Apophysis 3D Revealed

Dear Visitors, there’s been a lot of activity recently relevant to Apophysis 2.08 3D hack, but the work is development of new plugins and scripts, so I haven’t taken much time to update or add to this site. That will change as there are many new things to add in both pictures and additional notes about using the program.

An exciting new development in the works is a script to allow you to render a stereo pair image set from a single parameter setting! If you have trouble understanding what’s taking place inside Apo, it can be a challenge to figure out how to find the right parameters for a paired image. The script was started by a good friend, Fred E. from the Apophysis discussion list and I’ve been fleshing it out with detailed features to make stereoscopic rendering much easier.

Other developments not mentioned on this blog up to now is the addition of a number of interesting new 3D plugins for Apo. Please visit my site on devArt for those plugins and information about them. http://aporev.deviantart.com

If this program is new to you here’s some basic information about the difference between plugins and scripts.

Both of those features allow you to expand what the basic program can do. Scripts can be simple where they tend to automate a task.

Scripts:

All the commands in the script get run together in sequence when you start the script. The program has a script editor so you can examine the code and make adjustments and changes to it, or start from scratch and write a new script. This is handy in many scripts as this is how you might make small adjustments to some of the parameters that it uses.

More complicated scripts make use of the full range of programming language to do many additional things. Fred E. commented to me recently that if you want, you could create a script to balance your checkbook. That has nothing to do with fractals, but the script facility is very flexible and powerful.

The bottom line for scripts is that they make use of the basic program functions and the installed plugins (Variations) to accomplish tasks ranging from simple to very complicated.

Plugins

Plugins are very powerful too, but they accomplish something different than scripts. Apophysis uses Variations to provide the means of warping and transforming points in the rendering field to generate the fantastic range of fractal flames that exist.

Plugins do not have the access to many of the basic Apo functions that scripts have, but scripts cannot modify the rendering points like plugins. Ideally they both work together – the plugin creates interesting modifications to “point handling” processes and the script makes use of whatever the plugins make available.

As I’ve learned to program plugins, I’ve developed this philosophical outlook on the process of plugin operation:

Plugins are similar to spray painting where you have no idea which individual droplet of paint will appear out of the nozzle, but when it does, the plugin can literally do anything to that droplet before it lands on the image space. Well, not quite anything! but close enough. Most particularly it can move them around freely.

I’ve discovered that many plugins cause the image to dramatically darken and the reason is because the math behind the processes ends up assigning new point positions that are wildly outside of the rendering area, thus making the image have very few collected points per pixel. The solution then is to be careful with the math processes to make sure that the points stay inside the visible area and get used to brighten the intended patterns.

There are useful purposes in making points disappear though! More on that later…

Happy Holidays and Happy Fractaling!

Note: Make sure to visit the pictures on the Stereo Exhibition page! They are presented in a wonderful Page Flip plugin.

The Apophysis program has always provided a fascinating range of fractals that while infinite, are also unique compared to the original Mandelbrot fractals and the related Julia sets. Until a few years ago, Apophysis only created fractals as 2D images. The shapes and patterns it creates are called flames because of the resemblance of many of them to various flame like shapes. The name for the program means to protrude a shape so it seems to me that it got that name for good reason, the patterns suggest shapes!

Classic Flame Fractal Shapes

To begin with that suggestion of shape was as far as it went. People love looking at the images that were rendered and imagining what shapes were present. It’s similar to cloud watching and imagining animals and figures in the cloud patterns. The intrigue of suggested shape is part of the attractiveness of this class of fractals.

When I first came across the program I attempted to ‘trick’ the program in various ways to show me more than one viewpoint of a flame fractal so that I could see the results in 3D. It didn’t work. Nothing repeated with sufficient predictability or defined direction for it to reveal the real shapes.

A review of the source code told me that it was entirely possible to modify it to include the third dimension, but not having the time, I wasn’t the one to set about the task.

