[watsisname]

Through some of my random cyber squandering, I came across a rather interesting program that uses some equations to create images/renditions, which (with a little experimenting) can be used to make some pretty awesome stuff.  I'll let the site do the explaining for ya:  http://www.btinternet.com/~ndesprez/

And now for the main point of this post... after playing around with the software and using different settings, I came across one picture that utterly amazed me:


A view from the "top".


Awesome angled view gives a good feeling for the 3D nature of this "object"


A side view reveals more of the complex interior "tunnel".

I created these using the "Lorentz 84" type, and rendered with plasma effect and custom colors.  If anyone wants to play with the initial conditions I used, I can post those as well.

Ok, now who is with me in thinking that this could make into an awesome alternate warp effect for our beloved Freespace 2?

[Xeandra]

  Me likes 

[pecenipicek]

holy ****.

[Dark Hunter]

That looks like...... er....... um....

Some kind of twisted bubble?

Looks decidedly cool though.

[Cobra]

It kind of reminds me of the warp in Descent 2. I wouldn't think this would be good for Freespace 2, unless someone created an AU campaign or something.

the effect is marvelous, though. only problem is you'll need at least 30 different images to convert into an .ani file.

[Herra Tohtori]

I don't think it would work too well as a subspace jump effect. It's cool, but to give the actual impression that program does, it would involve having quite complicated model as jump vortex pof, and having even more complex animated texture.

On the other hand, it would be cick-ass if it worked, but I don't see any easy way to make it work cool-looking. Besides, I would rather have the old effect with new variations... this is just too... off-Freespace. Maybe it could work if you would introduce some new race in a campaign using new technology for subspace jumps, but again it would be very difficult to actually make this kind of effect work as it's intended to.


What I see potential in this is making kick-ass planetary nebulae backgrounds. I would think that rather than other effects. 2d effects (still pictures) would naturally be a peace of cake with this prog; animations might be trickier but doable altogether. Though still backgrounds would be by far the most useful aspect this program could be used.

[watsisname]

Yeah, you might be right about that.  It would also probably look terrible if the ship flew through the effect (hull-intersection and everything), or the effect would have to be HUGE for capital ships, if the ship just flew through the central tunnel.
As for using this program to make nebulae, that actually might work pretty well if I can find some nice looking attractors (that's what these images are really made with).  I'll see how that goes after some more fiddling.

By the way, I fiddled with the color sceme and made what I believe is a better looking version of the "twisted bubble", and used 7.5x more iterations for less graininess.  Feel free to use it for anything you like.

*click for full-size image*

[Herra Tohtori]

I tried with some of those, and came up with this...





...and l]this.

I'm sure it would work great for example in creating backgrounds for a series of missions happening in same solar system but in different positions... the background would look different; so if there's a small nebula around the dying central star (for example), just rotate into different viewpoint, save the picture and put that picture around the star and voilá, you're in new location in same system...

[watsisname]

Excellent renders, I especially like your second one.

Seeing how quick these are to make, we'd probably have no difficulty in making a collective gallery of nebulae, and maybe release them as a new nebula pack.
I'm also still having ideas about how to animate these.  If you just *very* slightly alter one of the initial conditions (depending on which one and the type of equation you're using), you can get the wisps and tendrils to move around and rotate.  By rendering a few dozen slightly different conditions, it might be possible to get a nice looking animation.

Edit:  Here's a stab at making a more chaotic, spherical nebula.  Based off of "Jupiter Storm" from the premade projects. 
*click for fullsize*
I'd bet that this'll look pretty sexy with a couple stars in it and a nice starfield behind it.

[pecenipicek]

the theory behind how all this works is also very... intriguing


and thanks to wikipedia, i got to the Farb-Rausch websites and all those demo-makers and stuff.

brings a tear to my eye to see that people still do it

[watsisname]

Indeed, I also find the mathematics of this to be fascinating.  I can't wait 'til I'm proficient enough in higher math to make complete sense of it.

