Thanks T for the tips. The multithread option was already disabled by default and I changed the random batch option down  as you suggested and went further...to 3 but still the hourglass prevails.

 

Further to my dismay, I have discovered that 2.06c didn’t want to render to anything and upon further reading I learned that I needed to download Flam3 and a whole bunch of little odds and ends, which aren’t apparent on the surface and must be sorted out. It seems that Flam3 has replaced HQI (Flam3 is the improved HQI and same company as I understand it) as the in house renderer in later versions.

 

But this didn’t clear my hourglass problem. In fact I was not able to resolve that issue. I downloaded another time unlimited version of 2.06 from Gygrasok which also was hourglass happy. But my rendering problem began to show some improvement.

 

I did find a link to Joel Faber’s Apophysis 2.04 with no time limit also and appears fully functional. And while drudging through this quest I further learned that all successive betas and upgrades should be parked in Apophysis base version 2.02c folder since these other upgrades usually only come in the form of executable files and require some of the other files that come with the base 2.02c version. So it appears that you can have several Apophysis executable versions all residing in the same folder apparently because the software is a work in progress.

 

But I have encountered other problems relating to the png file format as they relate to transparency. I’m on Photoshop 7.0.1 and I can create a 24bit png file with no background and save that file to disk. I can then come back later and open that file and it’s background remains transparent and transferable to the web.

 

While exporting a flame from Apophysis you can set the bit depth and by default it’s set at 32 floating. So I would imagine that there’s enough bit depth and that the image should open in Photoshop with tranparent background as you can set in Apophysis’ Display option in the png panel where I selected “flam3 style” and have “show transparency” checked on. As should be the case according to several tutorials I’ve read. No matter what I try, my flames import into Photoshop with non-transparent backgrounds.

 

I’ve just completed downloading GIMP. I’m wondering that since parameters can be imported into Apophysis from GIMP if I wouldn’t have better luck importing saved png’s with no background into GIMP. We shall see. I’ve already tried Paintshop Pro to no avail.

 

And to further befuddle me, I downloaded Liz’s “Lace Spirals” script. It ran well as I installed the different Apophysis executable versions and then, all of sudden when I tried to run the script, the script editor refused to acknowledge the variable “calculatecolor” which Liz says in her script that if the editor bucks at this, then I need to upgrade my “functions.asc” file. Now, so what’s happened and where would I go to download a fresh, upgraded functions script file?

 

Again, now as before, I would greatly appreciate any help you guys can give me. I’ve done a lot of researching so far and slowly getting myself together but as of yet I’ve not gotten my hands dirty with actually creating fractal art. I’m running at fever pitch and I’m afraid the coal will run out before the engine reaches its destination.

 

Quest