7 ms·

My Journey into Fractals

366 points by jypepin 8y ago

sclangdon 8y ago
If you liked this, you may be interested in Cyril Crassin's Ph.D. Thesis on Gigavoxels, which can be used to do something very similar. http://maverick.inria.fr/Members/Cyril.Crassin/ http://maverick.inria.fr/Members/Cyril.Crassin/
jypepin 8y ago
Slightly related to another conversation from yesterday, mentioning Shiffman's Nature of Code: https://natureofcode.com/ https://natureofcode.com/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
alx 8y ago
If you want to explore 3d fractals, I really recommend you to test this VR experience: https://nshelton.github.io/vr/fractals/2017/12/30/RTA.html https://nshelton.github.io/vr/fractals/2017/12/30/RTA.html
- sheltron 8y ago
  hey thanks for posting! dev here if anyone has any questions about this software or fractals in general. Gregory's work here is really impressive, huge fan. Go fractals!
  - gunn 8y ago
    Looks incredible! Can it run on desktop? Are there instructions to build?
    - sheltron 8y ago
      vive only, there is a build for vive on there. You can also get the source, there is a desktop interface but it's still under development and you probably need to know unity to get it to work
  - Tossrock 8y ago
    The UI tetrahedrons were all on the floor for me, making it difficult to control. Is this normal?
schaefer 8y ago
really beautiful renders. I've never seen 3d fractals with moody lighting before. i would play the hell out of this, even if the whole of gameplay was just bumping around in a ship (with hyper drive).
- kennyadam 8y ago
  Don't know if you noticed, but you can download and play a build of this on their Itch.io page: https://bananaft.itch.io/yedomaglobula https://bananaft.itch.io/yedomaglobula Just messing about with it myself and it's unique and fascinating!
  - schaefer 8y ago
    I hadn't noticed. Thank you! just in time for the weekend. :P
keyle 8y ago
Great trailer at the end.
gunn 8y ago
I love 3D fractal exploration, especially when it can be realtime. It's a few years old now, but this is still the best demo I've seen: http://sub.blue/fractal-lab http://sub.blue/fractal-lab
- chrisweekly 8y ago
  Thanks for that link, @gunn! Terrific demo, agreed it holds up! Also, tangentially, given so many people are on their phones, it seems other demo sites showcasing desktop-only experiences really ought to follow sub.blue's lead and embed a video. Sort of comparable to sending documents in pdf.
IngoBlechschmid 8y ago
The Mandelbrot set and all its Julia sets are part of a larger, four-dimensional fractal. Explore it here (only JavaScript and WebGL needed): https://rawgit.com/MatthiasHu/FractalsWebGL/4d/page.html https://rawgit.com/MatthiasHu/FractalsWebGL/4d/page.html
- me_again 8y ago
  Shameless self-promotion, but see also http://edyoung.github.io/gnofract4d/ http://edyoung.github.io/gnofract4d/
  - romwell 8y ago
    Awesome software! On the note of self-promotion, here's a simple Mandelbrot explorer to get started with - but this time, it's animated! Not comparable to anything above, but good to start playing with / coding fractals. (Web, desktop only.) http://romankogan.net/math/processing_js/mandelbrot.html http://romankogan.net/math/processing_js/mandelbrot.html
onemoresoop 8y ago
Great stuff. Hope you integrate it into your games.
ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
This is mind numbingly beautiful. The fractals with lighting and shadows is some of the best digital art I've ever seen. I would pay proper money for a game that is basically a 6DOF spaceship game like Descent/Overload but in this fractal realm.
- _carl_jung 8y ago
  I've thought about this for a while, complete with HOTAS support.
eggy 8y ago
I've spent days playing with Mandelbulb 3D and other fractal programs. I was really into the projection of 4D strange attractors onto a 2D plane or printout (my current screensaver). I would burn weeks in FPS mode navigating these Lovecraftian and Fantastic Voyage [1] worlds. [1] I refer to the original 1966 movie, since the remakes didn't quite make it my opinion! And Raquel Welch.
- kennyadam 8y ago
  Any chance of a download link for your current screensaver, please? :) Sounds interesting.
kwhitefoot 8y ago
> I am bad at both arting and coding. Wish I was that bad.
hexo 8y ago
What a delightful journey, thanks for sharing!
Insanity 8y ago
These are absolutely beautiful. I really like the mood it sets, but I was hoping to see some code for the fractals to be honest :) Great work!
radicalbyte 8y ago
I love fractals. A few weeks ago we were at the UMC Nijmegen for a CT scan (father-in-law; liver-cancer; luckily slow-growing and treatable) they had an exhibition of illustrations from Haeckel of microscopic organisms. It struck me at the time just how much those structures reminded me of fractals as well as how beautiful they are. You can see some pictures here: https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/370096/the-haeckel-project https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/370096/the-haeckel-projec... And a book: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Ernst-Haeckel-Multilingual/dp/3836526468/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538756108&sr=8-1&keywords=haeckel https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Ernst-Haeckel-Multilingua...
- aerique 8y ago
  Ah, Mediamatic! I did my internship there 20 years ago.
- abecedarius 8y ago
  Similarly, on visiting the Sagrada Familia one of my first thoughts was that it was like stepping inside a fractal.
gdubs 8y ago
This brings me back to the hours and hours I spent as a kid with VistaPro [1], watching 320px fractal landscapes render, one scanline at a time. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaPro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaPro
mistermann 8y ago
This video linked from the article is very cool: https://twitter.com/Bananaft/status/894675135260745729/video/1 https://twitter.com/Bananaft/status/894675135260745729/video...
max_likelihood 8y ago
Beautiful work. I set this: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*y8eAZdMBfXkIB2S8XXyksQ.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*y8eAZdMBfXkIB2S8X... as my new desktop background ;)
selimthegrim 8y ago
I feel compelled to plug the book Indra’s Pearls here, by David Mumford et al.
isoprophlex 8y ago
Just stellar. Wow. Whatever game comes out of this, I want to play it!
mholt 8y ago
That's so cool. Reminds me of the work at http://sub.blue/ http://sub.blue/ -- especially look at Fractal Lab: http://sub.blue/fractal-lab http://sub.blue/fractal-lab
marviel 8y ago
Thank you for posting -- I've been super interested in this subject recently after seeing some really great live visuals at a few concerts(1). I'd love to add to my current set of visualizers (2) with something like this. (1) https://goo.gl/989gYr https://goo.gl/989gYr (2) http://whoadude.cool http://whoadude.cool
subblue 8y ago
A great write up - very interesting to read about your approaches and the various issues I also came up against with my own Fractal Lab experiment.
mikeheaton 8y ago
I studied fractals for years. But it didn't matter how deeply I looked, they still looked just as complicated as ever.
KennyCason 8y ago
This is so cool! I recently just started tinkering with a fractal expressor that results in voxel world in libgdx to roam around in. But secretly in the back of my mind, I think you are building what I really want! Love it. I’ll be following your project. :)
chakravala 8y ago
Please check out my Fatou.jl julia package, which allows you to share and reproduce 2D fractals with short one-liners written in Julia https://github.com/chakravala/Fatou.jl https://github.com/chakravala/Fatou.jl