[pecenipicek]

i'm actually afraid of the day when i'm proficient enough to grasp this stuff...


altough i could grasp it probably on my own, if i manage to get ahold of some math books in croatian for that, as math terms in english are mostly a wee bit confusing for me... (if we go any further than trigonometry and logarithms...)


yeah, whats considered Calc or Calculus, what is it exactly?

[watsisname]

Calculus?  As far as I know, it's the study of differentiation and integration, and its applications.  The Fundamental Theorum of Calculus actually refers to the relationship between the two, which is quite interesting.  (Very simply put: if you integrate a function, and then take the derivative of that, you end up where you started.)

[CP5670]

This looks like a really neat program. I need to try fooling around with it tomorrow when I have more time. I have a few other apps like this, but they're designed mainly for analytic function dynamics.

As far as the math goes, the basic idea with these things is to keep iterating a function on some domain set and see where the resulting values converge. The set where the points accumulate (the "attractor") can be just a point or a sequence of isolated points, or something more complicated like that original image.

[Herra Tohtori]

In my opinion there's no real reason to try making "more chaotic" nebulae.

If you have ever seen pictures of real planetary nebulae (ie. nebulae released by dying stars) you know that they are surprisingly regularly formed, and there are many variations. So, for example the Icon attractor type produces nice, symmetric pictures and that's precisely what most planetary nebulae look like.

Here are some real planetary nebulae:



So they really are, in most cases, quite summetric and regular-looking... just put some Gaussian Blur onto the renders, toss it on top of a star field, perhaps colour it onto one single colour (not necessarily though), and make the black transparent colour on that level. Then add a central star if you want. There's a quite genuine looking planetary nebula in its own rights.

On the other hand, it might be cool to try and make a picture of one of the more spherical nebulae, then resize the picture to produce the frames, and make an EFF animation that shows an increasing ball of chaotic energy... and that might look good as a special shockwave in some situations.

[Herra Tohtori]

Okay... I'm now convinced that this is a very useful background arts tool.



The original is 2048*2048 size...

This one consists of two renders taken around same attractor, from different angles... Then I rotated them into correct angle and the result is this. Some blur layer edits, yes, but relatively very little and easy work.

Compare to this, real-life planetary nebula (Hourglass Nebula)...

[watsisname]

In my opinion there's no real reason to try making "more chaotic" nebulae.

If you have ever seen pictures of real planetary nebulae (ie. nebulae released by dying stars) you know that they are surprisingly regularly formed, and there are many variations. So, for example the Icon attractor type produces nice, symmetric pictures and that's precisely what most planetary nebulae look like.

Here are some real planetary nebulae:

*snip*

Some of those were supernova remnants, just so you know. 

And yes, while planetary nebula are, for the most part, pretty regular and symmetric in structure, I see no reason why we should limit ourselves to just making those.  This program seems quite capable of making renders that look quite like supernova shells (which are quite chaotic) and even galaxies.

Your bluish planetary nebula looks quite amazing.  I especially like that "tear-drop" shape within it.
My only suggestion might be to lower the gamma (and/or brightness) on it a bit, since the outer edge seems a bit crisp and the details a little washed out.  That may just be my personal preference though, so keep it however you like it.

[Herra Tohtori]

Yeah, I knew some of them were not actually planetary nebulae, but that was the first picture of that kind that had considerable amounts of planetary nebulae in it...

Though I would rather use something else for making more chaotic nebulae and remnants, you can of course do whatever you want with this... The more we get good art the better. In my opinion, this prog is very well suited for creating more defined nebulae, and I would use something else for creating less defined, more random and chaotic nebulae.

Actually, I will try doing something different...

[Flipside]

Much fun can be had with photoshop & this program...

[Descenter]

url=http://www.btinternet.com/~ndesprez/]http://www.btinternet.com/~ndesprez/[/url]

Ok, now who is with me in thinking that this could make into an awesome alternate warp effect for our beloved Freespace 2?

Ya know, in the downloads sections, there is a tool that make the animations for you.  At least I believe that's what it is.  3rd party, but never know.