Until the thread was locked cough I was enjoying the 'debate' on whether or not flames are art in themselves, or whether they should only be used as part of, or to build an image in UF, PS, PSP etc. I'm interested in why people like plain flames and why they consider them art. I've already made my views known so I won't be offering them again here. This is just for Apophysis artists (or anybody else) to have their say and tell us all why flames are proper good. Tony Yeboah - Not the footballer.

Try this website: www.enchgallery.com The best Apophysis/Frax Flame art on the web. Created by a brilliant artist. Also please check these artists' galleries on Renderosity: grinagog, psion005 and blatte. Without a doubt very talented artists, who do more than just move a few triangle points around. Heather

I like to I try to do something a little different with Apophysis- I search for nature in Apo whether I succeed is obviously a matter of opinion. Most of my images use Apo only with no postwork You can create anything you want - only limitation - imagination!! Well that's my thoughts LOL Judi :O)

Anyone using Apo creates original images, therefore those images are art. I see no reason why Apo should 'only' be used in conjunction with another program. As Heather has already mentioned there are excellent Apo images already posted in the galleries here, and I doubt the artists who created them (or those other artists who appreciate them), consider them to be 'plain'.

Here we go again. Tony, thanks for giving me the opportunity to jump back on my soapbox First, let's define art. It's pretty much anything that anyone thinks that it is, so anything that anyone creates is art, therefore everything that everyone creates is art and everyone who creates it is an artist. Therefore all flames are art and everyone who creates them are artists. Now that's out of the way. From there it's a matter of personal preference. I have said all of this before but I'll say it again. I love flames, but I am bored with most of them. Because of all of this talk of flames, I have just spent a few hours digging around in apo b, searching for the lost flame. I found a few interesting ones, but for the most part it was all I could do to stay awake. That's just me. I am more concerned about the big picture. If we look objectively at what MattyYeboah said in the other thread, we can see that he made a very good point. It isn't that all flames are crap, it's that our art is becoming stagnant. It's hard to see that though, because every day we tell each other how great we are. Don't get me wrong. I am not asking for anything here to change. I have become a believer in the community and the encouragement that if offers. All I am offering is my own personal experience on the impact that this environment can have on the way that we look at ourselves and our art. There's nothing wrong with feeling good about ourselves or what we do, but it's important to keep a good perspective. I think that good perspective is found in this quote from Joshua Spies: "Always listen to constructive criticism, never get high on yourself or your art, and never, ever quit!" What do we do about the stagnation? I don't know, but I do know that there is more to our art form than flames. They are just one tool in the tool box. Some folks are happy with wrenches, others like screwdrivers, but this art form needs every tool and then some. I love this art form. I spend a tremendous amount of time on it. I want it to get to the point where the average person on the street will recognize it as art. That person doesn't care that it came from some amazing script, that apo is easy to use or that it is a labor of love. They only see what is in front of them. The final product is all that matters. If that breakthrough to the average person happens with standalone flames, that's cool, but I doubt that it will. In the mean time, if it makes you happy, keep using your screwdriver. Keith

Thanks Tony, for opening this discussion in a new thread. I, too was enjoying the discussion, but let us all please keep it civil...and on-topic :D Keith, excellent words. I was hoping to see what you were about to say in the last thread :D

Heather, thanks for the link to Cory Ench's site. I agree, he's one of the best flamers that I have seen.

Keith you are right on mark!! Tony, I followed the other thread and I feel I have to contribute to this one. Check out my gallery. My "Ikebana" series where I have used APO and PS. There are endless possiblities with the software out there. http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=DIANE603 Everyone is an artist on this site as far as I'm concerned. We all do what we do because it makes us feel good and hopefully other's will enjoy what we share with them. With all the troubles in the world today I feel this subject is just about worn out. Happy Holidays. Diane

What is art,when is something art?who is to say. To me I like flames because of their forms,their strangenes and sometimes mystery and beauty. Some of them evokes feelings in me and images in my mind. I like them plain also but more than that I like to incorporate them in other images,cuz I think they do add something extra. take care.

Flames mesmerize me. I can sit and look at them, and the longer I look the more I see. Each one is different, like snowflakes. They're awesome, and I pray I never get to the point that I think flames are boring.

Message edited on: 12/21/2005 21:45

My opinion about is Apophysis art ? Art is starting from a clean window or basic matrial example clay or oil-paint and construct any thing by your self with your own hands or pencils or anything another tools you want to use I have seen random Apo renders that are so nice that i thought the writer has to make this program TO perfect :-) I like flames very much and i like also creating another fractal stuff but see that not as really art more playing with some cool parameter stuff what another folks has write and sometime with a very nice end result That there always are people that does this better then a another one is most a question of patience and yes a good eye for details, perspective and coloruse But from my out you may call this art no problem it all with that :-)) Cheers Arend

APO is ART dude... I consider flames more interesting than the 10000000 same old spirals that seem to permeate UF....From My experience apophysis has the amazing ability to create solid, psuedo 3d, organic, metalic, real world, and totally alien renders, and totally independent of other fractal or any other GFX program.... Me------------> :)

Message edited on: 12/22/2005 07:27

I do believe that Apophysis is a wonderful tool with which to create fractal art, and I use it, as well as UF, all the time. Sometimes I combine them, and sometimes not, but one thing I have noticed--for me, it's more difficult to come up with something really nice in Apo than it is in UF. I have to put out more effort, most of the time, to get an image I'm happy with in Apophysis, but when I do get one I really like, it's usually something that makes me sit up and go "Wow!". Art is so subjective--what one person thinks is fantastic, another person may see as just weird, or not worth looking at. Fractals are indeed odd things, and I've come to realize just how infinite they are, and how incredible this whole art form really is. The flames in Apophysis are, to me, something that you take and make art out of--when you first see them come up, after running the script, they're usually not much to look at--but then the artist takes them and turns them into a fractal art image--whether it's beautiful, or strange, or just something off-the-wall different. As someone else said, it's another tool in the toolbox. Each tool used to create fractal art has its place, just as each tool in painting or drawing, or any other art form has its place. The paint or charcoal isn't the art--the image you make out of it is. Same thing with flames and other mathematical formulas. The formulas aren't the art, but the images made from them are indeed art, no matter which formulas or algorithms you choose to use, flames or otherwise. And honestly, I love having so many tools available to me, to see just how many wonderful images are possible! It's a fractal world, and I love it!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1118762

