I've finally done it. After almost 2 years of contemplation and constantly postponing it, I finally got around to using MandelBulb3d. This is an application made by the same developer that made JWildFire, my favorite fractal app so far. But MandelBulb3d takes fractal design to the next... dimension, both literally & metaphorically: the fractals are three-dimensional now, with light sources and shadows and all the weird geometry you would expect.
This is my first try after some hours of experimentation.
I spent some time to get to know the formulas, there are dozens of those, and you can combine up to six together, so the combinations are ... too many to count, right!? I found just two formulas for my first 3d fractal, put them together, and this is what I came up with:
You see all those numbers & dials & panels & buttons? Well, that's not even the half of what there is in total! You see now why I've been avoiding this app, eh?
Anyway, the rest of the story is my boring attempts to find the proper camera position, angle object color, ambient color, shadows, intensities, etc, etc. This is the result of the final render at high resolution and quality:
I also did a render of the "Z-Buffer", an greyscale image that has 3d information: whiter areas are nearer to the camera, while darker areas are furhter away; the deep distance is total black. This is very useful for image processing in GIMP, it can be used as distance-mask so that the effects are applied more to the whiter areas.
After a while of color corrections and minor post-processing, this is the final image:
The Forbidden Fruit
by @nyarlathotepA fractal made in Mandelbulb3D
The original render is in 3072x3072 pixels, so here are some details of that:
The Stars are -almost- Right!
Most impressive!
Don't make me have to write a whole new epic... there is so much richness in this image!
I enjoyed the previous story so much, that I would not mind reading another one or two. In fact, you have the permission to do so by default whenever you feel like it. I hope to get a better grasp of the application soon and post better 3d fractals. Animation is also a great area to explore in Mandelbulb3d, but I feel that a still image is worth many more words than an animation: it allows so much more creativity to flow in many different pathways...
I like still images too ... it lets the mind rotate them around ... I took the two images for the Mandala of Domination and made a whole 3D cathedral out of them ... mixed them up with a French art style for early 3D and had them popping out of the sides of buildings when looked at from a certain angle ... had people growing them in their front yards ...
In this case, you present us with a 3D image that actually does resemble an actual 3D object -- two, in fact -- in nature ... so, there is a good possibility that Chief Inspector Jean-Paul Dubois may have to look up from his regular work in Interpol and go look into another strange matter...
A Well-Traveled Forbidden Fruit, Part 1
A Well-Traveled Forbidden Fruit, Part 2
Woah that is awesome, I really want to try this software too! I just downloaded blender but haven't had much time to play with it, too many sorftwares to explore >.<
Thank you, I can only urge you to try it out. I've been intimidated for a long time by all the controls & panels, but once you get the basics, it is not very hard to play around and do stuff. Even the simplest settings make me go "wow" with the rendered results.
👋 Hi @nyarlathotep, I was flipping through the blockchain and stumbled on your work! You've been upvoted by Sketchbook / a community for design and creativity. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon.
✅ Join the Sketchbook Community