Playing with Fractals

[Tomuk]

Hi! All

Yesterday I uploaded a sequence called "Playing with Fractals", would you please have a look at it and come back with your very useful hints and tips for improvement.

I would appreciate some advice on editing sound tracks, at present I am using Audacity, a programme that was recommended on this forum, but as you can hear on the track for Fractals, my skill in using it leaves a lot to be desired, how for instance do you make a seamless join when splicing two peices of the same music together (to make the track longer) ?.

Tom

[Ken Cox]

Tom, maybe send a special request to

Sharon's Fractal site

www.fractalus.com/Sharon

ken

[Tomuk]

Ken,

Thanks for the info.

I have had a look at Sharons work and to be quite honest her formulars are far to complicated for me at the moment, I am just starting out on my learning curve and using the juliet formulars as a starting point.

I have just grasped the basics of re-colour mapping and rotation.

I will be able to use Sharon as a form of inspiration and hopfuly move foreward.

Thanks again.

Tom.

[Ken Cox]

Tom, dont bother trying her site unless you want to go thru hoops -- i just got a reply from the webmaster -- i had sent a letter saying Sharon's site was "not Found" they said that i was not on the approved list and bla blah etc

have sent email to Sharon as well

good luck in your venture

ken

[Tomuk]

Ken,

I had no problem getting on to her site, I used the link that you provided but ommited the /sharon, from there I followed the link to her site, give it a try.

www.fractalus.com

Tom.

p.s.

Why is it that web addresses don't give a direct link when typed into this forum,anybody know?.

Tom

[think(box)]

Tom, I enjoyed your show! The fractals were interesting and the dissolves smooth and of good visual timing alone. I can see that you used masking for the single fractal shape content change first, and then the faces. Were those the only two places where masking in a photo tool was used? I expect that all of the color transformations are just dissolves from related, but modified, fractals. Fractals may be just mathematically generated images, but they can interesting, amusing and/or entertaining art too.

I agree that the sound transitions were a little rough (track to track, not track to image). I use cakewalk Pro-Audio 9 software and multi-track edit the WAV digital audio data to perfection. Sound cuts, adds, blends, fades, compression/expansion dynamics, frequency response, midi/wav mixes, etc are a breeze. After edits I convert to MP3 or now OGG for shows with dBpowerAMP (the best!). The process works well and isn't too time-consuming. But you can't buy Pro-Audio software any more since they have switched to a new product line called Sonar. I have chosen to not "upgrade" to something that is all new, maybe better, but also maybe not. On this note, if anyone in the forum can compare Pro-Audio 9 to Sonar I would appreciate the input.

Many shows, including your fractals show, have images that are interesting to hold/pause for study. Your 3-D images were especially interesting. I know that many prefer locked shows (custom sync) because music to image correspondence is forced, but I appreciate that you didn't do that in your show - instead allowing pause, back and forward. This will change very nicely in a few months when the next major PTE version is released, as Igor seemed quite definite about including pause function for ALL shows. If he makes it such that we have a checkbox for "Allow timing to go out of sync and music to continue", then we can watch shows perfectly timed or not by choice at viewing time. Whatever choice the show developer makes, we will be able to pause ANY show, picture alone or picture+sound as created.

Concluding on the sound topic, since I do not need to switch to Audacity or otherwise I can't help on better sound editing, unless you get a cakewalk Pro-Audio license somehow.

Thanks!

[JRR]

Tom:

Joining two pieces of music together is trial and error until you get comfortable with it. It would make for a nicer show if you could smooth out the "joint".

It is usually caused by the first piece not ending with a fade, or the second piece starting without a fade in.

What I do if the mixing is a little jarring is to fade in/out the guilty track so the joint becomes "quiet".

I have used Audacaity a little (I use Acoustica and Cool Edit more but they all accomplish the same thing) In the lastest AUDACITY (Beta 1.2), just use your envelope tool to squeeze the volume down starting from about 3-5 seconds from the end, or into the second piece. Whatever sounds good. Then do your "mix down".

(I assumed you have both pieces of music on different tracks within the same session)

Does that help any ??

[Tomuk]

JJR.

Thank you for your post,

The method I used was a simple cut and paste from the stereo tracks and pasted on the end, my problem is smoothing out the join.

As this is my first attemp I didn't have a clue as to making a seamless join, I tried both of your suggestions on a trial and error basis but ended up with only error, I shall keep plugging away with lots of practice, I sure I'll get there sooner or later.

Once again thanks for your welcome advice.

Tom.

[Ken Cox]

the url i was using for Sharons site was incorrect

modified it to

http://www.fractalus.com/sharon/

same is working now

ken

[starfish]

Ken, et al...

Sorry my URL was giving you trouble. I may have capitalized that "S" in Sharon when I listed it. But...I am here, now.

What can I help you with?

Sharon

[LumenLux]

Tom, I have little experience on the sound, but have used successfully (I think) the following technique to do what I think you want. I have had a single instrumental piece that I wanted to be perhaps 40% longer. I chose a segment to splice onto the end (or squeeze into the middle) of the original. To make the transition acceptable, I simply overlapped the segments instead of butting them against each other. I did (on some occassions) also do some fading of both segments in or around the overlap zone.

[alrobin]

Setting up the music can be one of the most tricky parts of designing a slide show. It's not always necessary to overlap two selections - sometimes it's best to just fade "off" and fade "on" the next, similar to the space between pieces on a CD, except with a shorter interval. And the fade "on" of the second piece should coincide precisely with a transition between slides.

In my "Canada Day" show (just posted on Beechbrook), I wanted the music to be seamless, so I merged the three selections together by simply overlapping the ends. Here it is important to pay attention to the beat of the music so that you don't have two beats coming too close together, but have the beats of the second piece coincide more or less with the beats of the first. I say "more or less" as the two pieces probably don't have the same tempo, but where the selections come together, the beats for each should coincide as closely as possible.

It is also important to choose an appropriate place in a selection at which to truncate it. You don't want to leave the music of one piece "hanging" in the middle of a bar, and just barge right into the next selection.

Also, repeating part of the first selection at the end of the show can be very effective in drawing the show together. Lots to think about when making an effective slide show!

[starfish]

Tom,

I downloaded your "Playing With Fractals" show awhile ago. Very interesting job you did.

I don't usually download many shows because I am still on a dial-up connection and even a show the size of yours takes me over an hour to get. The really large shows are out of the question for me, although I would love to see them.

I have a number of fractal slide shows, but they are all way too large for me to upload to Beachbrook. I have to burn them onto CDs. But, I do have a 3D fractal show that I think I can pare down a little. If so, I'll try and upload it later today.

What fractal program do you use? May I suggest a few? If you do a web search, you can find Steve Ferguson's free program "Sterling" which is first rate. I spent years playing with his earlier Flarium program which I still have, and which, I think, is still available for download.

If you want to move into the "pro" programs, I would recommend Ultra Fractal. Ultra Fractal is the "Photoshop" of fractal programs. Although it has a rather steep learning curve, you can do incredible things with it. It's render engine is fast, and it supports layers, too. It's not expensive either.

Also, if you are interested in 3D fractals, I would recommend XenoDream. XD also has a unique lighting section so you can take fractals from other programs (or photos, for that matter) and light them creatively with 3D lighting.

Sharon