I've been feeling a lot of guilt lately. I put the linked image in my gallery and called it "Pure Fractal". I'm afraid that's a lie. Here's my confession: It all started when I created a virgin Apophysis flame, generated with a random batch with some symmetry defaults. Then I applied a spiralize script to it. Spiralizing an innocent flame was the first step in stealing it's virtue, but I'm sorry to say that there's more. I'm so ashamed... because I ripped it away from its mother and moved it to UF, but that's only the beginning. I used the UF gradient editor to adjust the colors, but that's OK right? That's not too far over the line, is it? But here's the bad part: I applied a UF mapping transformation to it. I tried to hide my sin by applying the same transformation to a couple of background layers, but that only made it worse. I'm sorry to say that it's not over yet. I was then brazen enough to render it and bring it up in Photoshop. I adjusted the brightness, contrast, colors, sharpness and on and on and on. I turned that pure flame into a whore. I'm sorry, but I just can't help it. It won't stop. I hope someday that I will overcome my sinful behavior. Or maybe the Church of the Apophysals will recognize its hypocrisy and modify it's doctrines, "pure Apophysis flame", "single flame only" and "no post processing". That's probably my only hope. I'm too far gone. Pray for me.

Check this out: http://tinyurl.com/ch7ur Whether a person has a 'screwdriver' at hand, or a chainsaw, or one or ten computer programs, or...they are going to find a way to make art. I would question the intention of the discussion moreso than the intention of people who simply love a particular art form and attempt to create something beautiful. If anyone feels that the bar needs to be raised, then do something to raise it. If that isn't possible, then don't worry about it - someone else will. It's just a matter of time. Stephanie

Stephanie,

I hope that someone will raise the bar. I would be delighted to see fractal based art on display at a major museum or sold next to Kinkade paintings or something like that. That's my whole point. I want to see this stuff move forward and I want newcomers to know that there is more to fractal art than Apophysis. I do try to raise the bar and I am very frustrated with myself that I am not doing so. It wouldn't bother me at all to see someone else do it. I want everyone to be as successful as they can be. If they blow past me, like many have, great, I'll follow. If I was never there to begin with, I'll try to get there.

This art isn't like photography or painting. For the most part it isn't even recognized as art outside of our little inbred community. I still don't know what it will take to break out of that. I just hope that it happens.

Keith

Message edited on: 12/22/2005 11:58

lol Keith! Been there, done that! q-: Thanks for the laugh! (: ....oh!...I mean I've totally messed with an innocent flame before, but I still don't seem to be able to open my flames in UF. I get all kinds of variation errors.

Message edited on: 12/22/2005 11:58

About your second message: It's recognized enough for us to occasionally find a place that has stolen our fractals.(not mine, I'm not experienced enough) Like that time over at ebay, remember? That really sucked. I hope you're right, and one day it will be recognized as another area of art in a public gallery. Some of our fellow artists have already infiltrated some of the little galleries. heh heh heh

Keith, I understand what you're saying. You and all the long-time fractalers 'have' set the bar. I have downloaded lots of the long-timer's images from the db over this past year. It has taught me a lot about learning curves, and the process that you all have gone through to bring this art to its current state. Having been fractaling for only a year now, I and all the others who have begun in more recent years stand on the shoulders of you began long before us. You have all, already set the bar for us because we can see what is possible, with the result and the good fortune that we don't have to start at exactly the same spot that you folks did. Looking at images in the db also illustrated to me that people have certain formulas and ways of exploring, etc., that they use repeatedly. Not good, if one desires to thwart stagnation. Good, if one's primary desire is to get a satisfactory image with minimal effort. We all seem to settle into a personal comfort zone. Fortunately for me, I'm an eclectic and am easily bored - my greatest artistic assets. lol But, what my images will look like in six months or six years is anybody's guess. I'm thinking of the man who did the 'z' version of apo and who is now a part of the apo development team. There will be more like him, because whenever a person begins to feel contricted/restricted by the functions of the software, and can write code, new versions or entirely new programs will appear. Some versions will be tweaks, some will seemingly push apo (or other program) off the edge of the cliff. At least, it will seem like that to some. Then, new lists will start for the new versions, and the 'APO - the Original' group and the 'APO - the Interloper' group will typographically fly the bird back and forth at each other, until they get to the point of some semblance of peaceful or semi-peaceful co-existence. lol The name of the program doesn't matter - people will be people. As far as getting the art 'out there', there's nothing stopping any of us from doing just that. Perhaps the logjam for now might be if there's a mindset that dictates that we can only sell art as wall-hanging prints. What about cards, calendars, clothing, textile design, jewelry design. How many greeting cards do fractal artists send to their friends? Can we invent reasons to send them? Would it be possible to contact publishers, etc., ourselves to introduce the possibility of consideration in using our images? How about some who are so inclined to self publish and do our own illustrations? My mobius images gave me that idea because it seemed that a story was beginning to weave its way through and with the images, particularly when I found the 'eye of mobius' and the 'king of mobius'. (Haven't uploaded them.) I'm also thinking about textile design (I like fabrics and sewing). These are just a few ideas, I'm sure others will/do have more. It just seems to me that if we want the art out there and to be seen, then it's most likely going to have to come from us, whether as gifts or donations or - whatever - is only limited by our own individual selves. One more thing and then I'll shut up. I doubt very seriously that anyone who is exploring fractal art would see only one program's creations as the 'standard.' A google search for fractal art or fractal galleries would make that worry bite the dust in a hurry. :) That's all for this personally windy afternoon, :) Stephanie PS Afterglo might be a possible title for #3 of the getting there series. 0:) PPS Stephanie has now 'left' the building...lol

Attached Link: some of my postwork free apo renders

I am a V.J. by proffession (I mix visuals onto large screens in niteclubs) I always introduce apophysis animations into what im playing and they definately go down really well! so I am showing apophysis' capabilites to the masses! people come up to me in awe of what they are seeing! the folk who have no idea of how or what is used to make the animtions they are seeing really enjoy watching them ( thankyou scott and mike!!! ) I have created dvds, the content being visuals mixed to music as poeple at the niteclubs often want something to take home with them like a souvenier of the night. the dvds contain more than just apophysis flame animations, they are a mixed bag of 3d animations, real life footage etc and when I see the people at other nights after they have taken home a dvd they are always blown away by the apophysis loops!!! so wether it is art or not is a different matter but they are always a roaring success at the venues I work in!! in order to not be too repetetive and show the same work too often at the venues I work at, I always need to raise the bar and come up with new loops!

one woman at an event came up to me and said "those twiddly psychedelic spiraly fluffy laser type things are awesome, how the hell did you create them"!!?? so I gave her the apophysis url, and she is now an avid flame creator herself!