Then a young genius with the handle “Zueuk” came along and did the conversion into 3D. Now you can visualize, design and render scenes of flames from any angle and best of all, it faithfully allows you to craft the precise view locations for stereoscopic output. Not only can you get an idea of what features are located where, but you can explicitly see the shapes in glorious detail and in 3D space!

Please understand, the program does not include direct stereoscopic tools. To obtain stereo views you have to get your render-camera to the right viewpoints AND you have to design a flame that is more than just a flat surface picture! In some cases that can be challenging.

Most of the “variations” and “plugins” for the program are written solely for 2D manipulation. That means that while they make interesting shape-suggestive patterns, they do so by painting flat – like onto a canvas. There are a useful number of additional plugins which have been written for the 3D hack versions and they provide the means to pop a flat texture into a genuine 3D shape.

Once the shape is established, some of the 2D variations end up painting on the 3D shapes and that allows you to continue designing in 3D. Whether you explore using random tools, or deliberately build a flame transform by transform, and painstakingly work your way through the long list of variation options, the 3D flame that results can be very interesting and often surprising.

Discussions on this blog will help the beginner to use Apo 3D hack with basic guidelines. Since the program is quite complex, there’s plenty for an experienced flame designer to learn too. That’s especially true if you want to develop quality stereoscopic image pairs as the output.

As things develop on this site, a number of stereoscopic tools will be developed as scripts, which makes it easy for you to use, whether or not you understand what needs to happen. I’ve started with one really useful and basic script called the Rotate Pitch Script. It easily tips the Pitch axis up and down so you can switch from a top-down view (Pitch=0) to a direct side view (Pitch=90), or a view from 30 degrees. Anyone using Apo 3D needs to do this a lot during the design and exploration process.

When you want stereoscopic images, there are a number of methods of working with the program that you should follow to insure that when you find the perfect flame and viewpoint, it will be simple to arrange the camera in the right way to get perfect results. Maybe some future version of the 3D hack can have additional improvements to overcome some of the idiosyncrasies and bugs that currently exist in the program.

Stereo results are fun and wildly rewarding. Obtaining them need not be terribly difficult when you learn some of the tricks. Stay tuned to this blog and website for more information, and most of all, try things for yourself in Apophysis 3D!

Parallel Perspective

The existence of parallel perspective in Apophysis 3D hack is a gem of a treasure for those who enjoy stereoscopic images. It makes the process of setting up good views and getting stereo results that are consistently usable without eye-strain very easy. It is also the quality that makes it possible to create 3D Webscapes textures with Apophysis 3D hack.

Definition

Parallel Perspective is the special case where perspective lines DO NOT CONVERGE as distance from the viewpoint increases. It is different from normal perspective where perspective lines converge at a defined infinity point or points in the picture or off-picture but relating to the photo, drawing or illustration. Perspective lines themselves are usually not part of a picture but are an illustration to help us understand the effect of perspective. Another way of describing normal perspective is the observation that objects farther away appear smaller than the same objects nearby. By contrast in parallel perspective no matter how far away the object is it remains visibly the same size.

Parallel perspective can take a number of forms. Some location maps use a kind of parallel perspective. There might be a marker saying, “you are here,” and trails or roads lead to different areas within a region that is illustrated on the map. If it were a public park, little structure symbols might be used to show where bathrooms are available or camping sites, or picnic facilities exist. The symbols would be the same size for any location on the map. Trees and roads would be drawn to the same scale everywhere on the map.

Another kind of parallel perspective is used in what is termed “primitive art” which is a style typical of times in the past and the tendency of a number of modern artists to represent things in a simple style without attempting to portray a realistic perspective. Typically they show placid scenes of small towns or farms and houses. A painting might show several streets of a town with beautifully painted buildings on each street. The buildings pictured on a street at the back of the town would be essentially the same scale as buildings on the closest nearby street. Farm scenes might show cows and horses at the same size whether they are close to a road in the foreground or at the back of a distant fenced field.

