Hello! Welcome to this week's Tuesday Tips. I am SarcasmNymph if any of you still remember me. I have meant to do a Tuesday Tips for Fractal Art for a while now so Let's go!

Now there are many tutorials out there for Chaotica or Apophysis or whatever and make specific fractals and blah blah blah. But they all focus on having a prior knowledge of this software so starting on any of this seems almost impossible. I remember spending hours just making sense of very basic things. So in this tutorial to teach you how to use the very basic technique to make a Fractal from Apophysis without knowing anything and looks the way you want to. It is not a tutorial for a particular technique, but it's an intro to basic tweaking and gets you geared to experiment. Let's go!

Pick a Random Fractal

If you open Apophysis 7X this is what you will see:


On the Left, you will see a set of randomly generated Fractals with name Apo7X-xyz. Select one that looks the prettiest and looks the most intricate to you. Tips on picking one, try not to pick ones that are too blurred and spherical like the on you to see in this screenshot. Try selecting one with different shapes and curved lines. Those are the easier to edit. Once you have made your selection click on the fx on top of the preview.

Basics of Tweaking

Once you click fx it should open this window

Photo Creds

Over you can see how the random fractal you selected is already set up but the easiest way to edit is using the Final Transform. To activate it select Fx on the top row right. This should add a Final Transform to your Fractal. Making changes to this will directly make changes to the pattern you already have. You can do that by:
1. Changing it's size
2. Changing it's rotation
3. Changing it's location
4. Changing the variables on the right (most of which should be 0 except linear)

Some basic variations that I use the most that will create immediate results are:
  1. Linear
  2. Julian
  3. Pre-blur
  4. Shape parameters: Diamond, square, cross, etc.

However, don't shy from using the other settings too. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment.

Note: While the Final Transform is the easiest way to make drastic changes it's most certainly not the only way. Make changes to the other transforms as you please. You can select them from the drop-down on the right.

Final Tips

Now while we have covered some very basic ways to tweak things there are other things you want to play with:

1. Colors: Using the color values like opacity on the color tap on the right can help you highlight different parts of the fractal
2. Xaos: Xaos determines how transforms affect each other. Changing them will change how parameters in one transform change other transform, so it's fun to use.
3. Weight: Like Xaos Weight determines how much the transform affects the fractal except it's an absolute effect rather than relative to other transforms. You can change the weight of any transform except the final transform. It's good for making final tweaks.

And that concludes a primary starting place for you to tweak and create your magic with Apophysis. While this is not an ultimate guide, it is a nice way to make something of your own and learn from a bunch of amazing tutorials out there. God conquer the Fractal Universe.

Links and Fun Stuff

Download Apophysis
Floral Tutorial <-- my personal all time favorite
Learning Apophysis In-depth