Using Apophysis Part Two: Inside the Flame Editor

Written by: NeorageX Published by: SAJChurchey Published on: 2008-06-28 18:23:10 Topic: Graphics

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This is part two of my series on using Apophysis to make digital fractal art. As I am still learning much of this myself, I have realized that each function of this amazing program deserves a detailed explanation, and I intend to break up this series into more parts than I had planned for the sake of adequately covering all material. In this article, we will focus on the Flame editor and what all those crazy numbers and shapes mean.

Let's just jump right in, shall we? First off, navigate to this screen (from the last article). This puts us back into the Flame editor. Now do you see all those confusing numbers? It's enough to make your head hurt! Note that you should currently have the Triangle tab selected. In the left pane, you see several different colored triangles. These triangles visually represent the transformations, or geometrical data, that determine the size, shape, and pattern of the fractal image. The numbers you can see and edit are the x and y coordinate data for each triangle. A small preview of the fractal image is visible in the upper-right corner of the editor window. In this case, you will notice that by clicking either of the two free triangles a number of options are available to you. You can drag the triangle to a different location by clicking and dragging. Just be sure to watch the preview window. If you don't like the newly generated image, you can right-click and select "Undo" to reset the triangle to it's previous position. If you click one of the vertices (corners) of the triangle, you can change the shape of the triangle without moving it. Keep in mind that the parameters associated with these two triangles hold the mathematical data for the image. This data is "plugged in" to the data from the reference triangle, the one you can't change, to create the fractal image. Here is an image of the options available in the right-click menu: These options are fairly self-explanatory, but if you need any clarification, then the Apophysis help file does a pretty good job of explaining itself. Note that once you have selected a triangle, all the right-click options you select will apply to it, so make sure you have the correct triangle selected if you wish to make changes. Right under the preview panel, you will see a Transform drop-down list. This simply allows to to edit one Transform and then select another for editing from the drop-down list. This is a handy way to compare and contrast what effects occur after manipulating the transform data. Last but not least, you should see the Preserve Weights checkbox at the bottom-right of the editor. This is pretty much useless and will, in fact, be phased out in future releases, but I didn't want to leave it unexplained in case there was any confusion. Now, chances are, unless you are some Greek god of math, you are not going to possibly know what effect changing these parameters will have without using trial and error and keeping an eye on the preview panel. That's why the creators made it a little easier by creating the two Variations tabs. These let you edit a number of predefined patterns by tweaking the geometric variables similarly to the Triangle editor. The wonderful thing about Apophysis is the limitless number of patterns available that are automatically generated by the Fractal Flame Algorithm when you start the program. This means that you do not have to start from scratch and lose your mind trying to tweak the numbers just right to find a good shape. Keep in mind that at any time you can press Ctrl+B to generate a new random batch, and you will instantly have a new set of data right at your fingertips. The method for working with this data is exactly the same as with the triangle editor: simply tweak the numbers a bit at a time and watch the preview window to see what you get. Although it is recommended if you want to truly master fractal art, if you don't want to do this by hand, simply click on the Variation toolbar on the main screen, and the different patterns will be available to you. If you find one you like but still want to mess with it, simply go back into the flame editor, go to the Variations or Vars 2 tab, look for the pattern that you want to edit and begin. You can also edit any of the other patterns to see what you come up with. Quote: The Variation Menu Finally, the last two tabs left to be talked about are fairly self-explanatory. The Colors tab allows you to select the gradient that your transform will use, as well as the color of the triangles in the editor and the background color. The Transform tab is essentially the same as the Triangle tab, but playing with the weight variable will allow you to control to what extent the Transform will affect the entire image. Although I would have liked to have covered a lot more, I'm afraid it's time to wrap up this article. In the next article, I promise to go into as much more detail about the workings of the Fractal Flame Algorithm itself. This should be rather interesting . . . Until next time, Mahalo.

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