Here are some images illustrating Parallel Perspective and comparing it to Normal Perspective. The first is Normal Perspective as you would experience in using a digital camera.

Normal Perspective and Stereo Camera

Normal Perspective lines spread out from the viewpoint. Nearby objects thus appear larger than farther ones. Normal every-day reality is experienced this way.

Parallel Perspective is uniquely different and fun to work with.

Parallel Perspective

It’s easy to see that in order to capture a larger Fractal, the virtual camera’s Render Size is increased enough to show as much of the Fractal as you might want. Distant portions of the fractal have the same size as a similar feature close to the virtual camera.

This next picture illustrates how a stereo image is captured in Apophysis.

Stereo Parallel Perspective

Apophysis Perspective

In the Adjust Panel <F5> of the 3D hack version of the program there is a control called “Perspective.” It’s purpose is to simulate the effect of normal perspective so that nearby objects seem larger than the same object farther away. The parameters for this setting can be adjusted to values that distort the image to an extreme degree. You could call that a “special effect” which generally you won’t want to use.

For most stereoscopic purposes the setting should be set to Perspective = 0 and left there. The following illustrations will show what this control does and why it is best left at 0 or only used in small amounts.

Stereoscopic images are generally pairs of very similar pictures. The precise differences between them are what make them stereoscopic. Their purpose is to provide image data to each eye that the brain can process into a recognition of depth placement in a volume of space rather than just placement on a flat surface. Yet the images themselves are flat because each eye has only a single perspective.

What changes are there between each eye’s perspective? If they are done correctly, there will be ONLY one definable change – a slight horizontal displacement of each image detail according to relative distance from the camera or viewpoint. Any changes other than strictly horizontal placement changes are errors and cause various degrees of eye stress as the mind attempts to connect the information in each picture in a recognizable way.

In order to render good stereo images with Apophysis the above information is important. When the Perspective setting is something other than 0, the result is that some image information will shift up or down during the attempt to define two stereo viewpoints.

Here’s an image designed by changing various parameters from those provided in a tutorial called Xaos Bubbles Tutorial, written by Nightmares06. Specifically, in Transform 1 the variation for Hexes=1 is changed to Hexes=0 and instead the Variation Flower=6 is used, along with the corresponding Variables, Petals=4 and Holes=1.125.

Correct Stereo Pair

If you wish to try and duplicate these results, note that instead of setting the Pitch to 60 as instructed in the tutorial, the Pitch here is set to 90 and the Final Transform is enabled and used to create post_rotate_x = 0.333. This change approximates the desired view-angle and specifically makes it possible to use the Yaw control to establish accurate stereo-camera viewpoints.

Adjust Panel Settings

Transform Editor FX enabled

The next picture has the value, Perspective=0.1. Note that the nearby flower is larger than it’s corresponding flower in the distance. This gives a nice perspective effect.

Perspective = 0.1

The image can be viewed in stereo because the discrepancies are minimal, but they do exist. Note the horizontal reference lines and the arrows which point out where image data has moved slightly up or down between the two side views.

As the Perspective value is increased or the Yaw is increased the errors tend to increase. The next illustration is not intended for stereo viewing as it uses a Yaw difference = 40 degree angle. This first picture has Perspective=0.1. Notice that the errors have increased especially for more distant background or closer foreground objects.

Perspective = 0.1, Extreme Yaw angle

The following final image has the same extreme Yaw difference angle=40 (+20 and -20), but this time there is NO perspective. The setting is Perspective=0. In this case, even though the change of angle is extreme the image details remain perfectly horizontal, they don’t move up or down at all. This illustrates what is happening in Apophysis and how to get excellent stereo results. It is possible to introduce small amounts of perspective for the effect as long as you keep it really small.

Extreme Yaw difference, no perspective

I encounter various bugs in Apo quite often. That’s part of the nature of the program and a person learns to work around those bugs. For beginners who haven’t encountered them yet, they can prove puzzling or confusing.