366 points by jypepin 8y ago

If you liked this, you may be interested in Cyril Crassin's Ph.D. Thesis on Gigavoxels, which can be used to do something very similar. http://maverick.inria.fr/Members/Cyril.Crassin/ http://maverick.inria.fr/Members/Cyril.Crassin/

jypepin 8y ago

Slightly related to another conversation from yesterday, mentioning Shiffman's Nature of Code: https://natureofcode.com/ https://natureofcode.com/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

alx 8y ago

If you want to explore 3d fractals, I really recommend you to test this VR experience: https://nshelton.github.io/vr/fractals/2017/12/30/RTA.html https://nshelton.github.io/vr/fractals/2017/12/30/RTA.html

sheltron 8y ago
hey thanks for posting! dev here if anyone has any questions about this software or fractals in general. Gregory's work here is really impressive, huge fan. Go fractals!
- gunn 8y ago
  Looks incredible! Can it run on desktop? Are there instructions to build?
  - sheltron 8y ago
    vive only, there is a build for vive on there. You can also get the source, there is a desktop interface but it's still under development and you probably need to know unity to get it to work
- Tossrock 8y ago
  The UI tetrahedrons were all on the floor for me, making it difficult to control. Is this normal?

schaefer 8y ago

really beautiful renders. I've never seen 3d fractals with moody lighting before. i would play the hell out of this, even if the whole of gameplay was just bumping around in a ship (with hyper drive).

kennyadam 8y ago
Don't know if you noticed, but you can download and play a build of this on their Itch.io page: https://bananaft.itch.io/yedomaglobula https://bananaft.itch.io/yedomaglobula Just messing about with it myself and it's unique and fascinating!
- schaefer 8y ago
  I hadn't noticed. Thank you! just in time for the weekend. :P

keyle 8y ago

Great trailer at the end.

gunn 8y ago

I love 3D fractal exploration, especially when it can be realtime. It's a few years old now, but this is still the best demo I've seen: http://sub.blue/fractal-lab http://sub.blue/fractal-lab

chrisweekly 8y ago
Thanks for that link, @gunn! Terrific demo, agreed it holds up! Also, tangentially, given so many people are on their phones, it seems other demo sites showcasing desktop-only experiences really ought to follow sub.blue's lead and embed a video. Sort of comparable to sending documents in pdf.

