Apophysis 3D Revealed

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

Skill Level: Beginner

Quick Facts

• Creating sample pictures

• Using ApoMap’s Smooth Palette function

• Converting from Map files to UGR
  

• Download the Gradients
  

Nature Pictures

To start with find a series of nature pictures you like, especially ones that have interesting colors. Most pictures have too much detail which can result in a gradient with too many colors and high contrast. The idea here is to select small parts of these pictures to restrict the gradient process to a more suitable and desired range.

Things to look for

Contrasty pictures have too much difference between dark and light areas. In Apophysis each rendering is usually against a solid background. If that color is dark, the best gradients are mostly light shades. Dark colors on a dark background tend to disappear and not show up. That can produce interesting effects but the bottom line is that the whole fractal is not showing. Obviously light backgrounds require dark shades in a fractal gradient.

Be aware of these requirements as you sample pictures and plan ways to organize the results so it is easy to find the right gradients later. Choose samples from small areas where there is not too great a contrast. Pick out some with light shades, some that are dark, others that are predominantly some color. If necessary reduce the contrast in the sample before saving it.

Sample pictures can be processed to make a Smooth Palette more than once because the method is random and will create different patterns each time.

Bright color source

Start by creating a small selection box on the image. Copy and paste the results into a new image and save them as a JPG or BMP. Go back to the source image and move the little box to a new area and repeat the copy/paste/save routine. Here are the samples collected from this image.

Small Sample Images

Here is the gradient from one of these samples

Orange-Yellow Gradient

Here’s another good source image to sample:

Evening Sky Source Image

And the samples acquired:

Sky Samples

The finished gradients are available as a downloadable zip file. Here are more of the sources and samples:

Mountain Frog Source

These samples include some Frogskin!

Mountain Frog Samples

Grass Samples

River Samples

Sky Samples

Sunset Samples

The sky and Sunset pictures are all from Central Oregon.

Leaf Samples

Making Gradients

Now open up ApoMap and click on the Smooth Palette Button.

Smooth Palette Button

Navigate to your sample images, pick one out then wait for the process to finish. In a few moments a gradient will open up in the program. Save it or copy it to the clipboard for use in Apophysis. Continue making gradients from the samples until there is a good collection of Map files.

A special converter utility called Map Converter.exe will convert all those many single-gradient Map files into a convenient UGR file. Download the utility from Datagram. Place this utility in the same folder as ApoMap – for convenience. Double click to operate the program. Navigate to the list of Map files and check the check boxes for which ones to include, and give it an appropriate name. It works fast and easily.

To use these in Apophysis, go to the Gradient tab in the Adjust panel and find the button to open the Gradient browser. Use that browser to locate the new UGR file and open it up. Click once on a name, or hover the mouse above it to show a sample of the gradient. Double click the gradient name to transfer the gradient into Apophysis.

The finished collection of gradients have been converted to UGR files, along with many more samples than are shown here. They are available on my devArt gallery.

Thanks for visiting!

There are two ways to think about the “slice function”…

One way is that Apophysis does it’s own internal slicing when you have an image render that requires more memory than you have installed on your computer. Say your image render needs 500 MB but you only have 364 MB of physical RAM available. If you check the box to limit the memory usage, Apo will automatically break the task into “slices” and render them one at a time and compile them together into one image when the process is done. Say you check it and use the value of 128 MB as a limit, as it begins working you will see a note at the bottom informing you that it is working on “slice 1 of 4.”

The second way is to slice up a big image manually so that it doesn’t render all at once, occupying the next two weeks of your computer time!

The goal is to render in smaller time segments so that You can get full access to your computer once in awhile and eventually still get that larger render accomplished. After they are rendered they get assembled as layers in Paint Shop Pro or Photo Shop. The following gives directions for working in PSP.

Note:

The following instructions are based on certain assumptions about how Apophysis is being used.

