Wow - well said and explained, Joel. And this just shows to go that there's more to some fractal images than meets the eye.

I'm amazed by his stuff and the others he mentioned. I'm no newbie with Apo but I can tell you straight off that NOTHING I ever made with it required as much work ethic as Joel described. And, of course, it shows! Because I've never come up with anything remotely like what they have.

You know, I go around and around and back and forth on this "Apo vs UF" thing and have thought it a "mindless distraction" sometimes. But after reading this and also a couple of conversations with Joel's brother, Michael, it's occurred to me that maybe the reason I've thought Apo to be "mindless" might just be because that's the way "I" use it. And I'm certainly on the lower end of average when it comes to making flames. I just tug the polygons around until something looks cool or run a script and fine tune that. Think??? Moi???? As if!! lol I've never dug deeply into Apo like have have UF. Most of the time I was just trying to make organic "landscaping" flames for compo's in UF. It's just too easy for me to get caught up in tugging triangles in a daze because it seems to have a neat, calming effect....though the triangles get me fixated on ordering pizza from Dominos - lol. Someone needs to turn shrinks onto this stuff for their stress management courses! lol

So - near to the heart of this debate that keeps coming up is maybe the perception by UF users that Apo is just too easy. Well it can be and then again, as Joel describes, it isn't. Certainly using the "Kaleidoscope" mapping in UF is as simple and easy as running a script and whacking the mutate button. (btw - I've never had a mutation that looked better than what i started with but then maybe I don't  how to use it - lol) It DOES make some neat images. I can remember when kaleido was the extent of my "expertise" with UF and I was pretty pleased with myself. Of course until I saw what Keith Mackay, Linda Allison and many others were doing. So both software platforms have "average" users - which is most of us -  and then there are the few, like Keith, Jackie L or the Fabers, Nick, and Andrew and some others that knock your eyeballls out when you see what THEY can do and that can inspire us all to try to do greater things. Speaking of Apo, I'm also really floored by Judi's(twiggypeasticks) flames on light backgrounds, too. And maybe there's a perception that UF users are "snobby" and think UF is the be-all-and-end-all of fractal programs. Sure, there are lots of opportunities for creative input but, as I said above, there's no shortage of "easy" stuff to do with it, too. You get out of any fractal program what you put into it and some people are serious about it and others are just having fun. And the bottom line is, "is it beautiful or cool looking". Maybe directly at the heart of the debate is the same old, worn out "popularity contest" thing that keeps coming up and that there is really no help for anyhow. (please please please don't start THAT one up again!)

So, I don't think Apo is going to "take over the world" any more than UF took over the world. It's just the newest "great thing" and 600 is really not a very large number when you think of the thousands of Bryce or Poser users. And it helps expose more people to our kind of abstract art and some might be intrigued by UF and pick it up just as some have done UF and then moved to flames.  BTW - Does anyone know roughly how many copies of UF Frederik has sold? That would be an interesting thing to know. Hope it's a lot...but not so many that he retires and quits coming out with new versions - lol.

c-ya!

Rick