Okay, here's my idea. I'd like to see a little more nuts-and-bolts sort of posting. I see a lot of great images- tell us how you did them! Share your tips and tricks! I want the forum to be an extension of the gallery- people can go to the galleries to see fantastic images, then come here to get information on how the programs work, how to do the images, and that sort of thing. Just posting images is interesting, but I want a little more for this forum than for it to be "Galery Jr." What do yout think would improve the forum? As soon as I get a second to breathe, I want to stat some discussions on the mathematics behind fractals. What do you want to see?

how about a 'featured program for the month'. each month, a different fractal program is featured, sometimes mac, sometimes windows, sometimes one that runs on both, and a lot of discussion about how it works, how to do things in it, what it's strengths and failings are.

also some short, no longer than one week, challenges. The seasons contest has gone on so long now i've totaly lost interest in it. so how about some theme challenges, one each week and some challenges specific to certain fractal programs AND a way to post the code from the different fractal programs. You can easily share fractint pars, ultrafractal uprs and other fractal program files but there's no easy way to do that here. If there were, we could have a challenge sort of like the paintshop do it to it's where the moderator would post the weekly fractal par file and everyone would do something with it and post the changes to the forum

Two great ideas! Feature program, and weekly challenge. How about featured artist? With a link to their gallery. (Beef up those fractal galleries!) We need more folks here, too, or we won't have enough featured artists for a year! A way to post and share fractal goodies, eh? Hmm. I'll look into that.

I think the first hurdle is to get all the people that are uploading images in the fractal gallery to start posting in the forum. i also think that it would be good if one of the forum moderators posted an invitation to join the forum and post images in the gallery every 3 or 4 months on all the fractal news groups and mailing lists. And how about some kind of blurb on the front page to the rest of the renderosity members and guests, to get them to come check us out? and it would also be nice if we weren't limited to 3 images a day to our galleries. I can understand the need for space conservation but right now, you can't post in more than a max of 3 galleries each day and only if you limit yourself to 1 of each type. That leaves most of the image posting to go on in the forum which doesn't do anything to attract people that aren't members and who can't read the forum.

Artists are thieves. Some cultures, old and new, thought that an artist would steal your soul if they made a picture or photograph of someone. On that note I second what has been said before. There are so many wonderful fractals here that I would love to use in my ever so humble artwork. But to do that I would need permission and the parameter files so I could tweak them and make them larger to use as textures. It would be great to participate in an exchange of fractals and parameter files. I would like to see a take this and use it area, maybe a backroom, where this could happen.

Oh my???a virtual fractal message parlor.Hello Micheleh.I am a kitty in your lap.Oh CW My leg is ok??it just does that when you scratch behind my ear.MarvinR's gallery is a perfect guide for an understanding on the grasp of working in a 3D fractal poser world ect..If we are going to make the "In tha future hard sale" we will hafta show a articulately composed process that gives directions on the layout"map". my example would be tha store.. I would say between us alone we could feature a ton of fractal programs..Tha math would be cool.Fractals =Information base # FF000001.Or you could examin this layout process as such of that of the IT = Information Technology aspect,But remember IT has got to appeal to that community."Whatever communities are being analysed for an IT proposal".One of the communities that need and use new ideas and products is??Renderosity.I think that,that has been a topic addressed by Micheleh several times... Michel; Couldn't you get a previous history for your exammination from the previous posts in tha forum?? Audre was the first person to start the forum. Some questions for this Topic may be; What kind of a sucess rate did the very beginning posts have??? What was the layout of the topics under discussion??? How wuz these posts followed out. What were the advertisement's?? Did they do good??oh.oh. Did they generate more posts???

P.S. I don't know if this is the smartes "Idea".But,ICQ.Com has a exelent net-meeting tool for private communication expansion.You can talk and surf.

Well, now all we need are the bolts. ;] (I'm teasing you, Arista!) 8]

wouldn't all the people that take one look at Arista's post and run away screaming count as the bolts? (ducks)

Well it is Friday night???I've been working in cartoons all darn day anyway..

