Flame 14 and then Some

My last journal, Flamin' Heck, Mr A!"  Flamin' Heck, Mr A!Recently, my good friend Jenny, Lady-Compassion, suggested that I have a look at a recent version of Apophysis, a software system that generates fractal flames. Almost simultaneously Lea, Leanndra51 drew my attention to another version of flame fractal software called JWildfire which makes use of the basic algorithms of Apophysis but presents them in a fresh manner with lots of extras built in. Jwildfire has been written by Andreas Maschke with the help of many contributors. Two links to the system are: http://www.andreas-maschke.com/?page_id=351  https://www.jwfsanctuary.club/, the first gives access to downloads and the second to the community and resources that have grown up around JWildfire. Although I have long been interested in fractals and the potential for art works, I must say that I'm a complete newbie - a tyro- when it comes to fractal flames and th was a newbie's first concentrated look at the flame fractal software JWildfire ==> jwildfire.org/ written and developed by Andreas Maschke. I hadn't realised that Andreas and his collaborator Michael Bourne, one of whose scripts I had used, are members of DeviantArt, so acknowledgements and thanks to Andreas aka thargor6 and Michael aka audiomonk  

One feature of the JWildfire is that upon rendering the images that you wish to keep the resulting files are created as PNG and HDR files. PNG files are more or less like JPEG files and give an exact render of what you have created and seen on screen. HDR files are, however, more complex in that they provide information about what the fractal would look like if we had an extended range of vision, particularly if we could see a greater dynamic range - hence high dynamic range - of luminance values (brightness). Computer monitors have an even more limited dynamic range and so cannot display HDR files directly. Instead, an HDR image must be reduced in its dynamic range yet somehow must present the extra information that is contained in the file. There are various ways of doing this mathematically and the process (whichever is used) is known as Tone Mapping. Tone mapped HDR image normally contain a great deal more visual information, particularly in what are otherwise shadow areas. The luminance values of other areas are also normally increased such that the image is brighter and more colourful than the PNG image.  I presented a couple of examples in my first journal. In this journal I want to show some further examples, along with exploring one of the basic concepts of making flame fractals - non-linear transformations.

A transformation is a mathematical expression that when iterated (that is repeated again and again) makes a fractal, or at least a component that can be used in developing a fractal. Transformations have variable elements that can be changed and so can make variations on the original fractal. A flame fractal is usually made from 3 to 5 different transformations being blended together, with something like 250 different transformations to chose from. (There are about 8 million combinations of transformations taking 5 out of 250 possibilities, let alone changing the variables in each transformation.) In the fractal flames shown below I have taken a base of 4 transformations that I have kept the same while adding one other different one for each of the examples. I have adjusted the variables in the four/five transformations to give a result and finally I have used the HDR file of the fractal to create what you see here. All are related to the following original Flame 14 fractal.

Fractal 14 - Original:

 

Fractal 14 - HDR  Tone Balanced




Fractal 14a - HDR - Enhancer



Fractal 14b - HDR - Painterly 4



Fractal 14c - HDR - Balancer



Fractal 14d - Original



Fractal 14d - HDR - Creative



Fractal 14d - HDR - Realistic



Remember, each of the fractals 14a-d is a variation of Fractal 14 with a different extra transformation being the main source of the variation.

The final point to discuss is how do you get from the HDR file made by JWildfire to the output that you see. You have to use software that can handle HDR files. The software I use is Photomatix Pro v. 6.0.3. This is a professional level system, a bit "spendy", but probably the best software currently for handling such files ==> www.hdrsoft.com/ The titles associated with each of the HDR images, Balanced, Creative, Realistic and so on are the names of preset tone mapping within Photomatix Pro. I've used the Fractal 14d to show how much extra detail is hidden in the shadows and the variation in the final result from using different tone mapping options.

There is very powerful HDR software for free called Luminance HDR ==> sourceforge.net/projects/qtpfs…   This used to be called qtpfsgui and it is software that I used extensively many years ago when I studied HDR photography. While free - a big advantage - and full of powerful tone mapping option Luminance HDR is quite a challenge to learn to use, but no more so the JWildfire. Further free software from Darktable ==> www.darktable.org/  gives a basic interpretation and Photoshop probably has an HDR interpreter as well. Remember though that lots of HDR software was developed for handling HDR photography and the likes of Lightroom, for example, will create HDR images, but it does not accept HDR files.

Anyway, enough for now. Maybe this newbie will explore further.

Best Wishes to All

Dacid akaOkavanga