Eventually I hope to list as many of them here as can be identified. Maybe it will help beginners and maybe a programmer working on updating the code will find it useful in making the program better! If you know of specific bugs and a work-around method, feel free to comment about them here, or send me an email with the information.

I’ll start with a simple one.

While working in the “Adjust Panel” one can enter numerical values directly by selecting the value already there, then typing in the new value. For some reason this process frequently stops working. The program fails to update, despite entering the number and clicking ENTER on the keyboard.

That is partly why I wrote the Rotate Pitch Script because I found that when the above problem occurs, the script will force the values to update correctly.

One effect of the bug is that as you work with Pitch=90 and make edits, it is useful to occasionally look at the fractal from a different vantage point such as Pitch=0. Often after switching back and forth by manually entering a value, the program refuses to recognize the activity, but the little Pitch value window will show the value I’ve entered, making it seem as if it changed, but the preview remains the same.

A similar effect of this bug is that after working at Pitch=90, then opening the Mutation panel, the central window in that panel will show the current side view, but the previews are all rendered from Pitch=0. Often if one of those Mutation options is clicked, the main preview will redraw showing the new flame from a Pitch=0 direction, but the Pitch control box fails to update and still shows Pitch=90.

This causes confusion because it is false information.

To verify the actual value, click on the word “Pitch” and start to slowly drag the mouse either left or right. This forces the value to update and begin incrementing as you drag. If it has been showing false information of Pitch=90 while the program is really working from Pitch=0, then this click drag action will cause the values to instantly change from the visible but false 90, showing that now you are adjusting values near Pitch=0.

There seems to be only two solutions to this issue. Use a script to control the values, or use the click-drag action of your mouse. The issue with Click-drag is that it can be difficult to arrive at the precise value you’re trying to get to.

Announcement: On the afternoon of July 10th, Friday, Apophysis 3D Revealed was a short 6 minute feature during the Digital Theater Presentation at the NSA (National Stereoscopic Association) 35th annual convention in Mesa Arizona. Including a title sequence and several ending credit slides, there are a total of 44 image pairs.

Stereo Disparity Percentage

Stereoscopic enjoyment is all about seeing and exploring the depth factors. Enjoyment is all about having the right relationships in place without going to a stressful extreme. This highlights one of the most difficult challenges in stereoscopic 3D because there are so many variables to account for.

In stereo photography the goal is to provide an image pair that when viewed appropriately, recreates for your senses the same visual geometry of the original scene. Lots of discussion can erupt over topics of whether or not it is OK or good to use a wider baseline between the camera lenses in what is termed hyperstereo. Hyperstereo can be very useful especially if you want to observe shape details of a distant scene which normally would appear not to have depth.

The medium of Stereoscopic imagery is actually a very flexible, stretchable medium. That is good in that it allows the artist/photographer plenty of lattitude in composing and arranging an image or scene. It can be bad in that a novice can easily be unaware of some effects which have the potential to affect people in an adverse way when they view the results.

Abstract art such as Fractal Flames has the advantage of not containing familiar and recognizable features. Thus when dimensions become stretched or distorted, who is to say it didn’t belong that way to begin with?! If the subject were a human or animal face, any distortion can be easily noticed and most often the impression would be negative.

More particularly relating to this website and stereoscopic issues, there is a huge difference between freeviewing or cross-viewing images on a computer monitor and attempting to project those same images onto a theater sized screen in stereo! The easy explanation is that cross-viewed images on the computer screen are far more compressed, which allows a much larger overall stereo disparity to be present before viewing stresses become too much. By comparison, when stereo images are projected to a large screen, the viewing geometry is stretched so much that a much smaller range of disparity is necessary. The guidelines for the NSA presentation call for a maximum of 3% disparity. The percentage is found by dividing the image width by the total measured stereo disparity between near and far points.

All of the images used for the NSA show had to be rendered especially for that viewing environment. For one thing they needed to be a particular shape and size for best performance, but also their parameters had to be adjusted so that the finished stereo pairs had no more than 3% disparity. Some of them as they originally existed had been rendered with 6% or more disparity and were quite comfortable to view on a computer screen.

