APO PLASTIC HINTS/TIPS

Several people have asked me how I do what I do with Liz’s Plastic Tristian script, so I will attempt to give some tips/hints. I consider these beginning tips, because I am not an Apo expert at all. Nor are any of the tips technical or scientific. I couldn’t write a script if my life depended on it!

It is difficult to describe what I do, when it is done by “feel” or “instinct” or whatever you want to call it, so I don’t guarantee any success by using any hints I provide. I don’t use any set procedures and have never read a tutorial for any of the fractal programs I use, because I don’t have the patience for it....I learn by “jumping in” and doing and feeling my way around! People have different learning styles and this is mine.

The first thing I would say to beginners is.....There is no substitute for time spent using the program....LOTS of time. A lot of you don’t have….lots of time but spend what you can if you really want to be good at Apo – or any fractal program. I have spent hundreds of hours perfecting what I do and could not have done it in a small amount of time. I’ve been using Apo for a little over 1 ½ years.

I won’t go into the technical aspects of using Apo here since there are a lot of tutorials that do that. ImagersFractalDD’s ([link]) has lists of tutorials in the journals…check some of these out if you use tutorials…if not…jump in and start using and learning it. These hints for using the plastic script are for people who know how to use Apo and where to put the script.

Once you have the script loaded…open the script to run it and a box comes up that you must type some numbers into before it will run. I don’t even think about the numbers....I just start hitting number keys randomly until I feel like stopping! Well.....I TOLD you it wasn’t technical!

The smaller your numbers, the smaller the green triangle (in the Triangle Editor) will be....larger numbers make larger green triangles....the size of the green triangle seems to change the type of fractal that will create great patterns. Lol Yeah....I know....I don’t do it “by the book”! lol Then save, and the plastic scrip will create a random batch. I set my random batch to 25....that’s enough for me to go through at one time!

Here are some things that I have discovered....they may not be your experience, but are mine....they may change from time to time.

1. For me it seems the “messier” random fractals are more likely to create the best plastic fractals.

2. I select the fractal that seems most likely to produce a cool one and under the Adjust feature, go to the Rendering tab and really boost the brightness....it helps me to see the possibilities better.

3. Then I go to the Triangle editor and start moving triangles…usually the green one first.

4. I do not use the mutation feature because I’ve not had any good results with this.

5. I create the fractals strictly by moving the triangles.

6. I switch back and forth between moving the green and yellow triangles, until I find what I call the “sweet spot”....that fractal that has spirals, flowers, patterns, etc....I look for “spots” or lines that could form patterns.

7. There is a VERY TINY “window of movement” to find this "sweet spot"....the tiniest movement of either triangle and you’ll go right by it, so be careful....it just takes time and patience.

8. If I cannot find that “sweet spot” in the fractal I selected in about 10 minutes, I move on to the next most likely fractal to produce the “pretty ones”.

9. My experience has been that the green triangle is the one that controls the variety of patterns, once you find that “sweet spot”. Move it carefully, around your static triangle in a circle. Observe carefully what happens.

10. Moving the tiny yellow triangle that sits at the bottom of the static triangle is VERY tricky....It does not tolerate but a small radius of movement and I almost never actually adjust the shape/size of that triangle!

11. Move it very slowly and minimally. Then start moving the green one again....grab a corner of the green triangle and move it slowly....observe carefully what happens. Sometime I will reduce or enlarge the size of the triangle, but usually not by very much. For me…it seems to perform better if I leave it close to its’ original size.

12. Once I have found a pattern that I like I adjust the zoom/rotation and then play with the brightness and gamma relationship….too much gamma and spots “burn out”.....too little and the detail fades.

13. Zooming in allows me to control the pattern of the fractal by moving the green triangle…it’s a lot easier to see the subtle changes as you move the triangles.

14. Since a lot of mine are zoomed in they can take anywhere from 2-7 hours to render.

15. My laptop gets really hot, when I’m zoomed far in and playing with the triangles of a complex pattern for a long time. It doesn’t do it at any other time! (Yes the fan is working correctly) I sit it on a gel pack from the freezer.

16. I mostly make my own gradients and have spent as much as an hour trying them out….to find which one works with that fractal the best.

So there you have it....VERY un-technical. As I said…for me…it’s a hunch....when I look at a fractal from a randomly generated batch of plastic....as to which fractal to choose....that will be what I call....the “miracle fractal”....that is capable of generating a wide range of interesting and complex patterns. Sometimes I have gone through 75 fractals before I can find one capable of generating those miracle fractals. My “obsession” gives me the patience to do that! Lol

I know I have forgotten something and hopefully can add it if I did – before my surgery on Wed. One more time………There is NO substitute.....for TIME spent working with the program and any script. I’m fortunate to have the time (and obsession)! Good luck playing with the plastic!

Many thanks to Liz for her incredible plastic script, and making it available for us to use!

Anita