www.enchgallery.com is a sublime site indeed, the best ive seen in along while!
daegols comment had me laughing out loud!! nice one mate!!!

namaste to you all

MrP

Message edited on: 12/22/2005 13:57

As Keith says, anything is art if someone thinks it is ... But really, there is one more element that hasn't been mentioned here, and it should. And that is, art provokes something within the observer, a feeling maybe, or an emotion, or some thoughtfulness, or a sense of "Wow, how beautiful!" The thing is, if there was a beautiful sunset every night we all would eventually stop getting that "Wow" feeling when we saw one. So it is with Apo flames, and spirals and so many other things that seem hackneyed after too much exposure. I can recall not too long ago the first few flames I saved feeling they were treasures. Now looking at them they seem common (well, most of them anyway). That's why artists need to move on to new things. But are they art? Of course. Are they worthy of hanging on my wall? Some of them for sure. Are they crap? Crap is in the eye of the beholder. Is this a good discussion to have? Damn right it is. In fact, it probably is the best discussion to have. So long as we can refrain from insulting each other, or shamelessly promoting ourselves. One other thing, the amount of skill required to make an artwork does indeed enter into the equation. Picking up a beautiful seashell and hanging it on the wall surely makes for a nice decoration. But inlaying that seashell into a table top or a guitar fretboard impresses me a lot more. Stepping down from the soapbox now. Happy holidays everybody. Tim

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/photos/GAL_200512/GalleryImage1119826.jpg

Are You kidding???? Flames might be chaotic images caused by the iterations of a single image, but thet doesnt mean that they aren't art!!! i use apo and let me tell you, making flames that look cool is anything but easy. you can make the usual spiral and all, but it isnt easy to create something new. for an example, chek out my latest image, above do you know how long i worked to get the 2s just right? i sort of lied on the image page, because the 2s initially looked like little squiggles that could be 2s if you looksed long enough!

then again, this could be used to fuel my idea of splitting the fractal gallery. if we had an apo and UF gallery, then there would be no reason to debate!

still, if apo isnt art, how can all those modern art exhibits that are made of little squares and rectangles be art? what you are doing could potentially destroy the entire abstract world! like timbuk2 says, anything can be art as long as you think of it like that!!! sure, you cant just draw a few random lines, but if people like it, then it could be considered art, couldnt it????

okay, that's my view.
rodj

And by the way, getting the word out about fractal art is something that helps us all and we all should try to do (thanks to MrP; I would like to go to a concert some day with Apo animations), even though the commercial aspect of the artist thing is not to everybodies taste. I'll be thinking about some of Stephanie's ideas for sure.

Let's take our latest work and ask ourselves some questions : - what is the size of your (digital) canvas you have used and why have you chosen those measurements ? - did you have any idea, before starting your work, which or what image you were trying to achieve ? - When starting your work did you have a mental image of the stages, formulas, tasks you were going to apply ? - How did you decide on the composition ? - When composing the image, through how many different versions did you go before settling on the final placing of objects/fractals/flames ? - At what stage did you took a decision on the use of your colours ? - Did you pick your own colours, made your own gradients, your own lighting ? - Do you know why you have chosen those colours, or the mood they represent ? - is there a concept to the work you created ? - is the work recognisable as your own work or even style ? - have you noted the post-production steps in your technical diary ? - have you documented the discoveries you made while working on this project, in your daily diary ? These are just some of the questions you may ask yourself while working on your fractals, but believe me there are many more... Now, answering those questions and acting upon them wont make you an artist overnight, but you will at least know what you are doing and that is the first step towards becoming an artist. Neglecting all of this on the other hand means that it is the software that decides the image, and that is NOT art, your image is just a pretty coincidence and the software becomes the artist... Dirk

