I brought up the poems and I was actually kidding about it. Also, my vote would be that if a fractal program was used at all then it should be allowed in the gallery. Also, if a program like Bryce is used but the focus of the image is clearly something algorithmically generated, it should also be allowed.

There is another kind of post processing that is used here. I'm talking about people who add ... POEMS! to their work.. Hey people that poem is not a fractal! And don't get me started on those descriptive titles! OK I'll shut up now.

I think the fractal gallery should include mathematical art in addition to fractal stuff. I think "bring it in" images are fine here if they contain a fractal or mathematical element. That said, I also don't think that images being in the wrong gallery is that big of a deal in the first place.

I have used the formula "sam.ufm:IFS-Barnsley" and my own tweak of it "jock.ufm:IFS-Barnsley+jock III" .. use values for Barnsley seed of (0,1) or (1,0) or (0,-1) and the like. prepare to do a lot of tweaking to find the rectangular patterns though.

for coloring I like rsp:quadcolor and standard:smooth(mandlebrot), or as Panny said use orbit traps and trap shape hypercross,cross,rectangle,box.

see the attached file for some examples

A good place to start is the File->Starter shapes and the "Quick Start" buttons (blue and green) on the File tab. As with Apophysis it is easy in XD to get fuzzy/noisy shapes (or even nothing but fuzz) and hard to get crispy shapes. XD seems a little trickier here of course, but is rather similar to Apo IMHO. Playing with the Starter shapes helps to give you a feel for it. There is another random button on the lower left of the Shape tab that will give you a random shape layout where the holons are all aligned nicely. Once you have an interesting shape you can play with the color tab (the randomize buttons are a good start) and finally the lighting tab. However to simplify you can always leave the color at white and apply color in the lighting stage. Very important: render at huge resolution (eg 3000x2000 or larger) and let the iterations get down below 300 - apply the lighting, save, and reduce it in PSP/Lview/PS and do your final PP. This is key in making nice solid/smooth looking shapes. Also, I found the standard Xenodream help file to be really useful.

also you can get great squary spirals and stuff using IFS-Barnsley in sam.ufm or IFS-Barnsley+JockIII in jock.ufm .. using values for bseed like 0,1 1,0 0,-1 or -1,0 .. may take some experimenting.

<> time to try something new perhaps.. challenge yourself to make an image totally unlike anything you would normally do, maybe even a different program.. or an image that has unpleasant or discordant qualities but still interesting. find a new space to work in.

I am still fascinated and bewildered by i... welcome to the world of fractal art. Have a good time; make pictures you like; print them, throw them away and make better ones.

Attached Link: http://www.fractal-recursions.com

I wrote an animation program that operates on UF UPR files. It works using key frames and fills in the intermediate frames. I assume the new UF will operate this way. And tresamie is right; you are looking at 10s of megabytes for 320x240 (mpeg-1) and 100s of megabyte for 720x480 (dvd or mpeg-2) animation for run times of 2-4 minutes. Render time is from 1-15 minutes per frame depending on size and layers, etc; 30 fps is the usual rate, so you are looking at a long time to render an animation. I had some that ran for 5 weeks. But UF doesn't mind being interrupted so managing this process isn't so bad. Takes patience though. Follow the link to see a few of the animations I have made.

I've never seen so much flaming in a single thread.. ugh sorry

On the other hand, I often feel like a photographer who is looking for interesting fractals to 'photograph' -- after all, the fractal is already 'there', I just found it, spruced it up a little, and grabbed an image of it. You are just looking for fractals in 'real space', not 'math space'. OK, it's not a perfect analogy. But I think it could rightly go in either gallery.

Finally, the voice of reason! Thanks Matt.

I would like to get my hands on the R'osity database and do a little data mining. I'd compare the rate of comment posting to the rate of comment/vote receiving.

While I do believe that there are plenty of warranted comments and votes, I think it's undeniable that more comments and v's will get you more of the same in return--it's just human nature, when you get a nice comment, you feel appreciative towards that person. You have a limited time to browse the gallery, so your clicks are spent on the thumbs that catch your eye and the users you are feeling appreciative towards. You might even feel guilty if you don't 'return the favor'. So I basically agree with the OP; I don't think there is any way to fix it, it's just the way things are. Unfortunately it means that many images get less attention than they deserve.

Note: I am not accusing people of commenting just to get more comments; more that some people have more time or inclination to comment on a lot of images.

Deagol, Instead of someone voting up an image using multiple accounts (which may be a small problem but not really the problem here) I think a better test would be for someone to comment on every image posted and see what happens with their own posts.

Clark if you have a fast connection, the MPEG-2 files are very big.. follow the link in my first message, go to animations page.

Attached Link: http://www.fractal-recursions.com

athlon 3000+ 1gig radeon 9800 pro (primary sys); for UF animations I have had as many as 4 computers (the other 3 much less 'beefy') going at once. That can cut a 2 month animation down to a few weeks.