Below is an illustration to help visualize the situation. The basic fractal image has been resized for website viewing and is actually 500 x 382 pixels. The ideal 3% then is 15 pixels as a total stereo disparity. When I measured the image I found that the foreground, or near point projected in front of the stereo window formed by the two sides and the plane of zero disparity. The total disparity from that near point to the most distant points turned out to be 4.4%.

Stereo Disparity Extremes

In this image various levels of disparity have been marked by the numbers. You may want to back up a ways from your computer monitor before trying to visually fuse the more extreme values represented by the range from 12% to 25%. I can personally fuse all the values, but when I view 25%, much of the rest of the image blurs out of range. For some that may cause eye strain so don’t try too hard! For others you simply may not be able to fuse the more extreme levels at all.

Projected stereo images with disparity well over 3% become for that audience what levels above 12% does for the freeviewing example.

It would be well to limit one’s creative expression to the more conservative and viewable levels of 3% to 8% when freeviewing on a computer screen. Then be aware that not all viewing circumstances will provide the same experience and no two pair of eyes are the same either!

There are several ways of rendering images from Apophysis settings. With stereo work I usually have at least two pictures and some design sessions yield more than that as saved parameters waiting rendering time. It’s cool to set it to render then go to bed, or off to some appointment.

On the main panel, under the Flame menu there is an option to Render All Flames. It usually works for me, but some have said it often fails. You might want to try it for simple convenience but there are tricks to how it works that might help.

• It is designed to render all flames that exist within an opened flame file, where you see the named parameter sets in the Main panel file menu.
• When you activate it and provide directions where to save the renders, it goes about its job. If you go with whatever image size is in the parameters be aware that it will read and use the first set, and all other files will be rendered at the same size! If you set a size, all files will render to that adjusted size.
• Just to make sure it has the best chance of working, after saving my various parameters, I will open some other flame file, then navigate back to the one I want to render from and make sure the top file in the list is highlighted and open in the preview. Then I say “go”.
• If the render sizes are large and you have more than one parameter set, it can be puzzling because the information about progress won’t show up for a long time. I haven’t had it crash but I have had it stay blank and unresponsive till all but the last render is taking place.
• If you really want to render a large file, do them one at a time so you can keep track of the activity.

That last tip is because I think there was a problem one time when it was pointing at some other parameter set than the top one. I haven’t tried to duplicate the problem so just in case I try to keep a clean approach to rendering.

It’s great to come back later and find one or several stereo pairs waiting to be viewed!

Some folks have authored scripts for batch renders so in the future I might link to those resources after giving them a tryout.

ApoMap

This little program is helpful in designing your own gradients but it’s not the only way to go.

In the Adjust panel under the Gradient tab there are four small buttons on the bottom right corner. The first one is “copy gradient to clipboard.” The next is “paste gradient from clipboard.” The third one is “open gradient browser.” The last one says “Smooth Palette.”

The first two are pretty self explanatory but it might be helpful to understand the last two. The gradient browser is a handy tool to open and explore previously saved collections of gradients for Apophysis. When you save gradients from the program it saves them in container files called UGR files. Each one can contain a large number of gradients identified with names. It is helpful to organize them so that only similar gradients exist in each one but that’s up to you to organize.

The smooth palette button opens a menu where you can navigate to any bmp or jpg image file. Once you’ve selected an image file, the program will analyze the file and create a new gradient based on colors that it samples at random from the image. For best results, prepare ahead of time by copying just small portions of image files from which to sample. Often a single source image can provide many smaller color samples.

You can use any digital image as a source for gradients, including painting small image files in a graphics program. This gives you a bit more control over the results.

Once the gradient is made, it loads into Apo and your Flame will be painted with the new colors. Remember to Right-click the gradient area and save the gradient in a convenient UGR file.