Wow - VERY well said, Dirk. These are the very things I've been thinking of but could never coherently express as I read the bi-monthly, or so it seems, agonizing over whether fractals and flames are "art". You have come up with just about the best wording I've heard/read on this matter, IMHO. I'll have to say right off that most of the UF things and ALL of the flames I've made merely "HAPPENED" and were not the product of a conscious effort to produce something specific that I "created" first in my mind's eye. I have typically just happened onto something and then exploited it rather than created it first in my mind. With the exception of maybe my old fractal scenes like "Depths of Orthanc", "Soulseed", "Galadriel's Muse", "Lionfish", "Vancouver Sunset" and "Bang a Gong", it's all been chance and then the exploitation of that chance occurence. But then, even most of the individual shapes of the elements in my scenes were coincidental "happy accidents", too, that I thought cool or looked like something and saved in my layer library folders for later use. It's the "dirty little secret" I think lurks at the very back of the minds of many fractal artists and why we so deeply crave acceptance of our art-form and get so defensive whenever anyone intimates that it is the computer that makes the image. I just cringe every time I read someone talk of the "hours of tweaking" they put into the fashioning of a flame and the creativity involved. Give me a break - pressing the Mutate button umpteen dozen times until something interesting shows up in the window is not consciously creating something specific as Dirk defines, above. I've never spent more than 10 minutes on a single flame after running the script or selecting it from the stack of random flames I just generated. (but then again, I'm not exactly the most accomplished flamer around either - I just tug the polygons mindlessly) If the finished flame looked like a bird, it was because I spotted it when it was randomly generated and dorked with it until it looked a maybe little more like a bird. Using a certain script will give a generally expected result but only generally. That's why you hear so much about the hundreds of RANDOM batches generated. What Keith alludes to, I think, is the limited TYPES of flames that are possible to make. I've used Apo from its very first days almost (YEARS!) and there are almost no flame types that I've seen posted that I didn't make one or see one very like it long ago. The "metal zipper" ones, the "holey" ones, the plant-like ones, the "wooly" ones, the ones with "glass squares" and so on. Yes, an experienced flame artist with a practiced eye could point out the subtle differences but, to people who don't know, they might as well be penguins. To most humans, they ALL look identical standing there in a pack on the ice but to another penguin, well they can tell them all apart very easily, thank you very much. Thinking, "I think I'll draw a giant stick-man standing in front of a flying saucer", getting a pencil and then fashioning the saucer - "ooh, how 'bout a dish antenna right here" - and the arms, legs, etc of the human form and then also having a burst of inspiration and deciding to add the words "Klaatu Barada Nicto" in the foreground in spacy script - now, that's creating something. At first, when folks started mirroring flames in Photoshop and PSP and calling it "postprocessing" seemed really cool and creative but it's been done so often as to seem banal now. But, regardless of whether one thinks they are "created by the program" or "art", there's no denying that the end products are often achingly beautiful in an abstract way or mind-bogglinly "cool" looking. They seem to affect those of us blessed to be able to "feel" abstract art in pleasurable ways that we can't quite put our finger on. Using UF though, with experience and practice with certain ucl's, affords a few more opportunities to consciously add something at least generally expected like, say, using Orbit Traps "point" to make round balls, spiky fbm Orbit Traps shapes or Glass Hemi for a sphere. But even with UF so much is trial and error. I have many presets for certain ucl's that I use that I THINK I know will have a certain effect but they many times do something either that doesn't look good or is totally unexpected and I decide to go with that. And the discovery of those settings always was the result of flipping thru all of the many function options and going with the ones that looked "cool" on a particular spiral when they "happened". Or trying every one of the trap settings in Thin Orbit Traps from A to Witch of Agnesi. On a tangent note, I'm not sure I'm happy with the Explore feature that UF4 has now. I think it has "Apophysized" the program and automated what used to be a concerted search for how the values of the parameters (most of which seem to do almost nothing! lol) actually affected the look of the fractal. Now you just click Explore and move your - sorta triangle shaped, lol - mouse around until it looks cool. I suppose that tweaking the color control points in the gradient editor also affords some conscious creativity once you figure out which parts of the gradient color which parts of the fractal. Adding light hi-lights and shadows going in the proper direction are creative touches too, I reckon. But as I said, at least for my stuff, 50% of the image is something that just happened and struck a chord within me that said "whoa, that's COOL!" and I tried stuff til it was "done". For my part, I think Keith also had a good point about stagnation, too. "Sameness". Therein lies the crux of the biscuit, I think. What's the new, original and fresh direction for this art-form? We need someone to come along with a new app or technique that is original and totally unlike anything seen b4. I've been so obsessed with fractals for so long that I'm almost sick of the ones I've made. I just do the same things over and over. I haven't made a truly original image, IMO, since maybe last December and I'm geting really frustrated and pretty close to shutting 'er down and taking a very long hiatus from it all until I can forget all my habitual "tricks" and approach these things from an entirely new mindset or direction. Everything I've posted for at least the last six months is either a tweak of an earlier image or something I started a long time ago and came back to. Not to mention that I've despaired of ever having the money and time required to actually try to sell this stuff at art festivals. Printing, matting and framing up enough stuff for a decent booth is estimated to be thousands of dollars and though I could probably "break the bank" and swing the $$ with the retention bonus my old company gave me to stay on till the very end, the bittersweet fact is that I have to go to work 8 squares a day and would get fired if I took off every other week to drive to an art show. And 90% of the people who frequent the internet are offended if something - like 3 uploads per day :-) - even costs $5. Also, short of hitting the lottery, I have no reason to expect I'll ever be one of those well-to-do retired folks with fat pensions, a Winnebago and loads of free time or who go on safari across the country as vagabond artists, unsure if they'll sell enough to make the bills this month. I do surely hope that, one day, fractals will be seen as "art" by the "mainstream" art community. There's nothing like them and VERY few people in the world know how to do this stuff. We are even somewhat shunned by digital artists as well as 2d artists. A guy I've met at my new job is a 2d (oils) and digital (Wacom tablet) painter and, though he really likes my stuff and SAYS he wants to buy a print of one, it seems he's always probing to understand what role the computer program played in the creation of my images and whether I meant them they way they turned out. Note this year's AOY is again not a fractallist. Even other digital artists may have a small perception that we don't really "create" our images in the traditional sense of the word. One look at Sven's gallery will show ALL of the images were created with something definite and specific in mind before he plotted the first pixel. Amazing stuff, too! Sorry if I sound negative and I hope I haven't offended anyone. I include myself in any critical statements as they are basically criticism of my own stuff. I'm just going thru a VERY dark and listless spell with my fractals and it's really got me down and this thread set me off... Rick

I am very offended, by the freaking encyclopedia that you just wrote :)) I love you, man. You know that. Rick, Dirk, you weren't supposed to tell anyone that all we do is find shapes and patterns and then color them. I would like to think that there is more to it than that. I'm going to have to think about this a little more. I think that there is still a lot of hope for the few of us who are caught up in this world. I just need to find a way to say it.

LOL - I just figured that if I wrote something long enough, folks would fall asleep and would all go back to making neato images... sheesh, it IS kinda long-winded, ain't it? Now you see why I'm so bad about answering IM's and e-mails - took most of the night to type all that stuff. I can't stop talking once I get started... of course you WERE present for the Gumbycat/Rykk gab-fest in Orlando last year so you know first hand what a motor-mouth I can be! :-) And you're right - there IS more to it than that. It's just convincing "lay" folks that it is. And myself - like I said, I'm pretty bummed with my stuff these days... Rick

Seems like a whole load of guilt at play here. Look, fractal art is different from conventional painting-type art, and the methods a fractal artist uses to create an image are different too. In fact abstract painting is different from conventional painting in much the same way. Abstract painters don't always plan out their works. They follow their noses too. Same for photographers. I don't know how many times I've heard that an award winning photograph "just happened." If an improvisational musician were to plan out in detail what he was going to play it wouldn't be improvisation would it? The best jam sessions are when the band just takes off and lets it all happen. Some times it's pure magic. We have a different art medium here and it's not gonna fall into the same artistic formula as any other. Just because we stumble onto our best work doesn't in any way detract from it. It's just the same for a jazz musician, he gets his best stuff when he lets it go. I take exception to what is implied in urchin1996's post, that is, if you haven't gone through the aforementioned process you can't be making art. To me that sounds like a classical musician telling a jazz musician that he doesn't make music. And that's a great load of hooey. I've heard classical musicians who couldn't move anyone emotionally. Sure they can play or sing scales like a meadowlark and sight read like a computer but that's not the point of art. It's the passion, the emotion that defines art. And the 'wonder of beauty' (there's a word for that I think) is the emotion that abstract art evokes mostly. Sure, it's not compassion over social injustice or any complex emotion, but someone who want to express these should be writing poetry or something, not creating abstract fractals. The fractal software is my paint, my instrument, my camera, and I'll brush it, play it and point it at anything I want. If I try to plan out an image it usually doesn't work as well as when I 'go looking' for inspiration, in the same manner that Rick describes. I firmly disagree with the notion that the software is the artist unless you go about creating art from the top down. Has anyone tried to create a fractal image without looking at it? I mean, just let the software do it all? It won't work. You'd get the same results through random generation. OK the random stuff Apo generates can be interesting at times, but the software doesn't know that it is. The selection process alone is an artistic action, in the same way as when a painter selects a color. And once a randomly generated flame is selected a "flame artist" will surely manipulate it over and over again. All this manipulation is artistic input. It may not require the same level of physical skill that an oil painter employs but it is artistic input none the less. The skill in this case is in the seeing not the physical aspect. So what makes a good fractal artist? The same things that makes a good jazz musician. A superior artistic sense, bravery, technical skill and expressiveness, to name a few. And Rick, you have a lot of all these. Hang in there man. Tim

