitposts, medical topics, anime stuff, true crime, and docuseries. Other YouTubers I love are Bailey Sarian, Chubbyemu, SomeOrdinaryGamers, Caitlin Doughty, Mama Max, AnxietyWar, TheRightOpinion, Kurtzgesagt, and Nexpo. If you have any favorite YouTubers of any kind feel free to tell me! I'm sure there's some I'll know and like. I can't possibly list them all.

Ooh, Chubbyemu's stuff is great. I dont even have any real interest in medical stuff... mostly goes over my head... but his videos are just so darned interesting. He's one of the very few Youtubers whose videos I will immediately watch as soon as I see that one came out. Sorta familiar with Nexpo and MamaMax.

When it comes to gaming-related channels, I watch a lot of Markiplier, Manlybadasshero, Deceased Crab, and One F Jef. Also Alpha Beta Gamer for non-commentary videos. Also Jim Sterling, I catch the weekly Jimquisition series every Monday. AVGN as well, been watching his stuff for... far too long.

As for everything else, I tend to gravitate towards horror stuff or anything creepy (well, I go for that with the gaming content a lot too). Night Mind being the best for that, particularly for making series like Marble Hornets actually freaking watchable... love that series but it's a total mess when watched normally. And there are quite a few channels, particularly in the horror category, that arent really normal channels at all, but that instead exist purely for ONE series (as in, that series is the only thing on them). Some favorites in that category are: AI Builds, Daisy Brown, Alan Tutorial, Anomalies, Louise Paxton, I Am Sophie, Hi Im Mary Mary, Dont Hug Me I'm Scared, and a couple of others I cant remember the name of. Also anything related to the SCP Foundation. HUGE SCP fan.

And then a LOT of stand-alone favorites. #1 of which is This House Has People In It, that is a freaking masterpiece. I've seen a lot of horror stuff, but none are like THAT. Makes zero bloody sense when watching at first though... I wont spoil that one but there's waaaayyyyyy more to it than that one video.

Lastly, a few comedy-focused channels. ProZD, CircleToons, Fire Department Chronicles, and Angry Cops. Found those last two very recently, omigod those are absolutely hilarious.

Yeah... I've a LOT of free time so there's plenty of time for too much Youtube.

As soon as I saw the examples it clicked in my head. I know exactly what you're talking about! I've seen art like that before and I love it. I never thought of someone being, specifically speaking, a fractal artist though... which is why it didn't register at first. I always thought of it as computer generated, mathematical, or nature related. I think they're beautiful. I am mesmerized by things like that and I'm not sure why. Chaotic yet natural at the same time. It's hard to describe. I'm assuming those are your pieces. If so, they're great! These are my personal favorites: Vortex Phoenix Dart and The Corridor I could actually write a short story about the last one. Some very specific scenes / imagery came to my head when I saw it.

Indeed, those are all my creations. I've discovered that there's quite a few fractal-focused artists on DA there. The real problem with fractal art though and why it's not bigger than it is, is the general lack of tutorials for a bunch of programs that dont at all explain themselves. One look at the interface for any fractal program is enough to put off most users; it's always this complex tangle of buttons and parameter fields and seperate windows and things that do who knows what. I use about 9 seperate programs to make these things, each is good at different things, and each has its own screwball learning curve. I always try to get people interested, to try it themselves... it's intimidating stuff but it's seriously not as brutally difficult to learn as it looks. Even the 3D stuff.

My art is all on Facebook or Instagram. I'll attach a couple examples that show how different my art can be. The dog is an oil painting and the tiger is digital art. The painting was a commission of someone's pit bull.

I must say, you are VERY talented at that. I'm trying to learn to draw/paint myself as well... slowly... but the only thing I know how to do is abstract weirdness. Stuff like what you posted there is incredibly impressive to me. How did you learn to do that stuff?

You should totally make a topic about it over on the Visual Arts section of the forum, and post a bunch of your creations there!

Really love your fractal artwork. Particularly enjoy Void Tangle, Maze and Clash.

Also, for anyone that's ever played games with procedurally generated terrain/trees/whatever, that's mostly making use of fractals as well. They are the best thing since sliced bread.. except maybe toilet paper..

Thanks, glad you liked them! Void Tangle was extremely difficult to make, took bloody forever.

Some of these things are based on the Mandelbrot set (or the corresponding Julia sets), others are flame fractals (whatever that means), and the 3D ones are all Mandelbulbs. The stringy sorts (like Clash) are not pure fractals, they're... er... something. Fractal-ish. They're made with a program called Amberlight 2.

