Hi... I am just getting BACK into fractal fun...been YEARS so may as well be a newbie....

I opened my new install of the win7 32 bit Apophasis fracal maker... and felt really silly looking for the RENDER button...then remembered the "gear" icon... so did that... and sat waiting for the fractal to show up...

Wasn't there a WYSIWYG view of the fractal, so then you mess with it and do a quick render again to see what you have made..? I don't want to keep going to another folder to open a png...(and that opens photoshop for me)....

sorry for being such a newbie!

Lyne

The "gears" are Full Image render

Clicking the buttons to the right of the Rendering Quality box titled Adjust, Gradient or Size will Bring up the Preview Render Window, clicking the Fx will bring up the Triangle editor for the fractal. The Render Quality setting will control the resolution of the Large main Panel image, the higher the number the higher the resolution applied to the Main Image and the longer it takes to render the preview.

Super thanks for the refresher course Lenord! :)

well for pitty's sakes... it said I could edit my post but after I wrote it all out, it said it "expired"... so adding to my thread here:

Just did that, and it got me back into familiar windows....but I realized I must be remembering ANOTHER fractal maker...that actualy renders ON SCREEN "LIVE" as it goes... this one, you can see the fuzzy preview only..  it is still a mystery until you "go get" the final render to see how it turned out. pooh.

I am not spoiled or anything... but I DO remember a funky little 2d program that did render right in front of me and I used to sit for hours watching it unfold... as it rendered. hmmm. I need to go look at my old back up drive for those programs...

:)

Lyne

You might be thinking of Fractal Explorer it sort of does that. Apo though, it has the small Adjustment window for setting thing up, adjusting Gradient etc. but the main window is where you see the large representation of the fractal but that window is Not the Final render just a larger representation of what the Final will be like. The Quality of the small adjustment window can be changed by right clicking in the window and selecting Low,Mid, High quality and those settings are setup in the Options on the Displat Tab.

Any adjustment to the position, Gradient, zoom or whatever in the small adjustment window will trigger a render in the main window, it's quality is controlled by the Quality set in the Rendering Quality box on the Toolbar from 15% to 1000%, I usually use 50% for getting things set and then when I'm happy run one at 1000% to see if the full quality will be what I want, then go to the Final Render and let it go. I set the Main window at 1000x 500 for setup and do the Final Render at normally 2500x1250, usually takes from 1 to 2 hours to render depending on the complexity of the Frac, plus I have an old slow Puter.

Super thanks! I am compiling quite a "Lenord How To" for my fractal software! :)

I looked up Fractal Explorer, found the home (?) site but it unzipped (for win7) and said there was a dll missing from my computer (I did virus scan all along the way) and it would not start.. plus seemed in german... erg.  So deleted all... I am "fractal greedy"!  I even have xeno dream that I bought waaay back too.... hmmm.

I should just go get my old back up files..

BESIDES I assume my collection of wonderful APO forumulas from back then will still work on this new version of APO?! 

Lyne

They may not work in Apo7x but I'm pretty sure they would work in 2.08-3dHack but running the old original Apo you also need the 2.0 Beta version first to run any other versions. My old Apo folder has 2.0/2.02/2.08/2.08-3dHack and 2.09 versions in it, 7X however will run on it's own. The old Apo was all pre Win7, probably all but 2.09 pre Vista, Apo7x by Xyrus was originally brought out to be compatible with Win7 but I use it just fine with XP-Pro/SP3

Here is a link to the most recent version of FE, it also includes a version of the old Sterlingware Program.

http://www.fractalli.com/FTP_Files/FE203B2.rar

The original FE website is still around but pretty much deserted, FE is ancient but that doesn't mean it's still not a Viable app, I started with FE and still consider it one of the best, especially for a beginner