Thanks, Tim - you've just expressed the other side of me that constantly argues with the side that wrote the LONG thing above. Yes, though we sometimes begin with something that just "happens", it is the artistic "sense" we have that recognises that beginning and then proceeds to develop a vision and enhances/exploits that beginning until it meets up adequately with the picture that has burst into our mind's eye once we've had that inspiration sparked. Be it UF, XD, Apo or whatever. Being a musician myself, I can grok your comparison between a classical and jazz musician. Being blessed I, suspect, with perfect pitch I've always played guitar by ear and by "feel". I've transferred that ability to "feel" to the piano and instead of taking lessons I - slacker that I am! - write or "make up" my own compositions/songs. As with fractals, I just dork around til something sparks my interest and then immerse myself in the "completion" of that vision. The trick is to then go thru some of the steps Dirk describes to finish that vision once it has occurred. I think if we keep going here, we might just be able to finally explain/define just exactly what it is we do to realize our artworks - maybe even to an extent that will "satisfy" the artists who think that fractals are merely the plotting "by a computer" of pseudo-random mathemetic algorithms. To some extent we, as Keith (luv ya too, man - you're my hero :-) said, "find cool shapes and then color them" (sic - too lazy to scroll up for the exact wording....but then in the time it took to type this I could have....motor-mouth again! lol) but it's not that simple. It takes a certain amount of skill to direct the computer in the proper direction to "find" that shape and then a LOT of skill and artistry to recognise and then take that shape and realise the vision that it inspired in us. There's no denying that it takes a LOT of time, skill and practice to get fractal software to go in even the approximate direction we intend. Many of us have put in time comparable to the amount of time to hone our skills that an oil painter would put in to get "good" at what they do. And, as with any other type of "art", the end result is something that strikes a chord deep within the human psyche the says "ooooooooh, pretty!". Rick

Yeah, what he said :)

Rykk you where present on a big graphic show with your fractals (Art) I have read your story after the show and also your reaction and how much you have sell there And my friend you are one of the best here ?? So i think personal that there is not really interrest and i think also that people not see it as ART Hope that i am wrong but its the way i see it !! But is that really important ?? For me its a form of relaxation and i sell all more then 6 years some of my work Not big money, but enough for give just that extra for buy a new computer my internet provider etc etc I am very happy with that, but see me self not as artist but only as a guy that has much patience and maybe a good eye for details and colors But without all the great software on my harddisk i think not that there come,s much art:-) out my hands However its a fascinating trip to read this all here and cool that the most folks feel her self as a real artist That,s good for the self-confidence LOL Have a great time Cheers Arend

When I wrote my list, i did not number my points. This is not a list where you go, 1:check, 2:check, it is just a small number of the numorous questions that any artist may or may not ask him or herself while working on a project. This means, thinking about what you are doing, why you are doing it, what you learned or dicovered and how you can use it in any future work. This goes for any artist and in any style he or she chooses to work. Abstract art is not mindlessly throwing paint on a canvas, Jazz is not blowing any note without any structure at all. And fractal art can never be just clicking away. Tim you are right by saying that "fractal software is my paint, my instrument, my camera....". It realy is. This is the central point of making art with fractals. But if it is our paint, our instrument and camera then we better learn to control them, to make them perform as WE want and not wait for beautiful accidents to happen. Now, I am an artist, I had six full years of academy and a degree that tells me so. It's been about 13 years since I first became interested in fractals, but it is only for about 3 years that I am trying to use this medium as my only art tool, and it's the hardest medium I ever worked with. Why is that? Working with a medium like fractals is working with what Keith calls "patterns and shapes". He is absolutely right about that. The hard part is that there are so many patterns, so many shapes to discover, in so many formula, so many flame parameters, so many colour algorhytms etc.. This is why, even MORE than in traditional art media, we need to document, register and learn from every trip into fractalia we make. To learn which patterns, landscapes are possible, you must first discover them. And this is the fascinating and almost spiritual trip we are having, walking through out-of-this-world landscapes. We stop and click our digital camera. Later on, we are not merely satisfied with the landscape or pattern and go about re-arranging them, giving them new colours. We are now on our way, we think, to become fractal artists. But are we? I would suggest that at this stage, we are still subjected to being passengers on a fractaltrain with an unknown direction. Sure, we can stop the train when we see something beautiful, record it, change it to our liking, but when that work is done, back we go on the train looking for another spot of interest. And without knowing it, this medium has become the art itself. No longer are we out to control our fractals, we have fallen for the trap filled with ready and instant beauty. Now we are converts to the fractal religion, a religion, like all religions, where non-believers and questions are frowned upon, where conventional art-skills and rules don't apply, where the work itself is resting in an intellectual vacuum. I still believe that there is a big future for fractal art. I know that when I see how Keith and Rick are working on it, I see it in the works of Harmen and Kurt (Rumple), I see it in the work of Jos and so many others. But if we realy want to bring fractal-art into mainstream art, then we have, in my humble opinion, a long way to go. A road we better not ride on high horses... Dirk

En toen dacht ik wat een spreker is die man :-) die is zijn roeping mis gelopen (some tease for Dirk)

