My Apophysis Tips

My Apophysis Tips 

I am in no way an "expert" on Apophysis, but here are some tips that I have suggested to others when they ask how I do what I do.

• Find a good entry-level tutorial.  There are a lot of "hidden" options in Apophysis that are not readily apparent.  Clicking or right-clicking on different things can open up new options.  A good tutorial will go into these.
• Play with gradients.  Depending on what type of fractal you are working with, a slight rotation of the gradient or a complete change of the gradient can bring about not just color shifts, but whole new areas of the fractal that are not otherwise seen.
• Find an use lots of scripts.  I have collected over 350 different ones.  Some good ones to get you started are listed on the Scripts page.  Don't just run a script though.  Run multiple ones on the same fractal and see what the result is.  If it is a script that you like that generates new fractals, experiment with removing the "Clear" statement in the script so that it creates the same result on an existing one. 
  
• Don't feel that you need to know how to program in order to modify or write scripts.  It isn't really programming as much as a text "macro" that does nothing more than adjust the numbers usually available in Apophysis.  For instance, saying "Flame.Brightness := 20" does the same thing as if you were to manually change the brightness in the adjust window to 20.   Many script tutorials are available.
• Learn some of the basics of the editor window.  A lot of my scripts are nothing more than existing ones that add a final transform of a bubble or sphere.  Don't get scared off by not understanding the "triangles".  I don't understand them or the math behind them either.  But sometimes you can get cool results by duplicating a "triangle" (called a transform) and rotating it or moving one around.  Here is a before and after example of just such playing.
  
• Sign up for the Apophysis mailing list.  There isn't a whole lot of traffic on it, but it is a great place to get answers to questions, and I've seen scripts posted there that I haven't found elsewhere.
• Download the latest version of FLAM3 and use it for rendering your "keepers".  Not only is it updated frequently, but it actually attaches the flame parameters to the JPG or PNG output as comments.  You can then use a program such as JPGcom (I've also mirrored it here) to extract that information should you ever want to play around with those parameters again.  One day, if my wishes are fulfilled, you will be able to open a JPG image from within Apophysis and have it extract these parameters for us. :)
• If you have access to a secondary machine, you really must check out my Unassisted Batch Render program 
• If you are going to do a high-quality version on your piece, use the zoom instead of "cropping" to enlarge your area of interest or changing the Master Scale.  The zoom will look the same on your preview, but you loose detail in the final image.  Here is an example from a small section of this fractal: