Best fractal art ever

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the best fractal threads. I created them out of honest curiosity, not to feed or starve egos.

Can we conclude that they must be the best fractals ever? I don't think so. It is just too narrow of a sample to be "mathematically correct", but I do think that some interesting speculation can be drawn from it.

I find the variety of styles and fractal types to be the most interesting data on our best ever list. There are scenes, abstracts and spirals. They came from three different fractal programs (as far as I could tell) with various amounts of post processing.

We know what fractals are, but I don't think that "fractal art" has been defined. This makes it impossible to know what the very best fractal art is. Cool. Let's hope that fractal art is never defined and that it continues to be diverse. The best fractal art will come from that diversity.

What is the best fractal art?

I would like to know what the current state of fractal art is, so I have created 2 threads in my forum.

In one thread I would like you to provide links to 5 images that you believe are the best fractal images ever.

In the other thread please provide links to 5 of your personal best images.

Also, if you would like to, provide a brief explanation in the forum of why you believe that your 10 selections are the best.

What is an artist?

According to Merriam-Webster an artist is, "one who professes and practices an imaginative art". As far as I am concerned, anyone who tries to build art is an artist.

Creation verses Exploration

So much of what we do is exploration. I think that exploration is different from creation. I don't think that exploration makes us a lower form of artist. We just have a different way of building art.

I am impressed with seretta's art on Renderosity. Her later images show more creation than exploration. They are compositions. She had to plan and assemble those images and I think that took creativity on her part.

Four Seasons

One of the best things about Apo, is the ability to get a number of different but related pieces from a single parameter set. Below is one example of this:

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Fall

The above images are click able. If you want one for a wallpaper, just click on it and then download the "original" version by following the link that appears at the top of the page. Needless to say, all of these will feature on my personal blog in due course.

Scripts and Spirals

A few days ago I came across a cool flame that looked like it was from the nursery in the movie "Alien". It was unusual and fascinating. Wondering what other creative images that this person had come up with, I had a look at her gallery. In it were several images that were variations of the same image. It was then obvious that these images came from a script.

I was immediately disappointed. Running a script and tweaking the results does not seem very creative to me, but when I thought about it, I realized how hypocritical that my attitude was. When I was an active apo user I ran all sorts of scripts and I enjoyed doing so. Scripts are just part of the apo deal. There is nothing wrong with them. They are easily recognized, but so what? If you or I want to fill our galleries full of images from the same script, no problem.

A couple of years ago I was obsessed with a floral theme. Every image that I created was a variation of the same image, and I created dozens of them. It could be said that I started from the same place every time, like what a script does, but instead of being criticized, I was given credit for developing a style.

What matters most is that each of us feels satisfied by what we do. I learned that hard lesson when I was mouthing off on the UF list a few years ago. If we are not happy with what we do, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Every image that I created in the flower series had a spiral in it. To me, spiral = fractal. I consider myself to be a fractal artist, so I make spirals and I am not ashamed of it :-) It's nice to take a break and do a glyph or a gnarl but I usually end up combining those non-spiral images with spiral images.


I know that some people believe that there are too many spirals but I see no point in avoiding them. That's like avoiding bird photos or sunsets because there are too many of those. There may be too many of all of them, but I still enjoy them.

Apophysis verses Ultrafractal

In my world there are only 2 fractal programs: Apo and UF. I know that that are many other programs out there with many faithful users of those programs, but I don't care. Xenodream is about the only other program that has gained enough of my attention to maybe give it a try, but I don't want to go though another learning curve, so there are only 2.

I learned to use Apophysis 1, which was designed by Mark Townsend to be a front end flame finder for Ultrafractal. As far as I am concerned, Apo has always been a front end flame finder for UF and it always will be. I have never had much use for it as a standalone program.

With that in mind, the controversy of which program is better is irrelevant in my mind because they are tools that are to be used together. It like saying which is the better tool between a mouse and a keyboard, or which are the better keys on a piano, the black ones or the white ones.

Apophysis flames inside of Ultrafractal open up a world of creative opportunity. Instead of working with just one flame, many flames can be colored and combined to create a composition.



The trouble is that Apo and UF no longer work well together. When Mark turned over the program to the "Apophysis development team", the team was less concerned about UF compatibility and more concerned about improving Apo functionality. That's understandable. As Apo progressed, the UF formula writers needed to update their formulas to keep up with the changes in Apo, and they did for a while.

The people who use Apo and UF the way that I do are beggars in this scenario, not givers. The flame formulas in UF are way over my head so I have to depend on others to keep them compatible with Apo. We have to depend on the Apo developers to care about UF compatibility enough to ensure that the UF formulas can be updated with minimal impact. We have to ask to keep them working together, and in the past we have, but I haven't heard anyone say anything about it for a few years.

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining. I am a beggar so I have to take what I am given and keep my mouth shut. I am grateful for the efforts that have been put into both programs.

However, I am saddened by the loss of creative opportunity that occurs when these programs stop working together.

For me, the ultimate version of Apophysis would be one that is specifically designed to be compatible with UF. The ultimate Apophysis development team would see the value of UF compatibility and release updates concurrently with corresponding UF formula updates.

One can dream...