"Standing Alone" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

MB3D Parameter Set by Ricky Jarnagin

Renowned 3D fractal art maker Ricky Jarnagin has compiled parameters for eight of his fascinating fractal objects. Click on the images/links to open the params. Copy the params into Mandelbulb 3D, and go exploring! When you share your creations, please credit Ricky Jarnagin for the source parameters.

'Tweak Me PLEASE!' by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

‘Tweak Me PLEASE!’ by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"Fuzzy Lil Critter" by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

“Fuzzy Lil Critter” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"Holding Court" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

“Holding Court” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"I See Stars" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

“I See Stars” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"No Escape" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

“No Escape” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"Standing Alone" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

“Standing Alone” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"The Corridor of the Ring" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

“The Corridor of the Ring” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.

"Floater" by Ricky Jarnagin (params)

“Floater” by Ricky Jarnagin. Click for params.


More about Ricky Jarnagin: artist profile and image gallery. These images are © Ricky Jarnagin/DsyneGrafix and appear here with permission.

Mandelbulb 3D Tutorials (images by Hal Tenny)

Mandelbulb 3D (MB3D) Tutorials

We’ve compiled a selection of Mandelbulb 3D tutorials that will help you get started in MB3D, understand fractal generation and the rendering environment, use effects like image map and volumetric light, and even prepare files for 3D printing. Many thanks to the intrepid artists who have taken the time to put together these instructional materials. If you have a tutorial we should add, please leave a comment below.

Web-Based Tutorials


INTRO: Using Mandelbulb 3D, MB3D tutorial by Hal Tenny

Cutting and Rotation, MB3D tutorial by Hal Tenny

The Tuberville Fractal, MB3D tutorial by Hal Tenny

Volumetric Lights, MB3D tutorial by Hal Tenny

INTRO: Mandelbulb 3D for Beginners, MB3D tutorial by Jody LawrenceRead More

Mandelbulb 3D fractal rendering software

Mandelbulb 3D (MB3D) Fractal Rendering Software

Mandelbulb 3D is a free software application created for 3D fractal imaging. Developed by Jesse and a group of Fractal Forums contributors, based on Daniel White and Paul Nylander’s Mandelbulb work, MB3D formulates dozens of nonlinear equations into an amazing range of fractal objects. The 3D rendering environment includes lighting, color, specularity, depth-of-field, shadow- and glow- effects; allowing the user fine control over the imaging effects.

After several years of dormancy, Andreas Maschke has begun updating Mandelbulb3D and releasing new versions. Andreas is the software developer behind the popular flame fractal program JWildfire.

Read More

Mandelbulber Fractal Rendering Software

Mandelbulber is a software program created to capture images of the Mandelbulb and other 3D fractals.

The fractalforums.com community members who discovered the Mandelbulb also developed two pieces of software for rendering images of it, and its family of complex, chaotic objects: Mandelbulber (Windows, Mac, Linux) and Mandelbulb 3D (Windows, Linux).

Krzysztof Marczak created Mandelbulber. Most of the images on this site, at time of launch, were created using the Mac version of this application.

For those wishing to explore 3D Fractal forms in greater depth, these programs are invaluable.


What is Mandelbulber?

From Mandelbulber.com:

Mandelbulber is an experimental application that helps to make rendering 3D Mandelbrot fractals much more accessible. A few of the supported 3D fractals: Mandelbulb, Mandelbox, BulbBox, JuliaBulb, Menger Sponge, Quaternion, Trigonometric, Hypercomplex, and Iterated Function Systems (IFS). All of these can be combined into infinite variations with the ability to hybridize different formulas together.

Visit Mandelbulber.com to find out about the application, download it, and see some of the amazing images that fractal artists have created using the software.

Mandelbulber: 3D Fractal Explorer

The Mandelbulber interface. Among the first applications developed to view the Mandelbulb and other complex 3D fractals.

 

The Mandelbrot set, named for Benoit Mandelbrot. Image from Wikimedia.

Benoit Mandelbrot, Father of Fractal Geometry

In November 2002, I saw Benoît Mandelbrot’s presentation, “The Fractal Revolution”, in Portland Oregon. It was a short overview and introductory presentation about fractals. I’m an enthusiast, so the content was familiar.

Benoît Mandelbrot speaking in 2007, image from Wikimedia

Benoît Mandelbrot speaking in 2007, image from Wikimedia

The great pleasure was seeing the man himself – Benoît Mandelbrot, the Father of Fractal Geometry – talk about how he revolutionized science, math, and our entire view of the world.

Fractal dimensionality explains something truly fundamental about the forms and patterns we see daily. However, fractal dimensionality was unknown before Benoît Mandelbrot’s work, which from the late 60s on illuminated this deep truth about the geometry of the world.