1. The renderings being discussed are rendered without transparency, or if rendered with transparency have been combined with a black background so that what is being worked on is no longer transparent. The reason this is important – transparent renderings cannot be overlapped and combined as described here. To combine transparent renderings they will need to be trimmed for an exact edge-to-edge fit. The same may be true if the desired background is a gradient of colors or a non-black background.
2. The alignment options assume that the Adjust panel/Camera tab/Rotation control remains at 0 (zero). If this control is not ZERO it will change how the alignment of the slices can be accomplished. In most cases, any rotation of the flame can be accomplished without having to make use of the “Camera Rotation” control.

Open one of your rendered slices and enlarge the Canvas or start a new image that is big enough for all your layers. Load each image as a New Layer, and align the layers using “difference” as the method which makes the overlap areas turn black when it’s properly aligned. Assuming your background color is BLACK, change the layer properties to “Lighten” which allows the layers to blend and minor differences from render to render are not a problem and won’t create a visible line. When you are done, flatten all the layers into one layer.

Slicing

Here’s an example. Say you want an image that is 3000 pix wide x 2000 pix high. The “Scale” property in Apo is directly tied to the “Width” factor but NOT tied to height. So the key here is to leave the Width=3000.

The slicing will be done only on the height factor.

This example has a finished image that is 2000 pix high so let’s make 10 slices, each slice 250 pixels high. The reason is that you want some overlap for the later compositing process. You also want to make sure you capture the full desired height of your flame. If there is extra area you can easily crop the assembled image.

Start by correctly scaling and centering your desired view in the preview window. Then set the Image Width and Height to the overall values you want, for this example it is 3000 x 2000, click update, then save your parameters.

Before you start slicing you need more information.

Go to the “Adjust panel” and click the “Camera” tab. Make a note of what values exist for the “X position” and the “Y position”. These represent the center of your desired view for the whole thing. For this process you will be changing the “Y position” values, but do NOT change the “X position” values.

The next task is to find out where the top of your image is and the bottom. You do this in the Main panel preview window.

In this example (yours will be different) my overall center is Y=0.005.

Click and drag your preview from very near the top of the preview window and approximately in the center from left to right. Accuracy here is not important. Drag that point down till your pointer is as close to the very center of your preview window as you can gauge it by simply looking at it. Release the mouse, and the “Y position” value will update in the “Camera Tab” of the “Adjust Panel.” Write that value down as it’s the location of the top of your image.

In this example the value is Y= -0.997. (yours will be different)

Now click near the bottom of your preview window, which is where the actual center of your image is at the moment, and drag that point all the way to the top of the preview window. When you release the mouse, the “Y position” data will update showing the location of the bottom of your image.

The bottom of this example is located at Y=1.061. (yours will be different)

Using the calculator, the distance between the top and bottom is found by adding these numbers together, and ignoring the minus sign for the top value. For this example the total distance for Y=2.058.

We want 10 divisions and we will start at either the top or bottom. That leaves 9 increments to fill up the rest of the space. In this example let’s start at the top and work down.

2.058 / 9 = .2286667 (rounded off)

This is the incremental distance between the centers of each slice.

Starting with -0.997, add your increment of .228667 and get -0.768333.
Next, add the increment again and get -0.539666, and so on until the last increment yields +1.0610003. You now have the centers for each of the 10 slices, each of which will be 250 pixels high.

Now you’re ready to set up the slices

Go to the “Adjust Panel” and click the “Image Size” tab. Make sure that the check box for “Maintain Aspect Ratio” is UNCHECKED! If you followed all the directions above the Width will show 3000 and the height will show 2000. Select the “Height” value and change it to read 250. Click the “Apply” button and the preview should update to a very wide but not tall slice, 3000 x 250.

Next, click the “Camera” tab and go to the “Y position” box. Eliminate the value already there and enter the value for the top of your image. In this example that would be -0.997. If the number already there has many digits you might have to click and drag carefully to select the whole thing and use -backspace- on the keyboard. When you’re sure it’s clean, enter your top value. Then click -Enter- on the keyboard.

The preview window should now be positioned so that it is centered on the top of your image. Save this parameter-set using an appropriate name, and a number designating the first of 10 slices.

