<Platinus> Lo unto me and behold my oddness in all its splendor!
<Platinus> For the next hour (maybe hour and a half) I will be bending your ears about Variation Mapping in Apophysis
<Platinus> What does this mean exactly? Well, let's open up Apo and go straight to the editor window and I will show you!
<Platinus> I'm using 2.08
<Platinus> if anyone is using 3d, I would prefer it that they use the regular none 3d variations
<Platinus> just because they don't paste over into regular apo
<Platinus> Ok, so, now we have apo open and we're at the editor window. What I want everyone to do is to start a blank flame and make the single transform a preblurred Bubble transform
<Platinus> Any questions on how to do this?
<Platinus> what you're going to do is hit the "new blank flame" button
<Platinus> and then on the single transform take off the 1 from linear, and put a 1 in both Bubble and Pre_blur
<Platinus> Any time you see me ask you to make a certain variation transform, it usually means make a new transform and take off the 1 from linear and put a 1 in the variation I specified
<Platinus> If I say a specific number, use that in that variation instead of 1
<Platinus> Ok, so, does everyonee have a nice preblurred bubble now?
<evilpj> yep
<hallv5> yes
<lindelokse> yesss
<ChimeraDragonfang> Yep
<coby01> Platinus: yep
<Mabak> yep
<Drakza> can someone send me the params?
<Platinus> iwot
<Fiery-Fire> Yes - what weight ? and colsymmetry ?
<Platinus> <flame name="July-090701-1" version="Apophysis 2.08 beta 2" size="849 636" center="0 0" scale="212.25" oversample="1" filter="0.2" quality="5" background="0 0 0" brightness="4" gamma="4" gamma_threshold="0.04" >
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<Platinus> Fiery-Fire: doesn't matter
<Drakza> Platinus: Thanks :D
<Platinus> Fiery-Fire: we're not going over weight or color symmetry today :D
<Fiery-Fire> Platinus: ok, then ;) big bubble it is :nod:
<Platinus> :nod:
<Platinus> Now, up in the tool bar, you will notice a button that looks like an eye. It's the third one in from the right. If you don't already have it activated, please click it and turn it on now and watch what happens
<Mabak> I was wondering, does that slow down Apo a bit?
<Platinus> It might depending on the variation
<Mabak> Ah, okay. Thanks :3
<Platinus> welcome :D
<Platinus> So, what is this weird looking red ball of dots in the middle of my editor window? This is the variation preview
<Platinus> This shows you the general way a variation plots the points that make up the variation map
<Fiery-Fire> Platinus: the 'eye' shows you the variations behaviour on the selected transform
<Platinus> Also, I'd like to just warn anyone who knows about ifs math and what not
<Platinus> Fiery-Fire: right
<Platinus> I'm not a mathmetician. I don't know all of the big funky words, so, I make up my own as I go along and it seems to work for my fellow laymen.
<evilpj> hehe thank gawd Platinus cuz i wouldnt understand a thing if u did
<Mabak> same here XD
<Platinus> Ok, now, back to noneuclidian complex plane plotting functionality
<Platinus> :iconteheplz:
<evilpj> :jawdrop:
<Mabak> O_o
<Drakza> ...
<Fiery-Fire> :rofl:
<Fiery-Fire> there is the sample of platonian for everybody :lmao:
<Jimpan1973> Platinus: Great title for a song.
<Platinus> true enough XD
<Platinus> Ok, but, seriously, back to our bubble
<Platinus> Our little bubble is a perfect and easy example of variation mapping
<Platinus> If you play with the transform, you will notice it definitely has a 2d boundary
<Platinus> None of the preblur escapes the diameter of the bubble
<Platinus> Bubble is also pretty neat because it's got a pseudo 3d mapping
<Platinus> This opens up some really cool stuff in apo variation mapping
<Platinus> I like to use words like boundaries, holes, and stuff like that
<Platinus> for those of you who are familliar with ultra fractal, think of these as inside and outside coloring points
<Platinus> Not necessarily respectively, it's just that different variations have different holes and different boundaries
<Platinus> Ok, now, with our preblurred bubble transform back at the origin
<Platinus> Let's add a bipolar transform
<Platinus> When you add the bipolar transform, what do you notice about it from the variation preview?
<evilpj> 2 horizontal stripes
<hallv5> blows a squarish hole in the bubble
<evilpj> oh preview
<Platinus> evilpj: not in the fractal image preview
<Drakza> looks really cool?]
<evilpj> a hole with outgoing rays?
<Platinus> yes, it looks really cool XD
<Drakza> Platinus: it has kind of frayed at the edhes in a square box?
<Drakza> edges*
<Fiery-Fire> two stripes and a halo inside bubble :nod:
<Platinus> all very good answers!