During Mandelbrot’s 2002 talk, it struck me how much intuition informed his discovery of fractal geometry. Mandelbrot described looking at the ‘drunkard’s walk’— a kind of ‘random walk’ equation—and “seeing” what its fractal dimension was, intuitively.

Such amazing intuitive leaps are familiar in science. The formal steps of providing solid proof soon follow this “eureka” moment, during which the answer is revealed. Mandelbrot’s sudden deciphering of the ‘drunken walk’ is no different from, nor any less significant than, Einstein’s discovery of relativity, Isaac Newton’s apple-inspired understanding of gravity, and the original “eureka” moment, when Archimedes’ bodily volume displaced the water in his tub.

Like those intellectual explorers before him, Mandelbrot looked at the world and saw a previously unseen truth. He built on what came before, and in so doing, revolutionized it.

The Mandelbrot set, named for Benoit Mandelbrot. Image from Wikimedia.

The Mandelbrot set, named for Benoit Mandelbrot. Image from Wikimedia.

Mandelbrot intuited the world’s fractal nature. He saw the laws that apply to stock markets and clouds, population trends and eddies in a stream; the basic organizational principles of all systems. Fractals and deterministic chaos have always surrounded us, but had never before been identified. Mandelbrot’s insights revolutionized thousands of years of scientific thought.

As you look at the Mandelbulb’s strange organic forms, you are looking at the legacy of Benoît Mandelbrot, one of the most influential scientific thinkers of the last hundred years.

Reference: Benoît Mandelbrot “The Fractal Revolution” Nov, 2002, Portland OR.

From Wikipedia’s entry on Benoît Mandelbrot:

 

Benoît B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a French American mathematician. Born in Poland, he moved to France with his family when he was a child. Mandelbrot spent much of his life living and working in the United States, and he acquired dual French and American citizenship.

Mandelbrot worked on a wide range of mathematical problems, including mathematical physics and quantitative finance, but is best known as the popularizer of fractal geometry. He coined the term fractal and described the Mandelbrot set. Mandelbrot also wrote books and gave lectures aimed at the general public.

Mandelbrot spent most of his career at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and was appointed as an IBM Fellow. He later became a Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University, where he was the oldest professor in Yale’s history to receive tenure.[6] Mandelbrot also held positions at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Université Lille Nord de France, Institute for Advanced Study and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Continue reading (Wiki)

 

Machina Infinitum

 

Machina Infinitum

Jesper Nybroe and Matteo Scappin


Focus: 3D fractal art, Animation, VFX, programming
Tools: Mandelbulb 3D, Cinema4D, Blender, Cinema4D, Octane Render, Vectron, Autodesk Flame, X-particles, World Creator
Location: Matteo: Cornuda, Italy; Jesper: Düsseldorf, Germany
Website: Machina-Infinitum.com

Machina Infinitum is a two-person creative collaboration of Matteo Scappin and Jesper Nybroe. The duo focuses on 3D fractal animations for music videos, films, festivals, concerts and events; and on the innovative technical implementation of fractal generation in traditional 3D rendering programs.
They have created and released an Octane plug-ins for Cinema4D and Blender and parameter packs that allow users to render infinitely complex fractal objects and harness the power of leading professional rendering software outside of 3D fractal programs like Mandelbulber and Mandelbulb 3D.Read More

"Aluminum Station" by Julius Horsthuis, fractal art created with Mandelbulb 3D

Julius Horsthuis

Julius Horsthuis avatar photoJulius Horsthuis


Focus: 3D fractal art, video and motion graphics
Tools: Mandelbulb 3D, After Effects
Also: VFX designer
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Julius Horsthuis (born: Amsterdam, 1980) is the best known fractal artist working today. After beginning to experiment with fractal animation in 2013, his work quickly gained worldwide attention. His animation has been featured in hundreds of articles, shown in high profile arts festivals, and appeared in award winning films and music videos.Read More

Ego Palace concept by Sam Milchamp, courtesy of Marvel, based on artwork by Hal Tenny

Hal Tenny’s Fractal Art in Guardians of the Galaxy 2

 

Nominated for the “Best Achievement in Visual Effects” 2018 Oscar Award, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 prominently features 3D fractal art created by Hal Tenny using Mandelbulb3D software. This pioneering use of mandelbulb art is a first for any Hollywood movie. Hal’s MB3D work was used to create some of the most complex digital environments in the history of film. The GOTG2 team used fractal geometry in a way that has never before been attempted. We hope this translates into an Oscar win by GOTG2 and, by extension, our friend Hal. Either way, it has been very exciting to see such a worldwide audience exposed to Mandelbulb3D creations and the beauty of 3D fractals.

Hal is one of the first artists we profiled on this site, and is a well known, well respected, and very talented MB3D creator. He is an influential long-term contributor to the 3D fractal art groups on DeviantArt and Facebook and has produced some of the best software tutorials for Mandelbulb3D, several of which we’ve featured on this site as well.