I believe that from time to time I've mentioned the various programs and even plug-ins I've used to tweak my images, and I have no qualms about explaining things. In fact, I've even posted a short tutorial on my web site, explaining in a VERY basic way my tweaking technique. So I guess that means I've nutted and bolted pretty well!

The tutorial page is at: http://home.attbi.com/~shessler1/My_Tutorial_Page.htm

Keep in mind it is B A S I C, and doesn't attempt to explain everything in detail.

An addendum to my previous post: There is a faction among fractalists that insists there is but one (unnamed) program worthy of fractal creation, and all work must take place within the framework of that program. Any addition or alteration by using exterior programs corrupts the fractal and renders it worthless.

I do not subscribe to this theory. My philosophy is not to peek out, not to put a toe out, but to take a running LEAP outside the box at any and all junctures, to enhance, improve, and personalize the work I do. The commonly used phrase is 'fractal art'. I for one will at all times concentrate at least as much upon the ART portion of that phrase as I will the FRACTAL portion. And that, in a nut-and-bolt shell, is the core of what, how, and why I do what I do to make a fractal.

Enjoy the weekend!

Wouldn't it be cool, erm...nuts and bolts wise to create a centralized tutorial/database of fractal programs, tweakings, doings etc. that would be stored here (somewhere)and available to all? This could be done easily but labouriously in two ways.... Brief how-to's could be posted here and gleaned by a volunteer and compiled for a more "usable" tutorial(s) or people could submit tutorials for inclusion. Gee, as for hard-sell to get more interest, the above would almost be like having a built in "in" for a Renderosity magazine article (grin, blink, blink)

(I'll have to go away for a whole day more often--it's amazin' what all goes on in my absence! =:^ ) I would love to see more nuts n' bolts. I really really liked that 'over my shoulder' tutorial that Crystal Wizard did for me. Even tho it wasn't for a Mac, I learned what those graph-thingees are for! As an absolute beginner, I have literally everything to learn about fractals....limited, of course, by my "innumeracy" !

One will never get a comprehensive database of programs, tutorials, etc. for use by those visiting this particular forum. The work involved is too extensive. It would be much easier to just find what is already available and just have a link to those places. And even that would be a very big effort. Believe me, I speak from years of experience: http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Software.html and http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Census.html and http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Links.txt And to be really popular for everyone, this centralized database would need to be easily accessable to the general public without having to put up with advertisments, required signon IDs, scripting that causes browser problems, etc.....

Dear Nahee Uh I think the database,InfoBase,IT.Is going ta be on this site???Renderosity.The main focus and Topic of this discussion was Created by Micheleh. Micheleh was communicating to the forum about here Goals,Ideas and chores.. Micheleh work's at Renderosity. Micheleh was calling upon fellow Fractal artist's here at Renderosity about building onto and inside Renderosity.. Micheleh has IT from her moderatory stand point. In conclusion; I know that I spend most of my time here when I am not at 3DTotal. Just look at the Renderosity store???? It's the best on the www. I think that you could be thinking about a site like;www.hypercomplex.org So,in closing; I know that my Work,Goals are here at Renderosity and the Store and any construction there in.

P.S. why don't you invite some friends to this discussion..

"An addendum to my previous post: There is a faction among fractalists that insists there is but one (unnamed) program worthy of fractal creation, and all work must take place within the framework of that program. Any addition or alteration by using exterior programs corrupts the fractal and renders it worthless."
This is nothing more than a stupid rumour...
But if you create a fractal and post-process it - how do you get this image really BIG to create a good print?
And how do you learn to reach the borders of your fractal program if you go to the PP as soon as a fractal program generates output?
I always want to have the option of rendering my images in bigger than 2000x2000 pixels therefore I very seldom PP my images. But when I'm in the right mood I play with PaintshopPro all night long...
I do not believe that there really is that "faction", IMO there are some words from some mailing list totally misunderstood...