Fractorium and “Cross” Variation Tutorial General Info: This tutorial was written for Fractorium. Though I am fairly sure the general concepts will work in a similar fractal software as well, the steps below contain specific instructions on what to do in Fractorium. The purpose of this tutorial is to provide some practice to people new to Fractorium (and fractal flame editors in general) by walking through a creative process that uses the "cross" variation as its main element. The only software you need to install to be able to follow this tutorial is Fractorium, no other resources are needed. The user interface on your screen is probably coloured differently than my screenshots but this has no effect on the capabilities of Fractorium. Fractorium offers the possibility to modify the skin of the user interface. If you would prefer a darker UI (like in the screenshots), here is how to do it. Fractorium uses the decimal separator that is used by the language of your operating system. Since the tutorial is in English I am using periods here, but when you type in or copy values from here, you will have to use the decimal separator used by the language of your operating system. Important! If this is the first time you run Fractorium, please read through the content on this page. Especially the hardware requirements and the part about enabling the GPU since it can provide a substantial speed gain (especially important during editing). The personal experience of course, depends on the computational capacity of your CPU and of your GPU. UI Layout Customization The top level tabs can be detached, dragged and docked at different locations to allow you to work more comfortably and effectively. To do this, click on the header bar of the given tab and start dragging it while holding down the left mouse button. Try moving them toward the left and right edges of the screen or to the upper, lower, left or right edges of of another panel. If you’re in a position where the dragged panel can be docked, Fractorium will display a blue rectangle indicating the area where the panel will be docked after you released it. If you want two or more panels to occupy the same space, drag one over the other until it receives a blue tint and then drop it. You will be able to switch between them by clicking on tabs like in the original layout. Here is an example for a customized layout: Important! If this is the first time you run Fractorium, please read through the content on this page. Especially the hardware requirements and the part about enabling the GPU since it can provide a substantial speed gain (especially important during editing). The personal experience of course, depends on the computational capacity of your CPU and of your GPU. Getting Started After you have launched Fractorium, click on New Empty Flame in the File menu. Click on Copy Xml in the Edit menu, then click on Paste Xml Over also in the Edit menu. This way the random-generated flame Fractorium opens with will not be a part of your file. You should see a monochrome square now. If it appears to be too dark, click on the Palette tab then click on the Random Palette button until you get a bright square. The colour doesn't really matter; as long as it's bright it will do in the beginning of the creative process in general. However, for the sake of this tutorial please set the palette cl-tans-yellows-browns as the active one. Just copy its name from here to the search field above the list of palettes then click on the colour gradient. Tip: Click on the Xforms tab then click on the Affine tab. Put a checkmark in the Pre Affine Transform and the Post Affine Transform checkboxes, and in the Show box choose Current for both the pre and post affine transform. This way only the affine controls of the active xform will be displayed, and the preview area will not become crowded. Creating the Base Open the Xforms tab and click on the Add Xform button three times. In the Xforms page click on the Select tab then click on the Select All button to select all 4 xforms. This way the changes you make (e.g. adding a variation or dragging an affine control) will affect all xforms instead of affecting only the active xform. (With the chekboxes you can choose which xforms you want selected. This is a very useful function for having control over given subsets of the xforms.) Click on the Color tab on the Xforms page and change the value to 0.725 in the field above the colour gradient. At this point this does not have any significance; I just want to make sure that you see what I see. Now let's add the cross variation to the xforms. On the Xforms page, click on the Variations tab. Type "cross" in the search field at the top of the Variations page. Click on the number next to the cross variation and either increase it with the up arrow, use the mouse wheel or just type in 1.6 to change the value. You can also change values in Fractorium by right-clicking on them and moving the cursor left or right while holding down the right mouse button. Tip: In Fractorium, you can set a value to 0 by double-clicking on the field that contains it; double-clicking on a 0 will change the value to 1. Now to create a nice-looking pattern by playing with the pre and post affine controls.This can be done in two ways (I almost always use the combination of the two). Mouse: The circles in the preview area are the affine controls. If you click on the dot in the center, they can be dragged until you release the mouse button. If you click on the outer dots, you can rotate and resize them. If you click on one of the outer dots while holding down the Alt button, you can skew them. Parameters: To access the affine parameters click on the Affine tab on the Xforms page. These can be used for very small or big but very accurate changes. The values marked in red are the steps by witch the affine control will be rotated, shifted or resized when you click on the corresponding button. You can type in very small values instead of the default ones to allow for accurate changes. Basically, you can play around with the affine controls in the preview area and if you find something interesting (this can be a long process) you can fine tune it with the parameter controls. Tip: Here is what to do when you find some pattern that you like and you want to keep it but you also want to keep searching to see if you can find others. Click on the second icon from the left on the toolbar (if you move the cursor onto it, the text Add a copy of the current flame to the end of the current file will appear). A new flame (thumbnail) will appear in the list on the Library page. Fractorium will keep updating the most recent one as you work on it and the state you wanted to preserve will be safe in the previous flame in the list. After this operation, only the active xform remains selected so if you want to get back to exploring the way you did, you will have to select all xforms again as described above. If you wish to delete flames from the Library page, click on their thumbnail then press Shift + Delete. Tip: Dear Reader, if you belong, like me, to the group of people who cannot foresee the future, I recommend the shameless overuse of the Save function: In the File menu, click on Save Entire File as Xml to save to a file all the flames you have preserved so far on the Library page or click on Save Current as Xml to save only the currently active flame to a file. So, after you entered the parameters you should see something like this in the preview area: Let's jump a bit into the future by which time you will have already created and saved some handsome scenes and you are on the verge of insanity for not being able to choose between them. Now take a nap, drink a coffee or do some work if absolutely necessary; deciding will be easier after this. Let's say that you’ve chosen the following: Post Affine Transform: Pre Affine Transform: Please copy these numbers 0.999594 0.003489 -0.719153 -0.019640 into the yellow-marked -0.003489 0.999594 0.019640 -0.719153 fields as shown above. 1.853340 0.058937 0.000000 0.000000 This pattern could have been created by using only one xform; the other three will come in handy for colouring purposes later on. Ok, now let's smear some rough details. There are many ways one can apply blur to a scene; here is a very simple one: First go to Xforms > Select and click on the Select None button. Then make Xform 1 the active xform (if it isn't already) by clicking on the small coloured square on the Xforms tab and then choosing the first item from the drop-down list. You can use the function keys as well to switch between xforms.