Introduction
As a forward, I am not a professional by any means. I have experimented some and read a few tutorials, and if I have any useful information, I would like to pass it on. Apophysis is a fractal flame editor for Windows. The file size is approximately 2.58 MB.
The Layout
When you first load the program, you will see a list of 100 preloaded scripts on the left and a picture viewer on the right. These 100 scripts are generated each time you start the program; hence they should be different every time. Seeing as this program is only math, it is possible for a script to repeat, but unlikely. The default image in the image viewer is a poor render of the first script. Click scripts until you find one that you like.
Mutation
Once you find open that suits your tastes, you can change it. The easiest way to do so is to open the Mutation window. The icon for it contains nine boxes and looks slightly like a negative of a tic-tac-toe board. Click it. Nine boxes will appear, each with a different variation of this image. The eight images around the edge are mutations of the current script while the center image is a small display of the current script. If you like the way one of the mutations looks, click it. It will become the center image (for it is now the script) and new mutations will appear. If you don't like the current mutation options, click the center image to generate a new selection of mutations without fear of changing your original script. You can adjust what kind of mutations are generated by selecting a different trend or change the strength of the mutation by adjusting the speed slider. When you are satisfied and have clicked to your heart's content, close the Mutation window by the X at the top.
Editor
If you deeply understand the mathematics of the program, you can manually adjust the properties of your script using the Editor window (the icon is a black square with red and yellow triangles in it). Unless you are a seasoned professional and could write this tutorial in your sleep, skip it. It isn't necessary.
Color Present
The next step is to adjust the color scheme. Open up the Gradient control panel by clicking the icon that fades horizontally from blue to white to orange. The first step is to choose a present. Open up the present drop down menu and select a color scheme that fits your personal preference as well as the image. Once you have one picked out, you can adjust what part of the scheme goes where in the image by using the Rotate feature. Make sure you can see the main window of Apophysis while adjusting this, otherwise you won't be able to tell what is an improvement and what is a step backwards. Again, when you are satisfied, close the window.
Adjust
The final step before the rendering process will be found in the Adjust window. The icon for this control panel looks like a mini window with two blue crosses in it. The top three controls are all pretty self-explanatory except for the gamma. If you find that your images are too grainy or don't plan on rendering for a super long time, I recommend bringing this slider to the left. The other two should be checked for personal tweaking, but usually serious revisions are not required. Beneath this you will find the Background color option. If you want to, you can change the background from black to a different color, but it is risky. Chances are extremely high that the colors of the flame will clash with the background, and even if they don't, the switch is rarely an improvement. Black is safe, but if you feel the need to experiment and manage to pull something off, let me know! Below this are the camera settings. You can zoom in or out and also adjust the camera position. If your image has a noticeable center, I recommend positioning that to the middle or to a corner or edge for framing reasons. If it is almost in the middle but not quite, it looks careless and cheap. For the first time, you have direct control over making the image become what you envision in your mind, even if that is only the camera position.
Final Touches
You have now completed your flame. This is not a required step, but if you would like, you can view your image using your full screen by pressing Crtl+F on your keyboard. This will present you with a large version of your flame created with better render settings. If you can think of any changes that you would like to make employing any of the features that you learned earlier, now is the time.
Rendering Options
There are three ways to render an image created in Apophysis. If you choose the Render to Disk option (Ctrl+R), it uses the Apophysis rendering program. It is the slowest way to finish your image and it doesn't have the best control setup. I would personally not use this unless I was planning to make good use of the pause feature. There is a ored way to export the flame into visual form that is faster than the rest, but I have heard that it leaves you with nearly no control over the render. Also, there is no progress meter, which I would find unbearable. I would recommend the Export Flame option (Ctrl+X). Before you do anything, I would recommend changing the place where it will now store your rendered images. Under Destination, click Browse and select a place where you would like to store all future renders. Creating a folder titled "Apophysis Images" and placing it under My Pictures would be ideal.
Resolution
Now to get into the grit. First, choose your image size. Common dimensions use the 4:3 aspect ratio, but you can render at any shape. The larger the dimensions, the greater detail the image has, but also the longer it will take to render. If you don't mind the wait, render larger than you will need just for buffer room in the future. I render all my images at 1600 by 1200 pixels, as that is the exact size that I upload. The quality level could be described as the number of times that the computer thinks about each pixel. The higher this level, the computer will be increasingly certain that lines in the script should be rendered as lines instead of random dots. Increasing this level gives smoothness to high quality renders that can't be achieved elsewhere. 100 is good for a test render, and anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 for common renders. I am a perfectionist who likes his computer to work all day and night whether being sued or not, so I regularly render between 10,000 and 25,000.