IngoBlechschmid 8y ago

The Mandelbrot set and all its Julia sets are part of a larger, four-dimensional fractal. Explore it here (only JavaScript and WebGL needed): https://rawgit.com/MatthiasHu/FractalsWebGL/4d/page.html https://rawgit.com/MatthiasHu/FractalsWebGL/4d/page.html

me_again 8y ago
Shameless self-promotion, but see also http://edyoung.github.io/gnofract4d/ http://edyoung.github.io/gnofract4d/
- romwell 8y ago
  Awesome software! On the note of self-promotion, here's a simple Mandelbrot explorer to get started with - but this time, it's animated! Not comparable to anything above, but good to start playing with / coding fractals. (Web, desktop only.) http://romankogan.net/math/processing_js/mandelbrot.html http://romankogan.net/math/processing_js/mandelbrot.html

onemoresoop 8y ago

Great stuff. Hope you integrate it into your games.

ObsoleteNerd 8y ago

This is mind numbingly beautiful. The fractals with lighting and shadows is some of the best digital art I've ever seen. I would pay proper money for a game that is basically a 6DOF spaceship game like Descent/Overload but in this fractal realm.

_carl_jung 8y ago
I've thought about this for a while, complete with HOTAS support.

eggy 8y ago

I've spent days playing with Mandelbulb 3D and other fractal programs. I was really into the projection of 4D strange attractors onto a 2D plane or printout (my current screensaver). I would burn weeks in FPS mode navigating these Lovecraftian and Fantastic Voyage [1] worlds. [1] I refer to the original 1966 movie, since the remakes didn't quite make it my opinion! And Raquel Welch.

kennyadam 8y ago
Any chance of a download link for your current screensaver, please? :) Sounds interesting.

kwhitefoot 8y ago

> I am bad at both arting and coding. Wish I was that bad.

hexo 8y ago

What a delightful journey, thanks for sharing!

Insanity 8y ago

These are absolutely beautiful. I really like the mood it sets, but I was hoping to see some code for the fractals to be honest :) Great work!

radicalbyte 8y ago

I love fractals. A few weeks ago we were at the UMC Nijmegen for a CT scan (father-in-law; liver-cancer; luckily slow-growing and treatable) they had an exhibition of illustrations from Haeckel of microscopic organisms. It struck me at the time just how much those structures reminded me of fractals as well as how beautiful they are. You can see some pictures here: https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/370096/the-haeckel-project https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/370096/the-haeckel-projec... And a book: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Ernst-Haeckel-Multilingual/dp/3836526468/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538756108&sr=8-1&keywords=haeckel https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Ernst-Haeckel-Multilingua...

aerique 8y ago
Ah, Mediamatic! I did my internship there 20 years ago.
abecedarius 8y ago
Similarly, on visiting the Sagrada Familia one of my first thoughts was that it was like stepping inside a fractal.

gdubs 8y ago

This brings me back to the hours and hours I spent as a kid with VistaPro [1], watching 320px fractal landscapes render, one scanline at a time. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaPro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaPro

mistermann 8y ago

This video linked from the article is very cool: https://twitter.com/Bananaft/status/894675135260745729/video/1 https://twitter.com/Bananaft/status/894675135260745729/video...

max_likelihood 8y ago

Beautiful work. I set this: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*y8eAZdMBfXkIB2S8XXyksQ.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*y8eAZdMBfXkIB2S8X... as my new desktop background ;)

selimthegrim 8y ago

I feel compelled to plug the book Indra’s Pearls here, by David Mumford et al.

isoprophlex 8y ago

Just stellar. Wow. Whatever game comes out of this, I want to play it!

mholt 8y ago

That's so cool. Reminds me of the work at http://sub.blue/ http://sub.blue/ -- especially look at Fractal Lab: http://sub.blue/fractal-lab http://sub.blue/fractal-lab

marviel 8y ago

Thank you for posting -- I've been super interested in this subject recently after seeing some really great live visuals at a few concerts(1). I'd love to add to my current set of visualizers (2) with something like this. (1) https://goo.gl/989gYr https://goo.gl/989gYr (2) http://whoadude.cool http://whoadude.cool

subblue 8y ago

A great write up - very interesting to read about your approaches and the various issues I also came up against with my own Fractal Lab experiment.

mikeheaton 8y ago

I studied fractals for years. But it didn't matter how deeply I looked, they still looked just as complicated as ever.

KennyCason 8y ago

This is so cool! I recently just started tinkering with a fractal expressor that results in voxel world in libgdx to roam around in. But secretly in the back of my mind, I think you are building what I really want! Love it. I’ll be following your project. :)

chakravala 8y ago

Please check out my Fatou.jl julia package, which allows you to share and reproduce 2D fractals with short one-liners written in Julia https://github.com/chakravala/Fatou.jl https://github.com/chakravala/Fatou.jl