Apophysis Tutorial (Making a Wallpaper)

[Phoenix_22]

ok, i think i have this program down pretty good. I can't do the animations though.

Apophysis is a fractal frame editor, or a wallpaper maker that has some really cool designs.

Link to the site:http://www.apophysis.org/ (there are tutorial links to DeviantART as well on that site)

Just a word of advice, this is for the 2.0.2 version, if it gets updated, i hope to update this.

Let's begin. First got to the site and download the program, install it, and click on the program. Don't worry, this program is free and it does not cause viruses nor spyware. Now, once you have the program opened you will see a fractal already made.


Now from the top-left corner, here are the icon's functions:

1. Folder thing=opens certain things, one is the parameters, here you can find one called "Apophysis" if you open it, it contains additional "flames" that can be mutated (explained later), they are some of the best ones, i enjoyed using them. Another thing is scripts, you can't open any viable things unless they are in there for some reason, so yes that folder is useless to open.

2. Save Parameters=Saves your current fractal in Flame format, these are rarely hostable, but if you can't render (explained later), and are to busy, just save it and come back to it later.

3. Render=this is what you use to save your current wallpaper in PNG format. Rendering can take up to 10 minutes or longer, but most of the time it takes around 6 minutes to render an image (depending on size). This button is used often, so keep it in mind to get your fractals on the web.

4. Undo=undo something you did.

5. Redo=Redo something you did.

6. Reset Location=good to use if you have screwed around with the camera angles and you want to get it back to the center.

7. Copy=used for copying the flame, i believe, however the picture won't be near its quality when rendered.

8. Paste=not really sure how useful it can be...sorry.

9. Copy as UPR=Generally not that useful, for in-depth rendering and editing than yes, but this is a basic tutorial.

10. Editor=Very complicated. but it pays off. Here you adjust the weights, the amount of fractals included and adjusting the fractal itself...size, shape, etc. More about this later...

11. Gradient=Here you change the gradient of the image, i've always said, "its all in the gradient" you can take a sub-par fractal to amazing just by changing the colors.

12. Adjust=Very, very useful...here you can change the gamma, which can reduce the amount of particles in the image. you can also change the brigthness of the fractal. You can also change the background color, the vibrancy, and the camera angles. Adjusting the camera can let you move the focus of a large fractal to a better focal point.

13. Mutation=used ALOT!!!!!!! Here you can mutate your fractal into much, much cooler shapes. You can browse by different styles of mutating as well as random. Muy importante!!

14. Run Script=complicated but useful. This pertains to the animations for fractals, but something that you can use out of it for basic walls is important. if you click the green button, you will see a mini-movie of your fractal being unraveled at twisted, if you see a shape that you like, then exit out of that when you see it, the change will occur. This is useful for little adjustments you want to do, or changes in focal points.

15. Stop script=stops the current mini-movie thing from continuing...

16. Edit Script=For advanced users, this is to make animations, i don't know how to do them, but i know where to find it...i'll post the link later.

17. Options=adjust various options, you can play around with these if you would like.

This concludes the basic knowledge for the program...i could go more in-depth, but i'm trying to get to the making fractal process.

[Phoenix_22]

ok, here is the process for making a basic Fractal:

Step1: open the program.

Step2: Either click a flame script from the left side, or press F9 to randomize your current one. Or just stay with your current one. its best to choose one you somewhat like before continuing.

Step3: Editor-click the editor icon and it should bring up a screen like this:


play around with moving the weights, and you should look at the preview in the window in the upper-rigth corner.

Step4: Gradient-Here you can adjust the gradient, click the little arrow for more that open a little drop-down list. Select one and see how it looks.


Step5: Adjust-Here you can lower-raise the gamma, lowering lowers particles. Adjust brightness, vibrancy. And move the camera.


Step6: Mutate-Have fun with this...this is the best part. Here you can browse through mutations of your current flame...choose one you like, see if it works. Either do another one or click undo if you don't like it.