<evilpj> Platinus: why is my hole not square?
<Platinus> evilpj: the hole isn't going to be square
<Platinus> I'll explain in a moment :D
<evilpj> oh ok i was being sidetracked
<Mabak> so wait, it is a second xform with just a bipolor varition @ 1 right?
<Mabak> oh, nevermind ^^;
<Platinus> yes
<Platinus> What the preview is telling us, if you play with the transfowm by scaling it up and down, is that there is a hole in the center and there are two boundaries at the top and bottom
<Platinus> These boundaries actually lie at y=1 and y=-1
<Platinus> There are two ways to use a bipolar mapping to make iterations inside
<Platinus> you can have something small enough to sit inside the hole (like take our preblurred bubble's post transform and shrink it down a little bit to fit better and then rotate the bipolar's regular transform)
<Platinus> Or, you can take something and set it right outside its boundaries (change the preblurred bubble transfor into a preblurred SPLITS transform, and increase the splits-y variable to 1 so that it lies outside the boundaries)
<Platinus> Both ways of filling up bipolar are good. Generally, setting stuff outside the boundaries is more flexible though, allowing you to fill up bipolar more effortlessley
<Platinus> Another thing about bipolar is that it's a dynamic variation, which means it has a variable
<Platinus> If you play with that variable, the only thing that changes, is where the hole is plotted
<Platinus> so, if you plan on putting something inside the hole, you'd also need to change where you put that post transform
<Platinus> everyone with me so far? :lmao:
<Jimpan1973> Platinus: Yep!
<lindelokse> Platinus: :nod: ;)
<evilpj> yes
<Platinus> excellent!
<Mabak> :nod:
<Platinus> So, ok, almost every variation has a combination of holes and boundaries. Some, however, do not
<Platinus> Like linear!
<Platinus> get rid of that bipolar transform and add a linear
<Platinus> Now, you'll notice the preview is just a square map of dots
<Mabak> :nod:
<Drakza> kinda exploded?
<Platinus> if you scale the transform up or down, the map gets bigger or smaller with the triangle
<Platinus> Drakza: explodes?
<Platinus> Drakza: you should have a preblurred bubble transform and a linear transform
<Platinus> there shouldn't much exploding XD
<Drakza> Platinus: s'ok, i hit the wrong button xD
<Platinus> Linear has no holes nor does it have any boundaires
<Platinus> If you move the linear, it follows the triangle unimpeded
<Platinus> Rotate the triangle and the map follows it
<Platinus> skew the triangle and the map streeeeetches
<Platinus> Linear is actually a great variation to get used to and can be incredibly versatile if used correctly
<Platinus> because it iterates with out any kin of hole or boundary, it can be used to tile or make a simple spiral
<Platinus> Now, aside from boundaries and holes, there's also distortions
<Platinus> Some variations are sorta based off of linear, from what I've seen, they just have some sort of distortion value to them
<Platinus> Take our linear transform and turn it into a bent transform
<Drakza> ooooh
<Mabak> the bent2 variation?
<Platinus> nope
<Platinus> just regular bent
<Mabak> oh, never seen that XD ^^;
<Platinus> it's a regular variation that comes with apo
<Platinus> bent2 is a dynamic plug in
<Platinus> bent2 is actually very dynamic in that if you don't play with the variables, it's just a linear variation
<Drakza> Platinus: i seem to have lost my bent :cry:
<Platinus> Drakza: you're using 3d :P
<Drakza> good point...
<Drakza> will bent2 work?
<Platinus> bent can't be translated into 3d
<Platinus> sorta
<Platinus> the two are simillar
<Platinus> but not exactly the same
<Platinus> Well, the point I'm making with bent
<Platinus> is that is has no holes
<Platinus> it has no boundaries
<Platinus> just like linear
<Drakza> Platinus: will the 2.02 version work?
<Platinus> yeah
<Platinus> that should have bent
<Platinus> it won't have preblur though
<Fiery-Fire> oo_O the bubble is distorting and bending on left side ....like a bubble bullet trace :)
<lindelokse> Drakza: you can set bent2 variable x to 2 and variable y to 0.5 :) this should be very similar to normal bent
<Drakza> lindelokse: thanks :glomp:
<Platinus> another good variation that's got a distortion is loonie
<Mabak> loonie is awesome :3
<Mabak> especially as a final xform
<Platinus> Loonie puts the distortion at the origin instead of along the axis like bent does
<Drakza> this is fun :)
<Platinus> So, there ya go! These are pretty much the ins and outs of variation mapping
<Drakza> Platinus: thank you :hug:
<Platinus> By finding the boundaries, holes, and distortions of a variation, you can easily figure out how it iterates
<Platinus> Oh, some variations also create "voids" or spots where, try as you might, you just can't get anything into XD