Go back to the “Y position” box and enter the next position down in your list. In the example case, -0.539666. Click -Enter- and then save the parameters as your 2nd of 10 slices. Continue till all 10 are saved.

At your leasure, select one of those parameters and render it. When they are all rendered, assemble them in a graphics program.

Exploring New Variations

It’s always fun to try new variations, new to me anyway. GlynnSim plugin is actually 3 plugins relating to circles. In the following image I use GlynnSim3 in the 5th Transform to create a double circular framing effect. It is interesting to note that some details overlap this circle, and others are cut through with it. The other frame used here is Squarical in the 4th Transform.

If you want some interesting effects, start moving the triangles away from the origin and rotate them! The plugin pack doesn’t have much in the way of actual documentation but it does include a few flame files which will help to discover what these cool plugins can do.

This plugin is available from eralex61 on devArt. For Apo 3D, the plugins get placed in the folder Plugins3D which should be just under the folder where your Apophysis 2.08 3D hack program is installed. Many more plugins are available in this list at Fractal Resources on devArt.

Framed Posies

Planning Ahead

Every time you create a random batch, you might find something of interest either in a random parameter set or for use later. If you don’t care for the pattern, maybe the color gradient is one you might want later. Save gradients that you like in UGR files. Create new UGR files for different purposes – for colors on dark backgrounds, colors on light backgrounds, complex colors, simple colors, predominant colors, etc.

Remember that how a Flame looks with a gradient is not totally due to the gradient itself, but involves how the color settings for each transform that makes up the Flame are set.

The goal is to build a library of cool stuff to work with that is uniquely yours. You liked it, tweaked it, collected and organized it. It’s yours to use as you build custom designs later. If you like, rotate the colors, change the color saturation, contrast, hue or brightness before saving it.

To save a gradient, Right mouse click in the gradient display in the Gradient tab of the Adjust panel, and select the option to “Save Gradient”. Either find a suitable existing UGR file, or enter a name for a new UGR file, click OK. The UGR file is a container for many gradients so the next step is to assign a name to this gradient so it is identified within the container file. Save the gradient.

It can be fun to open ApoMap, which is a gradient editor for Apophysis. It has various functions to change the colors and make them look different. It also has a unique RGB based chart in which you can draw lines that control the percentages of each primary color in the gradient.

One goal of this process is to match up specific color bands in the gradient to regions of a flame image. When you save files in ApoMap results in gradients of the Fractint format with an extension, “.map”. Apophysis can read these files directly, or you can download a conversion program that will change a collection of MAP files into a convenient container UGR file. You can also copy the gradients to the clipboard and paste them into the Gradient tab in Apophysis.

People who live in glass houses…

But this isn’t about stones! It’s about image data getting cut off by the side edges of an image pair. Imagine looking out your window. It is natural that the window prevents you from seeing objects outside the window that are larger than what you can see through the window. Tree branches for example disappear at the window’s edge. One eye sees more of it than the other so you interpret the information as – the branch doesn’t end, it’s just out of view.

Now if that branch poked through the window into your room it might be impressive, but if it also disappeared right at the visible edge of the window that would seem strange. In physical reality that wouldn’t happen. If the branch intruded into the room, it would exist in front of the window edge and you could see that.

In a stereo image pair, the image information ends at the picture’s edge. You break the window when it seems the edge data shows something in front of the window, but which disappears magically at those side edges. It is illogical to the mind and becomes a distraction during stereo viewing.

A well composed and framed stereo image will attempt to insure that this doesn’t happen.

Below is an image that is well composed, but it has one little detail that does break the window. It can easily be ignored because it is not large nor is it part of the main subject matter. This makes it a good example to illustrate the point.

Garden Through the Window

This image pair is a Screen capture from the main panel preview window. The images were cropped leaving two pixels all around each image so you can see how to test for this window property as you edit your images. If you fail to include the side edges of the preview, you will have no idea whether the parameters correctly provide a stereo window for your image pair.

In this case, the windowing is correct and the parameters for both sides are correct and ready for a full resolution render.