Step7: Render-Here you are exporting your finished product. Be sure to make all the adjustments you want prior to this. From there you click the Render icon, then at the screen, adjust the pixel size, 1024x767, etc. Adjust the quality, i usually do 270-285. Now when making these changes be sure that you have enough available memory for it, there is a little list on the bottom that explains if you have enough. If it is too big, lower the render size, type in a number if needed. Once done with that, click render...sit back and wait, this will take 4-10 minutes to render. Once done you can change the format form PNG to JPEG or BMP or GIF, i use JPEG, it is the smallest file and easy to upload.


Step8: Finding the file and uploading to the internet.

Part1: finding the file you just rendered:
Go to my documents or wherever you put the Apophysis folder...click the folder...
Find the actual PNG file.

Part2: uploading-this is for converting from JPEG to something else and uploading.

Once you found the picture (PNG format) open up microsoft paint, now open it form there. Now go to save as, and save to wherever and go to file type, change it to BMP or JPEG or GIF (i recommend JPEG). Now once saved, go to GF's Gallery, or go to imageshack or photobucket. upload it there and there you go. Now you can go to th eimage link and upload them in a post or wherever.

In conclusion you should get a beautiful fractal like this:


Any questions can be posted here, or you can pm me. As always feedback is appreciated.

[young Obi-Wan]

this is great, just what i needed. i was thinking about starting apophysis because it's a rather simple program, yet so deep (like terragen ) and had already downloaded it.
thx for the tutorial, now i can finally install it.
I guess it's usefull to create some stuff i can work with in photoshop

[Phoenix_22]

Yup, as i said in another thread, it can be used for really good backgrounds, more interesting than gradients. If you have any questions, or want to know about the advanced tools, i can tell you or extend this thread.

[young Obi-Wan]

question! on the apophysis site you can also get that ApoMap Palette Editor... what's that good for?

[Chiefy]

I have some bumf I made with the program before I got bored with it and chucked it. I might get back into it as you can make some fairly nice stuff.

The images are too big for everything and I can't be arsed fiddling in the gallery so I'll just do some direct links to them.

1
2
3
4

They're big-ass images, roughly 3MB each, so wait for them to load. If you're on 56k, forget it.

The best way to do it in my opinion is to keep the mutate window open at a speed of 0.15 or so and browse down your random batch. Sometimes a butt-ugly original flame will throw up something nice in the mutation window and you don't want to miss that.

Try background colours other than black, too. Light greys can work well.

[Phoenix_22]

Originally Posted by Chiefy

I have some bumf I made with the program before I got bored with it and chucked it. I might get back into it as you can make some fairly nice stuff.

The images are too big for everything and I can't be arsed fiddling in the gallery so I'll just do some direct links to them.

1
2
3
4

They're big-ass images, roughly 3MB each, so wait for them to load. If you're on 56k, forget it.

The best way to do it in my opinion is to keep the mutate window open at a speed of 0.15 or so and browse down your random batch. Sometimes a butt-ugly original flame will throw up something nice in the mutation window and you don't want to miss that.

Try background colours other than black, too. Light greys can work well.

Not bad, try rendering them at something less than 2080x1400 or whatever those were, and try converting it from a png or other file type into a JPEG, it uses less space.
I like using the black, white, grey, and yellow backgrounds.

Originally Posted by young obi-wan

question! on the apophysis site you can also get that ApoMap Palette Editor... what's that good for?

Not sure, i think it is something that you use to create or find gradients, i'll have a look.

Edit: yup, thats exactly what it is, you screw around and creat a gradient, then import it into apophysis.

[Chiefy]

Originally Posted by Phoenix_22

Not bad, try rendering them at something less than 2080x1400 or whatever those were, and try converting it from a png or other file type into a JPEG, it uses less space.

I like them big. I use PNG because JPEGs crash a lot of the time because of a broken library in Apophysis when the filesize gets over 1MB. PNGs compress better anyway so they usually end up smaller, and I can have Alpha Channels in the renders.

[cliftz]

ahhh, apop. I just started with it about four or five days ago.
I'm starting to make some progress. I made this last night:

So, I'm a serious no0b at it...it's fun and some of the images I've seen over
at dA are astounding.