Continuing to have a great time in the Working With Ultra Fractal class! This has really helped expand my style; I finally am producing images that have some subtlety to them. I’ve got a long ways to go before I get to the superstar level, but at least I don’t suck any more.
Week 4 had […]

Throughput Requirements
How big is this thing, and how fast do we have to go?
I want to produce a 60 to 120 minute film. At 30 frames per second, we’ve got an average of

90 minutes * 60 seconds per minute * 30 frames per second = 162,000 frames

Ah, but that’s just one layer, and assumes that […]

As I mention all over the place, I crave interaction and conversation with people interested in this wacky endeavor. Eric Williams, creator of biocursion, has not only been conversing with me but was kind enough to let me post the exchange here.

In it, you’ll find some very interesting details about biocursion, some preliminary feedback from […]

Woof, this was hard, but is done enough.
Talk about frustrations! This is what proofs of concept are all about, after all, but still, one would hope for somewhat easier going. I learned a lot. I think the output is also kind of neat, although the technical execution isn’t up to the standards I see in […]

Duh. A bad case of delayed intelligence here.
FinalCut can composite images too, and has almost all of UltraFractal’s merge modes with a 1:1 correspondence. It was a simple matter to bring in the three Tendrillon layers and merge them with “Multiply” and “Difference” to get the exact look of the original UF image.
FinalCut can do […]

So far, so good. Shake composites the individual layers very well for straightforward merge modes (add, multiply, etc). Some of the modes in UF seem to be non-reproducible in Shake. For example, “Difference” would appear to be equivalent to ISubA (Subtract, but take the absolute value) yet the visual discrepancy is obvious.
[Update: see my entry […]

Most settings don’t produce smooth results. Particularly with magnification, all sorts of bad things happen. I’ll post movies of all results soon. My methodology is:

Create a 100 frame movie
Create keyframes at 1, 40, and 100
Start with default at frame 1; mild change of parameter at frame 40; large change of parameter at […]

I’m approaching the movie itself with preliminary POC (Proof Of Concept) steps. These will expose issues that need to be solved and refine processes to be efficient. I’ve completed the first POC, which has helped refine my ideas for what needs to come next. Current thinking, starting from first POC, is:
Study #1 - “Test the […]

As I mentioned in my Fractal Study #1 post, I was wiffle-waffling on a domain name for my fractal movie adventures. I’ve decided that
Fractanimus
captures what I’m after: Fractals — Animation — Music
…plus, it alliterates well. “Fractanimus, Fractanimus, oh how I love thee Fractanimus!”
Er, yeah. Right. Anyway, the domain now exists although it redirects […]

My first (modern) attempt at a fractal movie — albeit, only a short study.
The purpose was to “prove out” the various technologies involved, and expose technical challenges. I’ve definitely succeeded, and even came up with something that I think is kind of interesting. It’s on the road to achieving my four quality points that make […]