Gradients can be loaded into ApoMap from the clipboard, which makes it convenient for fine tuning a gradient to match your current flame, or you can design new gradients from scratch by drawing with the RGB tool.

The thing to be aware of is that ApoMap saves gradients in Fractint map files instead of UGR files. There is only one gradient in each map file. The gradient browser can open both UGR and MAP files.  A directory for Map files can fill up with a couple dozen files quickly, but using them in Apo one at a time is not very convenient. To get better organized it’s handy to stuff all those Map files into one or two UGR files.

Datagram has written a handy utility that will do exactly that. It works real well and is very convenient and It’s called the Map-to-UGR-Converter-Compiler.

Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Quick Facts

• Easy Exploration of Vast Territory

• Definitions

• Activate all plugins, get fewer useful results but cover greater territory

• Restricted plugin list – greater number of interesting results

• Choosing your Transform complexity

• Mutation window – randoms in a direction and speed

• Use a Script to create randoms that restrict parameter values to a useful range

Definition

Flame parameters that are generated by random functions are termed “randoms.” Each time you open Apo it automatically renders a new Random batch which you can sort through and save singly or as a batch.

• Method 1 –  Use the Random Batch <Ctrl B> option in the File menu. Remember to set the Batch Size in the Options panel <Ctrl P> under the Random tab

• Method 2 – Use the Mutation panel <F7>

• Method 3 – Use a Script to generate random choices

Recommendations

Upon finding an interesting random, save it to a unique Flame File. Then open that new flame file so that’s the only file visible. Explore using the Transform Editor and try new things. Save under an incremental name change every time something new or more interesting shows up. In Apo 3D, use the Rotate Pitch Script to easily visualize whether there is existing shape or whether changes made generate shape or flatten it and how much. Plan to render relatively small images to begin with. Decide later whether it is worth a large render.

How To

The different methods generally result in different percentages of useful or interesting results. With all the Plugins active, resulting flames will have fewer useful or interesting qualities. There are so many variations in the whole list that combined with open ended random values it can prove too much of a wild card. Be prepared to discard or delete many of these parameters before saving the batch. It can be useful to use the Save All Parameters <Shift+Ctrl+S>  in a storage flame file for later study or retrieval that is only used for random batches.

Better

To get a higher percentage of interesting results, go to Options <Ctrl P> under the Variations tab and choose the Clear All button. Then go through the list and select only a handful of variations. Choose the ones you know are interesting or which tend towards designs you want to work with. Go to the Random tab and make any changes to those settings, especially take note of the box where you enter a Title prefix for the generated randoms and the settings for minimum and maximum Number of transforms.

Random batches are generated with random values. It can easily be observed that some Variations are more sensitive to value changes than others or in certain combination’s with other factors. This can cause many flames to seem uninteresting, ugly and sometimes just appear as a tiny spot or be completely black.

It may be possible to quickly identify what properties in those “uninteresting” flames are causing them to be blank or ugly. Often they can pop into very interesting patterns so don’t assume they are useless without doing some exploring. On the other hand, designing from scratch with a deliberate direction is easy and there are plenty of already visible and interesting randoms on which to spend exploration time.

Mutation Windows

This is a good tool and can be used a number of ways. Start with an interesting flame parameter from either a random or a custom flame.

When the Mutation panel <F7> is opened the current flame will show in the central Preview port and variations are arranged around it in 8 choices. There are controls at the bottom, a slider called Speed, a drop-down menu labeled Trend and a check box.

New values in the variation previews are assigned randomly but by using a smaller Speed factor the increments will be smaller resulting in less change per sample.

The Trend drop down menu offers a choice of variations from a list of those that are presently available to the program, whether selected or not, or an option to use a random choice of variation. By selecting a variation from the list the options displayed in the previews will have incremental changes applied to the current flame based on the chosen variation.

Restrict the range of options via the check box for the Same no. of transforms as your starting flame. If you don’t check that box, there is an control in the Options <Ctrl P>, Random tab called Mutation Transforms where you can pre-determine the minimum and maximum number of transforms that get applied by random processes.