Arend - actually, at that art show, almost nobody sold ANYTHING or even got any bids. Regardless of the post-convention hype you read to get artists to come to the next DragonCon, I was there almost all day every day and saw it all first-hand. There was only one piece - a pastel of a baby dragon and a kitten in a basket with a ball of yarn - that even was bid anywhere near $100. It sold for $135. The only other pieces that sold were $45 and below. Very small. And not very many. My pieces were printed huge and ranged from $250 to $1000, which was the low end of average for pieces that size matted and framed. Some acrylics by Robb Brown were $12,900. Daryll Sweet worked his buns off just to sell a few calendars and none of his pieces sold, either. The only problem with that show was that it was a science fiction convention first and the artshow was a small, secondary sideshow of it. Almost none of the attendees came to see an artshow or buy a piece of art. They came to see wookies, storm troopers, Mr Sulu, and to buy fantasy game pieces and costumes. I think there IS or can be an interest in fractal art if it is shown in the right venue. The internet is definitely the absolute wrong place to sell any art unless it is a very well respected site that art buyers - with money - would frequent. Certainly not places like Rendo or DVA where most of the visitors are artists themeselves and have no interest in buying someone else's art. And nobody wants to spend ANY money for ANYTHING at these sites. They think the internet should all be free which is, IMO, what will be the undoing of many sites like DVA. The 'net has ALWAYS been about commerce and if nobody buys anything, sites go away. Shoot, even when Rendo couldn't afford to keep it's magazine in print, I'll bet very few signed up for the $5 per month/3 upload deal to try to help out. You'd pay a minimum $19.99 to $25 a month for the amount of space some of the artists use up here at any other web-hosting company. Anyhow, I got off on a rant - sorry. I think the places to sell fractal art are true art festivals in progressive parts of the country. Like the northeast, west coast and some of the more cosmopolitan cities like Minneapolis/St Paul, Colorado Springs or St Louis in the mid-west. Certainly not in a conservative "coldbed" like Melbourne, Fl where half the people wouldn't know a good piece of abstract art if it whacked them in the face and the other half are so uneducated they think computers are the work of Satan and are out to brand everyone with the mark of the beast - lol. This has been shown by artists like Keith Mackay and Janet Parke. Janet, especially, has sold quite a few works and done well at art festivals. You just have to select the right places and make fractals that don't look like black-lite posters. Jackie L. and Kim(LaylaRose) have done well with fractals that have nice pastel colors that are colors many would like in their homes. Kim got a contract to supply fractal art for a large apartment complex where she lives in '03 or early '04 if I remember right. Jos Leys has been doing well of late and Joe Pressley has ideas that I think will be MEGA successful and he has the backing for them, too. And Linda A's stuff is almost always wall-hanger material, IMHO. As for my art, I've been told and I agree that I'm not sure very much of it is something that someone would actually hang in their livingroom above their nice earth-toned sofa but I've been trying to get myself turned in the right direction. Whiz-bang techno stuff, I reckon, but maybe not great "art". Gonna take a lot of unlearning of some habits I've developed but I hope to get there. I agree with Dirk in his second to last paragraph about traditional art rules. These are the guidlines that have been honed over centuries, if not millenia, of artistic endeavor and for fractallists to ignore or shun them is not something that will help bring our artform into the "mainstream" - which runs, typically, above those sofas I alluded to earlier. These "traditional rules" have come about to describe what most humans find pleasing as to colors, textures and image composition and - hanging above most couches in most livingrooms, are artworks that invariably display these traits. As to what these guidlines are, I haven't the foggiest, but I do think I can spot them when I see them in many artworks here - the ones I usually comment "art print material" or something. Of course that is only one man's OPINION...which is another can of worms - lol! Merry CHRISTmas! Rick

Dirk, that was a thoughful and well written post, and I thank you for contributing so elequently to this discussion. I whole heartedly agree with your call for artists to advance their skill levels and technical understanding of the fractal medium. I've heard some musicians that blow "any note without any structure" and it's not a pretty sound. Here at Rendo, and anywhere for that matter, there are serious artist (and serious emerging artists) and there are hobbyists, which includes many who 'do fractals' for the therapeutic relaxation as well as those here mainly for the social interaction. Your message must be targeted mainly at those of us who are serious about fractal art. And good on ya for that mate. In other words, we can first exclude those who are primarily hobbyists from any moral obligation to improve themselves (they certainly can if they want) and share this site with them because it is their's as much as it is anyone's. But there is a danger that in trying to become more skillful and technically competent the artist can become too high minded and even snobbish, and turn away from inspiration at a more basic, human level. I believe that with fractals, because physical skill it not really an issue, this danger is even greater than with other media. So my first point here is a warning really. Inspiration is what makes good art. Couple that with skills and knowledge and the magic begins. But without inspiration one has very little. My second point is just a musing, I suppose in response to your "fractaltrain" analogy. For me the number of formulas and their parameters in UF alone are bewildering. And the number is growing all the time. From my limited capacity anything over twenty is an infinite amount, no, a chaotic amount. I think I can safely say that I will never understand them all completely, not even half of them. And furthermore, do I want to? Should I want to? I don't think so. It's not a religious thing. At this point in time I don't believe that fractals can be 'controlled' in the same way that, for instance, paint can be controlled. It's a whole new medium, not just a minor change to a conventional one. In this sense conventional art-skills and rules don't always apply. And I can live with that. Tim

THE PROGRAM APOPHYSIS IS DESIGNED TO MAKE FLAMES. IT WON'T MAKE A POSER FIGURE OR IT WON'T TAKE A PICTURE. SO FLAMES IS WHAT YA GET. IF YOU THINK THEY ART BECAUSE YOU "MADE" IT, THEN SO BE IT. IT IS AN ORIGINAL NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT. SOME OF THEM ARE PRETTIER THAN OTHERS. SOME ARE DOWN RIGHT UGLY. BUT WHATEVER THEY ARE, THE PERSON WHO MADE THEM CAN AND SHOULD CALL IT THEIR ART. HOW HARD CAN IT BE?

Guess what no one realizes is that Apophysis was spelled wrong on purpose... it's not a 'poop' program, so hope i have straighten that out smile Anyways, what either artist uses to create their piece of work don't matter to anyone, if they are happy with it, that's their choice, and if someone just doesn't like it, thats their choice also Some people don't like my art, and don't see that as art, or as fractal art, just because they don't have it or can't use it for they use a different computer I am very content and happy with the software [artmatic, photoshop, painter] and hardware [iMac G5, Wacom Intuos etc.] i use, i can create things i most likely won't be able to make with Ultra Fractal or Apophysis. It is very hard to have people buy your stuff even when it is made with fractal programs, but i can live from it, art is my profession. And they like to have my work on their walls. Digital art still stands in the childrens shoes, i mean it is quite new. A few years back, i had a very hard time trying to sell work of a former friend, who was brilliant in her Ultra Fractal art. I never had any art school or education for the designs i make, i believe it is a gift from Heaven that i am able to create my work, so i don't follow any rule as Dirk has described above, i do as i feel it is the right thing to do But i want to learn new things also, so i might get myself a wintellie next year to try and learn what most of you do. I am also very busy making sculptures when i get the time for it. Time will change as long as we put our minds to it, the more people see it, the more they will want to have it on their walls also. I have had an exhibition, or the exhibition is till january 7th 2006. I just didn't sell anything. But that is alright, in other countries i do very well. here we people don't have much money to buy us art. And they like other things also than what i have showed on that exhibition. They most likely found my pieces of work too much for their wallet and decided to go to ebay to buy works of mine for a much lower price smile Next year i hope more pure fractal art will be introduced, i will work on that... Hope you all have a most wonderful happy end of the old year 2005 and prepare yourself on a healthy, peaceful 2006, and please don't let yourself get intimidated by those who have no respect for your creations, for you are the one who sees that as what you have created on your screen as your own art. God bless and lots of love Harmen

I'm glad the this thread moved from apo to the bigger questions about fractal art. I have a lot of respect for the players here and I appreciate what has been said so far.

