PadleyWood Fractal Art Tutorials - Creating Apophysis Gradients from Scratch and Converting to Other Formats

Creating Apophysis Gradients from Scratch and Converting to Other Formats (applies to version 2.x)

You've got a fat folderful of Apophysis/UF gradients that you've either created yourself or downloaded. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could use these in other fractal programs? Well now you can! Read on to find out how - you'll need my Excel spreadsheet 'PaletteMaster' which you can obtain from here.

Also, whilst you can already 'steal' colours from any picture using the Smooth Palette function, there are probably times when you'd just like to choose a couple or so colours from a picture for use in a simple gradient. Again, this is now possible!

This tutorial assumes familiarity with Apophysis and with the detail of the preceding tutorial - Creating and Managing Gradients with Apophysis.

CONTENTS

A. Preliminary
B. Navigation
C. Creating a Gradient from Scratch
D. Converting Apophysis Gradients to ChaosPro .map Files
E. Converting Apophysis Gradients to Fractal Explorer .frp Files
F. Converting to other formats

A. Preliminary

1. Start Apophysis and open the gradient window.

2. Open PaletteMaster - macros must be enabled in Excel. If you get a dialog warning when you open, simply choose Enable Macros and continue. If not, check your macro security level. From the menu, choose Tools, Options and select the Security tab. Click the button marked Macro Security... and check the setting - if you're on Low, fine (but risky in general!), the macro will work; if you're on High, set to Medium and exit with OK, OK. You're best to quit Excel and re-open, choosing Enable Macros.

3. Have your Windows Explorer open too.

B. Navigation

The spreadsheet consists of 4 tabs:

Main - introduction with hyperlink navigation to each function
Create Apo - a sheet with 6 built-in macro buttons that creates gradients from scratch
Apo to ChaosPro - a sheet for converting any Apo gradient to a ChaosPro .map file (NOT the same as Fractint .map files)
Apo to Fractal Explorer - a sheet for converting any Apo gradient to a Fractal Explorer .frp file

Each of the 3 functions has its own set of instructions, macro buttons and hyperlinks back to the Main tab.

Important note: in sections C to E below, you will be prompted to click a button. This activates a macro which copies text to the clipboard only - don't expect to see anything much happen! The happening occurs when you're prompted to paste.

C. Creating a Gradient from Scratch

One thing lacking with the Apophysis gradient system is the ability to choose the exact colour, hence this spreadsheet. You'll need a colour picking tool that can handle colours in the hex form #nnnnnn: if you have one, fine, use it; if not, download CPick from here.

1. Open Cpick and set the colour format (from the drop-down box) to # hex.

2. Have a picture ready showing a colour you wish to use. In CPick, click-and-drag from the eponymous rectangle - it turns into a transparent square with cross-hairs. Continue dragging until the desired colour is in the sights, then release. Click the Copy colour to clipboard button (top left) then in the Create Apo tab of the spreadsheet, paste (Ctrl-v; Edit, Paste; right-click, paste) into one of the pale blue cells (see below, right) - we'll use the 2-colour for this tutorial.

3. Repeat the above step for a second colour of choice, pasting into the other pale blue cell.

4. Click the 2 colour button then go to Apophysis and paste (use the Paste tool or right-click, Paste) into the gradient window.

5. Now right-click the window and choose Save Gradient... (see points 5 and 6 in the previous tutorial). Job done!

D. Converting Apophysis Gradients to ChaosPro .map Files

1. Have the gradient ready in the Apophysis gradient window and perform the following action from this window. Copy (use the tool or right-click, Copy - NOT Ctrl-c).

2. In the Apo to ChaosPro tab of the spreadsheet, paste (Ctrl-v; Edit, Paste; right-click, paste) into the yellow cell.

3. Click the Copy text button and switch focus to Windows Explorer. Navigate to your ChaosPro palette folder (usually C:\Program Files\ChaosPro3.1\Palettes).

4. Right-click, New, Text File (see right), then press <Enter> twice - this should open the file in your default test editor (usually Notepad). Note that you can just open Notepad to create a blank text file, but you must navigate to the correct folder when saving in 5. below.
5. Paste (Ctrl-v; Edit, Paste; right-click, paste) into the blank file then save as filename.map (you'll need to select All files from the Save as type dropdown - see right).

6. And that's it! Your new palette will be available when you start ChaosPro.

E. Converting Apophysis Gradients to Fractal Explorer .frp Files

1. Have the gradient ready in the Apophysis gradient window and perform the following action from this window. Copy (use the tool or right-click, Copy - NOT Ctrl-c).

2. In the Apo to Fractal Explorer tab of the spreadsheet, paste (Ctrl-v; Edit, Paste; right-click, paste) into the yellow cell.

3. Click the Copy text button and switch focus to Windows Explorer. Navigate to your Fractal Explorer palette folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Fractal Explorer 2-01\Palettes) - if it doesn't exist, create it!

4. Right-click, New, Text File (see right - taken from the ChaosPro bit above), then press <Enter> twice - this should open the file in your default test editor (usually Notepad). Note that you can just open Notepad to create a blank text file, but you must navigate to the correct folder when saving in 5. below.
5. Paste (Ctrl-v; Edit, Paste; right-click, paste) into the blank file then save as filename.frp (you'll need to select All files from the Save as type dropdown - see right).
6. And that's it! Your new palette will be available from the Palette browser in the Palette window (see right). Note that the default values are Density = 1, Transformation = Ln and Colour mapping = RGB average.

F. Converting to other formats

Apophysis has the built-in ability to save gradients as Fractint .map files (NOT the same as ChaosPro .map files). Simply right-click, Save as Map file... These are readable by, to my knowledge, Fractint (obvious!), Fractal Forge and Visions of Chaos.

Credits:
Thanks go to James R. Skemp for acting as test user and providing feedback that has greatly improved the GUI.
http://strivinglife.net/
http://jamesrskemp.net/

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