Filter Radius
Next is the Filter Radius. This is not one of those controls that "Higher = Better". In reality, all it does is blur your image in an effort to disguise distortion. If you are rendering at high enough levels to bog down the CIA Headquarters for a weekend, I wouldn't recommend using this at all, but otherwise it is healthy. 0.4 is pretty standard. If your images have obvious noise that shouldn't be due to powerful renders, increasing this a little should solve your problems. On the other hand, if your images commonly appear soft, even after a nice render, perhaps you should lower this setting.
Oversample
Next is the Oversample. If you have the Oversample set at 1, then it does nothing but render your image as normal. If you set it to 2, it renders your image at twice the necessary size and then sizes down to make it look better. If you set it to 4, you are rendering at four times the output size. Think of it like this: You are painting a design on a football field that is meant to be viewed from the air by a helicopter. At the viewer's height, only one splotch of paint per yard will be visible. If you place one splotch of paint per foot instead, it will appear better from the helicopter camera even if it can't distinguish each individual splotch due to the massive height. The image is now more detailed than the absolute minimum, even if it is the same size. The render at an Oversample of 3 essentially takes the same amount of time assuming that you have the spare Ram, for the Ram now required is triple the original amount. Let’s say you don't. Now one person has to paint the splotches equivalent to a three person job; it will take her at least three times as long to do it. The Oversample is definitely useful if you have the spare Ram, but if not, the render time will skyrocket. 2 is considered the default. Change it with your tactful knowledge of how much Ram you have, how much you need the computer to be responsive in the near future, and finally how excellent you need the picture to look.
Strips and Batches
For the life of me, I am having a hard time determining (much less describing) the difference between Strips and Batches. From some information gleaned from Apophysis, what seem to be ill-informed professionals, and my gut feeling, I have concluded the following. 1 strip is the equivalent of 1 image. If you render with 2 strips, it will render the entire image twice and average the results. If you render with 8 strips, your image is all that much more normal; it just takes a lot longer to do. Rendering with more strips seems to erase random, floating pixels that were meant to be part of a barely noticeable line. If the image is rendered 8 times and then averaged, different selections of that slight line will be rendered as the line instead of broken segments. Strips are completely left out of "The Fractal Flame Algorithm" provided by Apophysis. Just as useful, their description of Batches is practically in Greek. They seem to indicate that more Batches are worse off than less. A tutorial that I read described them as something that can really whack out the color values, and should therefore be kept at a minimum. I would recommend rendering at 2-3 Strips and 1 Batch. Just keep the Buffer Depth at its maximum.
Opening .flame Files
If you happen to decide that you have blotched the rendering job of a great flame, all hope is not lost. Unless you managed to find some way to disable this feature, Apophysis will automatically catalogue a .flame file with the same name as the corresponding .jpg. I had always assumed that these would open up with Apophysis allowing you to re-render, but I thought that I had a bad version or bad files because they never would. With an unintentional nudge from a friend, I discovered that these weren't designed to open up in Apophysis at all, but I find that they open in Notepad quite well. Open the folder into which you save your Apophysis image and right-click any random .flame file. Click "Open" and wait for the error message to appear. Mark the "Select the program from a list" option and press "OK". Scroll down until you find "Notepad" and click it once. Make sure that box marked "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is checked and press "OK". Now, when you double click a .flame file, it will open up as a long string of text. Highlight all the text (note, this sometimes does not work when Ctrl+A is used) and press Ctrl+C. Back in Apophysis, press Ctrl+D to open the Edit window. In the bottom box that looks like you can type in it, click the box to activate it, and press Ctrl+V. Nothing will change, but the numbers below the image on the main Apophysis window will start to change. In a few seconds, it will reload an even worse version of the image that you rendered poorly. Fret not, for it is now back in script form and can be re-rendered.
The Clincher
When using Apophysis, a little of experimenting is necessary. These are the basic steps for producing an image, but don't demand stellar results. Photographers for National Geographic travel into exotic parts of the world for a week and take thousands of pictures, but how many of them make the magazine? Those are professionals, and chances are that you are not. Just keep trying to eventually get a few good ones. The most hindering and bothersome aspect of this program is that you can't envision something and then create it, but you need to realize that approving or disapproving of each step in Apophysis is just as important as any vision would be while painting a picture. Just remember that Ctrl+Z is your friend; it will erase all your problems. Use this Undo feature anytime the last step was grander than the current. Also, even if your image is really good looking, it may be a typical Apophysis image and rather cliché. Upload original work that could not be reproduced by measure, for even if they are good, if 2/3rds of caedes.net is devoted to similar fractals made in Apophysis, they can tend to get old.
If this tutorial helped at all, please say so or message me via PM. If you have anything to add, please do below.