In advance of the Academy Awards, we reached out to Hal for his thoughts on the experience of working with the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 creative team. He sent a thoughtful, eloquent response (he’s an author as well so we expected nothing less) and a gorgeous gallery of images from the creative development process. Rather than summarize his statement, here are his own words.

Hal Tenny on the process of contributing Mandelbulb3D art to GOTG2:

Late in 2015, I was contacted by the supervising art director for Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 and asked if I would like to work as a visual consultant on the film. In total I sent Marvel over 300 concept images and 25 OBJ models that were concepts for designs they were looking for, including: Ego’s palace interior and exterior, exterior landscape, the underworld tunnels and caves, and egos core. Much of the VFX house’s work was based on parameters I sent as examples of the structures.

One of the VFX houses actually used a technique similar to one of Don Whitaker’s videos (from 6 years ago!) where he created different rotated views of a MB3D structure, saved each image and then used a utility to take photos to create a highly detailed 3d model. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfdargqyglc&t=409s

The Director, James Gunn, and the Production Manager, Scott Chambliss had both scoured the internet for ideas for the Palace design and Ego planet, and I was fortunate enough to catch their eye. There are many, many excellent Mandelbulb 3D artists, a few of which were also approached from what I understand. I was just lucky (I think) that some of my work was unique and quirky enough to appeal to them for what they had in mind.

It was all possible because of those that searched for the incredible 3d mandelbulb, and the outstanding Mandelbulb 3D program created by Jesse Dierks and the input he received at Fractal Forums. And from there it was the extraordinary amount of time I had (because I was retired) to learn the program and bring my fantasy images to life.

The following selection of images show some of Hal’s inspiration pieces and some concept designs from the GOTG2 team. They are used here with permission.

 

Following is a selection of press about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 that mentions Hal and Mandelbulb3D, including an interview with director James Gunn:

 

 

https://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-fractal-nature-of-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2/

http://www.studiodaily.com/2018/02/christopher-townsend-guardians-galaxy-2-vfx/

http://www.slashfilm.com/guardians-2-ego-visual-effects/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2-visual-effects-interview/

Our thanks again to Hal for his input for this piece, and for his great contributions to the field. (FYI: you can buy a piece of his art here) We’ve got our fingers crossed for an Oscar win. And we expect to see much more mandelbulb art on the big screen as time goes on.

"Cooly Structure" by Marc Vanlindt. 3D fractal art created with Mandelbulb 3D.

Marc Vanlindt

Marc Vanlindt profile avatarMarc Vanlindt


Focus: 3D fractal art, Mandelmorphic art, Raw fractals, Fractal manipulation, Animation
Tools: Mandelbulb 3D, Mandelbulber, Blender, Impression3D , VoxelStack , Wavefront, Structure Synth, Gimp
Location: Liège, Belgium

About: Marc Vanlindt is a wide-ranging digital artist. We’ve collected a gallery of his Mandelbulb 3D images here. Beyond MB3D, Marc  employs a number of other 3D rendering and image processing softwares and has created images, animations, and tutorials in diverse digital environments.Read More

"Perennial Bloom" by Jorge Abalo

Jorge Abalo

Jorge Abalo profile avatarJorge Abalo


Focus: 3D fractal art, Raw fractals
Tools: Mandelbulb 3D
Also: Information technology (IT)
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

About: Jorge Abalo is a self taught artist who has been making art for as long as he can remember. He began working in digital art in the 1990s, and did comic illustration, design (Adobe CS), 3D modeling (3ds max, Terragen, Bryce, Poser), and flame fractals (Apophysis) before being introduced to Mandelbulb 3D in 2011.Read More

"Cognitive Dissonance" by John Vega

John Vega

John Vega profile avatarJohn Vega


Focus: 3D fractal art, Mandelmorphic art, Raw fractals, Fractal manipulation, Video
Tools: Mandelbulb 3D, Mandelbulber, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Poser, PerfectPhoto
Location: Boulder, Colorado, USA

About: John Vega is a visionary artist who uses 3D fractal software to create work that evokes the spiritual experience—dreamy atmospheric scenes that mix subtilty and drama. His work is philosophical, driven by theoretical concerns and the generative process. John uses science and technology to explore the nature of art and the artist, the self, and the creative experience.Read More

"Hypertube" by Hal Tenny

Hal Tenny

Hal TennyHal Tenny


Focus: 3D fractal art, Raw fractals, Digital art
Tools: Mandelbulb 3D
Also: Author (Science Fiction)
Location: Danbury, North Carolina, USA.

About: Hal Tenny is well known in the 3D fractal art community as an outstanding artist and a creator of some of the most popular Mandelbulb 3D tutorials. He is a masterful MB3D technician with an amazing eye for color and composition.Read More