Apophysis Tutorial - Lightning and Beyond

[Phoenix_22]

Well, its been a long time since my last Apophysis tutorial, and I suppose that after 14 months of using Apophysis, its about time I post some of my knowledge.

Now, be sure you read up on my other two tutorials, as they will clear up some of the beginner holes that some of you may wonder.

First off, if you don't have Apophysis, download 2.02 from the official site:
http://www.apophysis.org/downloads.html

Then install 2.04d:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=127736

If you have 2.02 already, just do step 2.

Now, assuming you guys know about the basic interface, let's get started.

Step 1: As with every tutorial, open the program. (I'm hoping you can do this step! )

You should get a bunch of squiggly lines, like so:


Step 2: Go to your Options tab and input the following options:


Select ok, and go to the next step.

Step 3: Go to File > Random Batch

Select that and you'll get a new batch of fractals:


Step 4: Go to your variations option at the top and select "Linear."


Step 5: Open the editor window (black box with colored triangles) and you will get a screen like this:


Step 6: Delete all the triangles, called "transforms," but leave the remaining two.


Step 7: Use the various tool on the triangles, such as the move tool, the rotate tool, and the scale tool. move tool looks 4 arrows, rotate tool looks like a curved line next to a triangle, scale triangle looks like a scaler.

You should move them around to a position like this:


I got this:


Step 8: Now, go to your gradient window and select a gradient that contains a silver, white, or blue. This will make it look like lightning.


Step 9: Go to your adjust window, open the rendering tab, and play with the brightness and gamma settings.


At this point, you have a pretty good fractal, if you wish to render it, go ahead. (check final step for optimal settings)

From here on, the process is a little more complicated, and is designed for people who have used the program in-depth a little. I'll try and make it as clear as possible.

Step 10: Open up your editor window again. Select the "final xform" feature (top-right corner), this will bring up a white triangle.

From there, on the right, select the variations tab, and make them all set to "0"


Now, set the "Juliascope" option to 1.


Play with those options if you wish, usually keeping it to 1 for one variation. Also, move some triangles around if you want.

I got a result like this for some cool lightning:


Step 11: Add a triangle and set its variations all to 0 except for blur, set that to 1.


Step 12: I added another triangle, input some settings, and changed the gradient to create this:


Step 13: Exit out of your editor window and adore your image, yes, adore it!



There should be two questions on your mind at this point, how do I save it, and how come it is in such bad quality?

Step 14 will explain it...

Step 14: Rendering. Let's get this fractal to look how it should. Select the little gears in the top-left and you'll have a window like this pop-up:


Input those settings, select render, and go do something else for about an hour or so.

That concludes my tutorial, hope you guys liked it, and hope it helps.

-Phoenix

[Draco_2k]

Very convincing. *Pins on the "I like Apophysis" badge*

[SpaZy]

i will try out this program

[fr0zentw]

wow i never knew of this program until now..
looks very useful..and i love those kind of wallpapers.. now i'll try make my own.. thaanks!

[:|Dark|:]

Nice but who used Apophysis :P

[SpaZy]

Yeah i had never heard of this program, makes cool looking twirls and swirls its nice

[Phoenix_22]

Originally Posted by :|Dark|:

Nice but who used Apophysis :P

There actually is a huge fanbase for Apophysis. It is the most widely used fractal generator and is one of the most popular graphics programs.

Forgot to post my finished result, here it is:

[SpaZy]

hay it looks like a face

[PropheticKarma]

Thank j00 Phoenix!!!

[Muse Syndrome]

that has to be one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen... i'm gonna try!