As a forward, I am not a professional by any means. I have experimented some and read a few tutorials, and if I have any useful information, I would like to pass it on. Apophysis is a fractal flame editor for Windows. The file size is approximately 2.58 MB.
The Layout
When you first load the program, you will see a list of 100 preloaded scripts on the left and a picture viewer on the right. These 100 scripts are generated each time you start the program; hence they should be different every time. Seeing as this program is only math, it is possible for a script to repeat, but unlikely. The default image in the image viewer is a poor render of the first script. Click scripts until you find one that you like.
Mutation
Once you find open that suits your tastes, you can change it. The easiest way to do so is to open the Mutation window. The icon for it contains nine boxes and looks slightly like a negative of a tic-tac-toe board. Click it. Nine boxes will appear, each with a different variation of this image. The eight images around the edge are mutations of the current script while the center image is a small display of the current script. If you like the way one of the mutations looks, click it. It will become the center image (for it is now the script) and new mutations will appear. If you don't like the current mutation options, click the center image to generate a new selection of mutations without fear of changing your original script. You can adjust what kind of mutations are generated by selecting a different trend or change the strength of the mutation by adjusting the speed slider. When you are satisfied and have clicked to your heart's content, close the Mutation window by the X at the top.
Editor
If you deeply understand the mathematics of the program, you can manually adjust the properties of your script using the Editor window (the icon is a black square with red and yellow triangles in it). Unless you are a seasoned professional and could write this tutorial in your sleep, skip it. It isn't necessary.
Color Present
The next step is to adjust the color scheme. Open up the Gradient control panel by clicking the icon that fades horizontally from blue to white to orange. The first step is to choose a present. Open up the present drop down menu and select a color scheme that fits your personal preference as well as the image. Once you have one picked out, you can adjust what part of the scheme goes where in the image by using the Rotate feature. Make sure you can see the main window of Apophysis while adjusting this, otherwise you won't be able to tell what is an improvement and what is a step backwards. Again, when you are satisfied, close the window.
Adjust
The final step before the rendering process will be found in the Adjust window. The icon for this control panel looks like a mini window with two blue crosses in it. The top three controls are all pretty self-explanatory except for the gamma. If you find that your images are too grainy or don't plan on rendering for a super long time, I recommend bringing this slider to the left. The other two should be checked for personal tweaking, but usually serious revisions are not required. Beneath this you will find the Background color option. If you want to, you can change the background from black to a different color, but it is risky. Chances are extremely high that the colors of the flame will clash with the background, and even if they don't, the switch is rarely an improvement. Black is safe, but if you feel the need to experiment and manage to pull something off, let me know! Below this are the camera settings. You can zoom in or out and also adjust the camera position. If your image has a noticeable center, I recommend positioning that to the middle or to a corner or edge for framing reasons. If it is almost in the middle but not quite, it looks careless and cheap. For the first time, you have direct control over making the image become what you envision in your mind, even if that is only the camera position.
Final Touches
You have now completed your flame. This is not a required step, but if you would like, you can view your image using your full screen by pressing Crtl+F on your keyboard. This will present you with a large version of your flame created with better render settings. If you can think of any changes that you would like to make employing any of the features that you learned earlier, now is the time.
Rendering Options
There are three ways to render an image created in Apophysis. If you choose the Render to Disk option (Ctrl+R), it uses the Apophysis rendering program. It is the slowest way to finish your image and it doesn't have the best control setup. I would personally not use this unless I was planning to make good use of the pause feature. There is a ored way to export the flame into visual form that is faster than the rest, but I have heard that it leaves you with nearly no control over the render. Also, there is no progress meter, which I would find unbearable. I would recommend the Export Flame option (Ctrl+X). Before you do anything, I would recommend changing the place where it will now store your rendered images. Under Destination, click Browse and select a place where you would like to store all future renders. Creating a folder titled "Apophysis Images" and placing it under My Pictures would be ideal.
Resolution
Now to get into the grit. First, choose your image size. Common dimensions use the 4:3 aspect ratio, but you can render at any shape. The larger the dimensions, the greater detail the image has, but also the longer it will take to render. If you don't mind the wait, render larger than you will need just for buffer room in the future. I render all my images at 1600 by 1200 pixels, as that is the exact size that I upload. The quality level could be described as the number of times that the computer thinks about each pixel. The higher this level, the computer will be increasingly certain that lines in the script should be rendered as lines instead of random dots. Increasing this level gives smoothness to high quality renders that can't be achieved elsewhere. 100 is good for a test render, and anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 for common renders. I am a perfectionist who likes his computer to work all day and night whether being sued or not, so I regularly render between 10,000 and 25,000.