About fractal art, I think that we are there. I don't see some big breakthrough happening that will get the world's attention. I don't see that someone will create an amazing image that will be hung next to the Mona Lisa in The Louvre. What it comes down to now is getting the word out. Maybe "marketing" is a better word. Print your images and get them out there next to the painters and photographers.

Just a word of honest caution to those who believe that their own art is amazing because of all the attention that is gets here and on DA. This place and DA are not real. Show your images publicly if you ever want a taste of reality. You might be pleasantly surprised, but it's more likely that you will become disillusioned. Seeing reality is OK. It can be discouraging but at least you have seen it. Don't forget that there are a few success stories too. I still believe that there is a place in the world for what we do. We just need to get it out there. Let's not give up.

And then there is apo. I have just spent the last week using apo, trying to see if there was something about it that I had forgotten. I'll bet that I have looked at over 2000 random images and tweaked the triangles on over 50. Overall, the process was painfully boring. I was looking for specific shapes that I could use in some compositions. When I found what I was looking for it did become more interesting, but looking through hundreds of images to get there made it almost not worth the invested time.

But if that process is what is good for you, good for you. Keep going.

Apo is great software. It has pulled a lot of people into the art of fractals and that is a very good thing. My point is, again, that there is more to the art of fractals than Apophysis. Hopefully, for most people, it is a means to the end and not the end.

On the one hand apo is very easy to use, on the other it is extremely complex. In fact, I am getting tired of people telling me that scripting is easy. Scripting is NOT easy. It is at least as complex as building a UF formula.

A few days ago, on the apo mailing list, I talked about confusing the feeling of discovery with the feeling of the final product. When an outside observer looks at an image, they don't care what you went through to discover it. They only see what they see in front of them. The final product is all that matters.

And I am being repetitive. Sorry :-)

Message edited on: 12/27/2005 13:09

Whilst doing christmas shopping, a friend of mine was checking out calendars - and she came across one entirely of Apophysis images! Silly woman didn't buy it... grrr! She said that the calendar in question was made up of what she reckoned were "beginner-type" flames though... basic images that every Tom Dick and Harry could make with a few clicks of the mutation button and maybe a spiral script thrown in here or there. She's going to see if she can find that calendar again when she goes to the post-christmas sales, so that I can see it, and maybe get hold of the company that makes them and see if they'd be interested in making some with more intricate Apophysis works.... it's a start methinks... lol! T.

Here is a very inexpensive way to learn the basics for anyone who might be interested: Fine Art Principles for All Media http://visual-arts-academy.com/normaB.html

It is indeed a start. That's why I offer my full support of the Fractal Universe calendar. Lots of people have been critical of the quality of the images in it, me included, but shoot, you can buy it Barnes and Noble. It's out there where it should be.

I see there are a lot of very knowledgable people here, and I am willing to read and learn. (: ...oh...and by the way, blacq_nyght_vampyre... lol q-: Touche!!(or however you spell it!) hee hee!

One of the more interesting thigns about fractal art is that it was one of the first, very first things that could be done with a computwer back in the late 70's early 80's when you just typed pages upon pages of BASIC into the keyboard, saved to tape and then played wonderful fractal images. It was ages before anything like a game or photography came to the front, so it should be considered that fractal art is what has led the drive to the wonderful graphics capabilities we have today. Pre computers, fractals were popular too, in paper cutting and such in Asian cultures creating fractal images. Will

May I just add my halfpence worth of comment !? ;-) To me an artistic image is simply that, whether it be computer generated or hand-painted on canvas. As for fractals, I am a relative newcomer to the world. I started out about a year ago using a program called Tierazon later moving on to use the program Fractal Explorer, which I still use today.

When I first started I had absolutely no idea as to what would make a 'good' fractal image so I suppose all of my 'good' ones were arrived at by accident rather than by design. And that accidental aspect is still true today to some extent. However I am less likely today to create an image just for the sake of it. I now try to introduce themes and styles for my fractal works, and I like to think that I have some idea as to what I want to achieve before I start. In particular I try to create fractals with a 3D effect and ones which use geometry and areas of contrasting colour to form 'pictures' My recent and ongoing 'Chambers' series (Rosity Fractal Alternative gallery) is an example of the former.

David

It looks like this thread has faded out. Sorry, it's not over yet. I wanted share some experiences with you that might help you to understand why I say some of the things that I have said. I don't have a lot of experience with showing my images publicly, but I have had some. My first attempt was at a one day festival. The whole experience was weird for me because I had never tried to sell anything in public, let alone art that I was very unsure of. There weren't that many people there but I remember almost every face that came by. Everyone was very kind and polite. No one had ever seen anything like my images and they wanted me to explain what they were. None of them felt the passion that I did about fractals. They were more perplexed and intrigued than anything. I'll never forget a comment that one guy made. When I told him that they were generated on a computer, he said that he would just buy the software and build his own images, and he walked away. That guy makes me wonder, is building our own images all that we will ever amount to? Will anyone besides fractal creators ever enjoy fractals? I hope so and think so. By the way, I sold 2-1/2 images. One was Spirit of a Flower and the other was Flowers, which was my first flame flower composition. The half image was conned out of me for $5 at the end of the day so I don't count that one all the way. Also on that day, a very encouraging lady came by. She said that I was set up in the wrong festival and that I needed to find the right market. I needed to find 30 something rich people who were looking for home furnishings. She suggested that I set up at the gay pride parade. My next experience was when I had a display set up at a store in the mall during Christmas time. It was there for almost 3 months during the Christmas rush and I sold 3 images. The store owner said that it was a bad year for all of the art in the store. There's some lessons learned about the economy and market. I have a few more experiences but I am out of time for now. I hope that I am helping you to understand what I have been talking about when I say that I want fractal art to be accepted as marketable art by the general public. It really is a high impact experience to show your stuff to someone who could care less about how you feel about it. It's like showing home movies of your kids to a stranger. It provides a very different perspective.