 

[Qoyote]

Great to have another weeb/furry on board!

Also love Chubbyemu and Muta. I'm not sure how Chubbyemu makes "guy eats too much of common substance" entertaining over and over, but somehow he does. And Muta's just a decent guy. I'm not even interested in most of his topics, I just like listening to him.

 

[SusanLR]

Welcome Hannibal!

Another fan of Hannibal here. Simply irresistable.
House, too!

Very nice art work. I enjoy oils, and mixed medias.
Many years ago in college, I did a lot of graphites.
Your name made me think of a series I made called Norman's closet.

 

[Amy Stone]

Welcome! I am new to the forums and recently self-diagnosed myself. Your bio interests sounds like my son could have written it! Weeb, digital art, cosplay...that all his interests as well. Love the art!

 

[unperson]

nice pix, everybody.

 

[Magna]

Welcome.

 

[Tom]

I love indie games too. Personally speaking, I'm a huge PS, Nintendo, card, and PC fan. I plan on indulging in PC gaming like I used to again... double monitors curved and everything. Some of my favorites on PC have been the Portal series, Skyrim series, The Stanley Parable, Don't Starve, Oxenfree, Silent Hill series, Little Nightmares, Undertale, and many more. I have HEAVILY considered getting into Danganronpa. Games on other platforms I loved are Detroit: Become Human, The Last of Us, I was obsessed with Destiny for about six months, the Fallout series, and more. A couple of these I was heavily involved with including the fandom aspect.

I am a huge YouTube fanatic. My interests jump all over the place. In the gaming area, I frequently watch CallMeKevin, sometimes I watch JackSepticEye, and RTGamer. I am more passionate about other subjects on YT though, like shitposts, medical topics, anime stuff, true crime, and docuseries. Other YouTubers I love are Bailey Sarian, Chubbyemu, SomeOrdinaryGamers, Caitlin Doughty, Mama Max, AnxietyWar, TheRightOpinion, Kurtzgesagt, and Nexpo. If you have any favorite YouTubers of any kind feel free to tell me! I'm sure there's some I'll know and like. I can't possibly list them all.

As soon as I saw the examples it clicked in my head. I know exactly what you're talking about! I've seen art like that before and I love it. I never thought of someone being, specifically speaking, a fractal artist though... which is why it didn't register at first. I always thought of it as computer generated, mathematical, or nature related. I think they're beautiful. I am mesmerized by things like that and I'm not sure why. Chaotic yet natural at the same time. It's hard to describe. I'm assuming those are your pieces. If so, they're great! These are my personal favorites: Vortex Phoenix Dart and The Corridor I could actually write a short story about the last one. Some very specific scenes / imagery came to my head when I saw it.

My art is all on Facebook or Instagram. I'll attach a couple examples that show how different my art can be. The dog is an oil painting and the tiger is digital art. The painting was a commission of someone's pit bull.

View attachment 68083 View attachment 68084

Very impressive works! Real talent there. As a dog lover, the Pit is of course adorable. I tend to like realism most in art but think the tiger is just amazing. The smoke is a wonderful effect and the whole really catches the imagination.

So welcome to the Emerald Planet. Don't forget to put in your order for your spectral helmet.

 

[Alexej]

Welcome @Hannibal

Glad to have you with us. Sounds like you are fitting right in.


If you hear a rumour of coffee and donuts - be sceptical. I have never made it to the kitchen in time to get them

 

[Streetwise]

Don't watch the perversion parts in any media ,did like Sherlock Holmes (investigation without seeing blood or mutilation )like some parts of Victoriana, don't like conventions ,watched House m.d for a while ,prefer comedy ,like some of Ripping Yarns, not a fan of all of Monty python,watch YouTube and Facebook videos,a lot of autistic people are very passionate and they defend what they believe !.

 

[_eri_bellehumeur]

Hello and welcome! My research into autism felt very similar- spent life thinking I was just "wrong" somehow and then BAM, everything made sense and I wasn't alone anymore.

Anime is one of my obsessions too, and while I've never been to a convention due to anxiety it's something I would really love to do when Covid restrictions lift and cases drop. I've taken up sewing recently, and it's a dream to make my own costumes.

My education is primarily in Archaeology but I love Psychology, and am really considering doing a double degree (in completely unrelated fields but oh well).

Hope you find a strong community here!