Filter Radius
Next is the Filter Radius. This is not one of those controls that "Higher = Better". In reality, all it does is blur your image in an effort to disguise distortion. If you are rendering at high enough levels to bog down the CIA Headquarters for a weekend, I wouldn't recommend using this at all, but otherwise it is healthy. 0.4 is pretty standard. If your images have obvious noise that shouldn't be due to powerful renders, increasing this a little should solve your problems. On the other hand, if your images commonly appear soft, even after a nice render, perhaps you should lower this setting.
Oversample
Next is the Oversample. If you have the Oversample set at 1, then it does nothing but render your image as normal. If you set it to 2, it renders your image at twice the necessary size and then sizes down to make it look better. If you set it to 4, you are rendering at four times the output size. Think of it like this: You are painting a design on a football field that is meant to be viewed from the air by a helicopter. At the viewer's height, only one splotch of paint per yard will be visible. If you place one splotch of paint per foot instead, it will appear better from the helicopter camera even if it can't distinguish each individual splotch due to the massive height. The image is now more detailed than the absolute minimum, even if it is the same size. The render at an Oversample of 3 essentially takes the same amount of time assuming that you have the spare Ram, for the Ram now required is triple the original amount. Let’s say you don't. Now one person has to paint the splotches equivalent to a three person job; it will take her at least three times as long to do it. The Oversample is definitely useful if you have the spare Ram, but if not, the render time will skyrocket. 2 is considered the default. Change it with your tactful knowledge of how much Ram you have, how much you need the computer to be responsive in the near future, and finally how excellent you need the picture to look.
Strips and Batches
For the life of me, I am having a hard time determining (much less describing) the difference between Strips and Batches. From some information gleaned from Apophysis, what seem to be ill-informed professionals, and my gut feeling, I have concluded the following. 1 strip is the equivalent of 1 image. If you render with 2 strips, it will render the entire image twice and average the results. If you render with 8 strips, your image is all that much more normal; it just takes a lot longer to do. Rendering with more strips seems to erase random, floating pixels that were meant to be part of a barely noticeable line. If the image is rendered 8 times and then averaged, different selections of that slight line will be rendered as the line instead of broken segments. Strips are completely left out of "The Fractal Flame Algorithm" provided by Apophysis. Just as useful, their description of Batches is practically in Greek. They seem to indicate that more Batches are worse off than less. A tutorial that I read described them as something that can really whack out the color values, and should therefore be kept at a minimum. I would recommend rendering at 2-3 Strips and 1 Batch. Just keep the Buffer Depth at its maximum.
Opening .flame Files
If you happen to decide that you have blotched the rendering job of a great flame, all hope is not lost. Unless you managed to find some way to disable this feature, Apophysis will automatically catalogue a .flame file with the same name as the corresponding .jpg. I had always assumed that these would open up with Apophysis allowing you to re-render, but I thought that I had a bad version or bad files because they never would. With an unintentional nudge from a friend, I discovered that these weren't designed to open up in Apophysis at all, but I find that they open in Notepad quite well. Open the folder into which you save your Apophysis image and right-click any random .flame file. Click "Open" and wait for the error message to appear. Mark the "Select the program from a list" option and press "OK". Scroll down until you find "Notepad" and click it once. Make sure that box marked "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is checked and press "OK". Now, when you double click a .flame file, it will open up as a long string of text. Highlight all the text (note, this sometimes does not work when Ctrl+A is used) and press Ctrl+C. Back in Apophysis, press Ctrl+D to open the Edit window. In the bottom box that looks like you can type in it, click the box to activate it, and press Ctrl+V. Nothing will change, but the numbers below the image on the main Apophysis window will start to change. In a few seconds, it will reload an even worse version of the image that you rendered poorly. Fret not, for it is now back in script form and can be re-rendered.
The Clincher
When using Apophysis, a little of experimenting is necessary. These are the basic steps for producing an image, but don't demand stellar results. Photographers for National Geographic travel into exotic parts of the world for a week and take thousands of pictures, but how many of them make the magazine? Those are professionals, and chances are that you are not. Just keep trying to eventually get a few good ones. The most hindering and bothersome aspect of this program is that you can't envision something and then create it, but you need to realize that approving or disapproving of each step in Apophysis is just as important as any vision would be while painting a picture. Just remember that Ctrl+Z is your friend; it will erase all your problems. Use this Undo feature anytime the last step was grander than the current. Also, even if your image is really good looking, it may be a typical Apophysis image and rather cliché. Upload original work that could not be reproduced by measure, for even if they are good, if 2/3rds of caedes.net is devoted to similar fractals made in Apophysis, they can tend to get old.
If this tutorial helped at all, please say so or message me via PM. If you have anything to add, please do below.