Many people think that if a computer does it then the person on the computer has little to do with it. My wife is a perfect example of this attitude. She thinks a real artist should have a brush in his/her hand. (nuff said) It is a knee-jerk reaction that is very common, and is likely to be one of the impediments to fractal art becoming mainstream. Exacerbating the problem is that so much of what many fractal artists do are images that look like a computer did them. I'm not critical of that. Heck, I do some of those myself. It's just making it easier for that attitude to linger. I've been busy lately preparing a group of images for printing and framing for hanging in an exhibition coming up in March. I'll be putting up a broad(ish) spectrum of images with the hopes of getting some indication what the public likes and dislikes. It would be nice to sell a few too but I'm not anticipating much. I'll post anything useful that comes out of it. One thing I can say at this point is that the border/frame of an image can have a huge impact on its overall appearance. Some images can be mounted with little or no border and look perfectly fine. But for others, when a carefully chosen border and/or frame is added the result is remarkable. In particular the color of the border can compliment and give the image more impact. Tim

Earlier in the thread someone quite rightly points out that your simply changing parameters. Very true, your not using a pen/pencil or brush; however by that arguement Music isn't really art either. After all in music, your not creating anything from nothing. Your taking an instrument and manipulating it, with a synth your often just tweaking parameters. Does that mean that music isn't art? At the most basic level of music your just setting about parameters that a person or computer will playback... Art is art to each person. I've seen canvas painted one damned color, I'm told that not only is it art but very expensive art. From my point of view it was just a color sample with no more merit than the color sample I got from Home Depot when I painted my living room. But again, to some it was art. So, are flames art? Well, I would guess that to the person that thought the one color painting was art - flames aren't art (until one sells for a million bucks at Christy's). I would suspect that for people that don't like over educated and under brain celled telling them what art is - flames can be art. Some flames aren't it just depends on how the flame moves your heart. As for it merely being a tweaking parameter, try and recreate one of the really good ones by just tweaking parameters and moving triangles. It's a lot harder than it looks to get the really good ones.

Well, I've stayed out of this one as long as I can. I do in fact think that Apo flames can be beautiful, and can be considered art - but I have one big old soapbox issue with a lot of the flame images posted here. Actually, it could be any fractal image, but some flames are particularly glaring.

My issue is with the way the images are what I call "finished". By that I mean that the image is clear, full, and not surrounded by tons of negative space. I've seen some perfectly beautiful flame thumbnails - only to click on the image (sometimes as large as 400KB!) to find a sparsely, barely visible splotch of color surrounded by a ton of black space. For 4 months of the year I am blessed with a fast internet connection, and I am more than likely to go ahead and view some of these 400+kb images. For the remaining 8 months, when I am on a dial-up connection, I don't waste my time. Renderosity is a meeting place for people from all over the world - and some of them have to pay by the minute for internet connections. How much is that huge mostly black image worth?

My personal rule is that if the thumbnail looks better than the final image, then something should be done to the final image to make it better.. increasing the density, zooming in, rendering at 2 or 4 or 8 times the final size: whatever it takes to make the flame show at its absolute best.

One does not have to shell out big bucks for a graphics program capable of resizing/anti-aliasing any digital image. Irfanview and the Gimp are freeware, and both do excellent jobs.

Artists improve technique as they gain experience with any graphics program - and I am not at all adverse to seeing beginners post their works here at the fractal gallery. I actually enjoy watching the progression of works as each artist finds his/her own style and improves over time.

What irks me is those artists, whether they be beginners or not, that do not take the time and pride to show the best possible side of whatever they decide to post. Again, this is just my opinion, but I don't think that the speed, size or frequency of posts is what counts - it is always the final product that gets my attention.

Panny, getting off her soapbox

Message edited on: 01/03/2006 22:00

Message edited on: 01/03/2006 22:03

I agree with Panny's comments, and I'd like to add to them a bit. I don't have a problem with beginners (or anyone for that matter) posting images that don't display a great deal of expertise (we were all beginners once, and you'd have a good laugh if I posted what I'm capable of doing with Xenodream!). In fact, I often comment glowingly and genuinely on images that demonstrate very little technical ability. What matters to me is that I get the impression that someone has tried their best to make the image as perfect as they can before they post it. Now I admit that it's not always easy to tell, but a sure sign is that over the course of several (dozen) posts, someone's work improves. There have been people here that posted literally hundreds of images that showed no signs of improvement at all, but that have got very annoyed when anyone has dared to question whether what they are producing is art. Art may be many things to many people, but one thing that I think is an essential element of any artist is a sense of perfectionism and pride, and if you're prepared to churn out hundreds of mediocre images without honing your skills, then you're not an artist (at best you're a craftsman). If that's the case, then you should be prepared to take a bit of flack every now and again from those people that do work hard on everything they do and who have to wade through your images to find the good stuff by other people. As I say, it's not about absolute technical ability, it's about attitude. My comments aren't directed at people that aren't very good, they're directed at people that don't care that they aren't very good but don't want anyone to actually tell them so. Encouraging people, especially beginners, is important, and I honestly think that I do that with my comments, but I do get a little irritated by those people that expect to get flattery for very little effort. Those people that try, even if they haven't (yet) achieved technical or artistic marvels, have all my support and encouragement. Anyway, time for me to get off my soapbox now too. :-) Best wishes, Simon.

Hold on, stop the debate! It seems that some of the opinions posted here are causing certain Apophysis artists to stop posting flames. Apparently, Apophysis users have delicate sensibilities and we need to refrain from talking about Apophysis until they are all tucked up in bed. Otherwise, we have a potential tantrum situation. It's been brought to my attention that some people think certain individuals that have commented in this thread should publicly apologize to all renderosity members for what they have said here. So, as i'm the person that started the thread I guess it falls to me to offer an apology. I'm sorry! I'm sorry, that you think a discussion on what people consider to be art is not something that should be discussed in an Art Community. I'm sorry, that certain members feel that a legitimate discussion on what is art could cause someone to stop posting images. I'm sorry, that you feel the need to publicly chastize other people through a medium that has no prior knowledge or involvement in what you are saying. I'm sorry, that our passion to see fractal art become more mainstream contradicts with your own views on fractal art. I'm sorry, that you can't accept that some people have different opinions to you and also have the right to voice them. As long as it doesn't break the TOS then it is a perfectly valid opinion. But most of all, i'm sorry I ever started this thread. The only reason I started it was because I wanted to hear what Keith had to say from the first thread. Everything else that is written here is really of no interest to me whatsoever. But do you hear me complaining because other people have made their views known? No, because I respect other peoples opinions, up to the point that they attack me or someone else just for stating 'our' opinion. Tony Yeboah - Not the footballer.

Believe me, I have very strong and ugly feelings about this, but I'll hold off