In the past, I was always amazed when I saw those spacy 3D wallpapers on Deviantart and the art groups. But recently I found a technique to create the effect in no time, without any knowledge of 3D modelling.
Take a look at the finished result (click for bigger):
Looks too good to create in about 10 minutes? Then read on:
So, what’s the secret? Only one miniscule program: Apophysis, a so-called “freeware fractal flame editor for Windows”. It’s only 2,5MB, so don’t loose any time and download it right here and install (takes about one minute).
Now, let’s start the tutorial:
1. Start Apophysis.
When you start the program, it automatically generates a random batch of “flames”, each numbered and listed in the left column of the screen. If you click on a number, the flame loads into the main work area, where you can edit it if you wish.
For this tutorial, any further editing of the flames isn’t necessary, but if you’d like to read more about the features, be sure to check out the excellent tutorials here.
Now, just click some of the numbers, and check what you get, untill you find a flame you like. Note that there’s a lot of luck involved in getting a good flame immediatly, so be patiënt.
After some tries, I bumped onto this one:
If you’re happy with the flame, click Flame>render flame to disk in the menu bar and use this settings:
Width = 1024
Quality = 100%
Choose a destination folder.
Then hit the “render” button. This rendering process can take some time, it depends on your processor speed.
This is what I got:
So far for the Apophysis-part, let’s dive into Photoshop!
2. Open your render in Photoshop.
Duplicate the background layer (or the layer where you flame is on), by right-clicking on the layer in the layers palette and then choosing “duplicate layer”.
Now set the blending mode of this layer copy to “soft light”.
Repeat this and duplicate this layer copy some more times (notice that the blending mode of this copies is also set to “soft light”).
I made 4 duplicates and this was the end result (click for larger version):
Pretty sweet for a random render and some easy Photoshopping, isn’t it?
More interesting websites:
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March 6th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Wow sweet thanks it helped me and itll help all the people trying to figure how to get a greate render with ease, good job.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
You should implent a wordwrap script into this commenting system, to stop fucktards like that
nice tut tho
March 6th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Very nice.
Thanks for sharing your skills.
March 7th, 2006 at 4:21 am
While mentioning Apophysis is a good well-kept secret, the possibilities of what you can do in Apophysis are endless. I’ve been using it now for over a year and I’ve gotten quite good at it.
The easiest way I can think of getting a nice effect is to run scripts (which can be downloaded off of Apophysis’ deviantart page) and running them. Spiralize batch usually creates some cool looking things.
Happy renderings!
March 7th, 2006 at 5:22 am
thanks… that is so damn cool!
March 7th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
you just discovered Apophysis ?? you’re quite slow..
March 7th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Nice tut!
March 8th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
That’s cool. i love that program. What’s the link to Apophysis’ DA page for the scripts?
March 10th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
I’m sorry for all of the comment spam on this post; the reason is that I was in the Netherlands for 3 days on an Architecture trip, so I couldn’t moderate the comments.
May 13th, 2006 at 10:07 am
So interesting site, thanks!
May 13th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
So interesting site, thanks!
July 28th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Wow very interesting! I have not seen bevore. Thanks, I will try it out now. Pictures looks great.
Greetings from Berlin
March 9th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Hey i think your picture is really awesome can i use it on my highschool webpage.
June 10th, 2007 at 6:15 am
thank you very much~
July 30th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
thanks this was cool
February 10th, 2008 at 3:22 am
Gimp can do the same thing but better.
October 13th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Yeah, Apophysis can do some really cool things. Don’t stop at just duplicating the layer and changing the blending modes, go crazy! Lighten things, darken things, use color balance layers, change the background color, try some filters… Check my DeviantArt gallery to see a little preview of what Apophysis can do if you try it. Just be creative.