Any time an option window is clicked it moves to the central flame and a new set of changed variations are generated around it. Click the center window and it doesn’t change but the new possibilities around it are updated. When something interesting shows up change to a slower Speed factor. Stop and Save any parameters that you might want to explore later.

Because of all the preview windows this way of exploring can make the program run slower as each change requires so many windows to update. The advantage is the ability to cover a lot of random variables. It can be useful when building from scratch as well as just exploring randomly.

Scripting

Possibly the best way to explore randoms is to create or use a Script. Many Scripts already exist which add transforms to a blank flame then randomly assign variations and values. This makes it possible to include just the variations that are desired and best of all, limit the range of values that are assigned to each one. Scripts can be used to save batches of carefully crafted randoms too.

The Random function in scripting generates values between 0 and 1. The goal is to develop code which calculates a minimum and maximum value, positive or negative, depending on which variation type is being worked with. This method provides greater refinement and control over the results while retaining the advantage of random exploration. Study existing scripts and read tutorials to understand how to script. Later posts will add detail to the scripting idea but to start with some very nice tutorials already exist.

Most authors of scripts intend that they be used as learning tools so download and study many of them. Unpack them if they are compressed and store them in a convenient folder under your Apo installation. Open Apo and click the Script menu to find the Open Script <Ctrl E> option. Navigate to your list of scripts and select a script. Click Edit Script <Ctrl D> and read the text of the script to study what is taking place. Save any changes with a new name.

Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Quick Facts

• ApoMap is a unique gradient editor
• Cool RGB Graph editor – could be friendlier to use
• Making smooth gradients from image samples is easy
• Saves gradients as Fractint Map files

The Program Interface

Here are screen shots of the main menus

The File Menu options

The Edit Menu:

Edit Menu options

The Process Menu is perhaps more interesting:

Process Menu Options

These processes help to edit and modify a gradient.

The Graph Editor

Here is an example of a gradient designed in the Graph editor. The picture shows the editor aligned with the gradient to show how the RGB lines correspond to the colors.

Graph Editor in action

Design Process

It can take a few tries to get the colors right, but it is a really basic and easy process.

Green Spike gradient, Step 1

The Graph editor works by drawing one line at a time with any one of the three drawing pens. It only draws straight lines, click a place to start the line and click where it should end. Curves can be made by making many short lines consecutively and changing the angle of each one.

Colors are formed by mixing the amount of each primary color. Red and Green make Yellow, Red and Blue make purple, Blue and Green make Cyan.

Adding Some Interest with a color spike

Grays are made with roughly equal amounts of each color. In this example Red is the first line to be drawn. The other lines are the random gradient generated automatically.

Starting a Gray gradient

Next, trace over the Red line using the Green pen.

Trace over the Red line with the Green Pen

The last step completes the basic Gray gradient.

The Gray gradient completed

Sometimes it is interesting to add a bit of color to the grays just to see where it shows up in the Flame fractal.

Adding Color markers

Saving the Gradients

It is important to save the finished gradients so it will be available whenever it is needed in the future. Alternatively it can be copied to the clipboard and pasted it into Apophysis directly. The new gradient can be saved from either program.

ApoMap saves gradients as Fractint Map files.

Saving Map Files

The Graph editor is small so accuracy can be difficult, especially at the side edges. One way to work is to watch the numbers in the little boxes next to the color pens. The numbers provide a means to know precisely where the the click will take place. The starting number at the left side is 0, and the ending number on the right is 256.

If it is important that a gradient blend smoothly where the end and beginning meet, try the Rotation control in the Adjust panel. Rotate the edge gradient away from the edges, then edit the colors so there is no abrupt change.

Rotate gradient edges towards the center to smooth it

There is a sharp discontinuity where the former edge areas meet up after it has been rotated.

Former edges are discontinuous

Below they have been smoothed out

Gradient now blends smoothly