Personnally, I do not have any time to comment (wish I did). However, when I read my own comments, I always prefer to get comments which tell me about something I can improve on. I don't even mind a comment like 'that is a lousy image', becuase I'd rather know that something sucks and get rid of it (since I know what I don't like about each of my images, and on most there's quite a lot, I am not offended, it just means that someone saw all the things I did and thought them important).

This site: http://www.digitaldebs.com/flight_from_fractal.html says to conatact this site: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mugenn/uchuu/ which is dead. A google search turns up several seemingly related japanese sites, but their translations are too poor to find any contact info. I would likely be willing to make the program available on my site and through the author's site by hosting its download on my server which has no bandwidth limit, but I cannot do this without their permission. I still would like the program so I can use it (it looks quite interesting) but I'm interested in contacting the author. Do you know of any way of doing this?

Hello Tom. I'm not much of a master on anything, but I do use Ultrafractal all day, and I have every instant messenger on the planet. I don't think I can fully satisfy you're "mentor" needs, but I would love to chat with you about fractals, discussing all the details of images and exchanging/critiquing work just as peers. Post or PM your yahoo screen name or other (I'm comonly on AIM and Skype, I don't usually run yahoo, but I certainaly would if I had the chance to chat with another artist) messenger and I'll load it as soon as I can (IM services are loaded onto my server machine to run 24/7) and IM you. ps-I'd sure love to know why deviant art says it banned my ISP...I want to create an account there but I cannot, and I can't email them to find out about it.....

Message edited on: 07/19/2005 07:05

hrm....damn this one is not gonna be easy! I hate to say it, but I'm gonna have to second the motion for a july/august challenge-I think its the only way to get enough entries to make this thing really cool....

I would if I didn't have to join it.....

absolutely kickass work! maybe next time I'll have time to join in and enter something....... //Matt ps-I knew that one was gonna win :P

HEHE!!!!!! This topic again------------------ So why not make the hot20 run on views not votes? I know when I run through the gallery I view those images I like, and I also use that as the first measure of response to my own images (I don't care about votes or V thingies). Either that or simply kick it and promote FWW...I never look at the 20, but FWW ALWAYS has AWSOME stuff in it (which I usually vote for while viewing :P) //Matt ps-I post comments and vote for images based on 2 factors- First is how awsome the image is (did it really amaze me) and second is how much time I have. I NEVER post/vote based on other comments/votes and would be very ticked off to see someone do that for me (though I will admit to finding some awsome stuff by clicking the name of the person who commented on one of my images, but it was, above all, awsome stuff).

While I may sound like a communist for saying this (which I may well be, considering I think a true and balanced communistic economic system with a democratic government would be awsome), I believe very strongly in free stuff. I love open source software (Firefox, tbird, nvu, filezilla, etc). I also believe that in using these resources, I should then contribute to them, in the same way. Fractals is my labor of love-just as somepeople work on cars, toy trains, and models. I know almost no one who makes money from their hobby. I don't believe in the commercialization of art, I think it should be shared and enjoyed. I don't view my artwork as any more valuable than anything I post on this forum. I don't believe in the commercialization of any form of expression. Such was Freedom of Expression. That's what the name of my site really meant.

If anyone wants to put my work on a book they are free to do so, so long as they tell me before and send me a copy of the book so I can keep it and be like "wow that's me".

While I respect Rykk and his position, I am against it. I believe exactly what he said: "If you can find something for free, why pay for it?". Exactly-as long as you contribute something in return. I get Visual Studio for free, for example, and I am willing to write custom hack programs for people at no charge (I did one to solve an ISP Homepage problem about a week ago for a guy on IRC).

I believe also, that trying to fit art into a capitolist market has failed. Look at music, for example. In all but a few cases, when I buy a cd, I pay $15. The artist gets $.50, the record company spends $.01 and then keeps $14.49 to line its pocketbooks. Sorry, I'm not willing to line anybodies pocket book. If you try to tell me that giving images away lines the pocketbook of the vendor, I tell you that's bull, since those books 1) cost more than $.01 to make, and 2) don't sell more than 1000 copies (and that's a really luck one.) Nobodies pocket's getting lined here. They just want to make their book look cooler. And I want to produce art. Since both are symbiotic, I will give my images away until I die.

//Matt

ps-Don't ever get me started on DRM. You really don't want to go there.

ditto vclaszlo....that's what I meant to say......

Looks like my server provider is gonna be a bit slow-I'll have to wait a couple days for the site to come online-but it will soon...

OK-well, if anyone still reads this far down, you should have all noticed that I started this discussion and never really returned to it. I shall now do so. Here's what I have come up with: 1) I can do this alone. 2) I don't have the time to do it right. While it would be possible, it would consume me...and I have other things to do. Plus, when school starts, chances are excellent that I will have little time to run a site, so this site would suffer the same fate as number one. If nothing else but of respect for the origional, we cannot allow that to happen. I've done some thinking, and I have an idea: Since we are all somewhat interested in this, we should collaborate. We could split this effort into a team of 5-6 people. Sure, I can do the basic design work (loading php nuke), but I can't maintain it after alone. All team members would have full site access, and they would be the forum moderators. If a problem was found (a daily occurance on FF), it could be taken care of quickly by one or two people. If one person left, we would be ok. FF was the product of Derek (kimpe helped, but in the end it was still Derek's site) The point of the team approach is that we all would contribute, but none of us would be making a big commitment, which is what I think has prevented FFII. So...anyone with me? //Matt "If only it were that simple.." Maybe that's why I'm not all that great......cause for me it really is.....

This isn't exactly a scam. A basic checkup reveals that those two authors mentioned are in fact real authors, the book mentioned does exsist, and while I have no way of linking mrs. roumeliotis to it, that publishing company is legit as well. This person simply doesn't have a budget for images....and hopes to get some for free...at least he's asking and not just taking -cough-Mr.Deck-cough- Whether or not you do this depends more on whether you see yourself as a true artist or not. I suspect you do, and therefore his asking for your work at no charge is probably a bit out of line. However, I supose in his defense it really can't hurt to try. In my case (and you are free to tell him this) I would be thrilled. If what I do for fun magically generated two copies of a book with my image on its cover and which I know would be distributed to many people with credit given to me, I would be a happier man. I wouldn't really care about getting paid, since I know I'm highly unlikely to ever make any money doing this, and I would rather see my images in the world and know that others do than to decline that privaledge over a small amount of money. I wouldn't even need two copies of the book. However, there is a point where that isn't right anymore. Me, I'm just a hobbiest who somehow got sucked into the black hole of loving fractals waaaaaay too much. I cannot say how you view yourself.

Yippie!!!!

I love UF3! It's so awsome- My basic work order: Step zero: download the public formulas. Step one: pick a formula that appeals to you Step two: Go find a coloring method which looks interesting (I know where many of my favorites are, but you must learn this by random selection basically. Same with formulas). Step three: Either mess with gradient/merge mode or hit duplicate and go to step two. Learning UF is best done simply by pushing buttons...soon you learn which do interesting things and which do not.

neat! Who's it? Come on! that's it, you know you all wanna play!