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Total prizes reach 1000 
But of course there are always the rules......
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this journal 
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But let me start from the beginning...
Making fractals is fun. At least it was fun for me at first... back when I didn't know how to use Apophysis and each new fractal was a challenge and a discovery of some sort.
Now I've learned how to use Apophysis properly. And lost interest in it.
So I announce my Apophysis experiments over. Which means that I won't make fractals anymore. The three "closer" fractals submitted today are going to be my last ones.
Yeah, it may seem illogical... But hey, aren't artists supposed to be illogical?
I'll understand if you decide to remove me from your "devwatch" list now. But if you won't, you'll see what comes next.
I'm not going to stop my experiments with arts... And hopefully I will not fail on my next step.
This is my fractal legacy: The Gathering, Nocturnal, Fabric, Shred the Copies, Savant, Escape the Dream.
well, they look very much like fractals. Especially look at those last 2 images wich are from banana-shaped liquid crystals. Thats crazy. Wouldn that be a kind of exploration again? Twisting the variables...temperature...mixture...
But ok, where to get a decent amount of all kinds of liquid crystals an a good polarisation microscope
regards
...And to be completely honest, I did not stop using Apo. I've made some fractals after my "closer" ones, which are probably better than any of my submissions.
But at this moment I feel that there is still much for me to explore in apophysis, even when I know now how get much influence on the transforms. There are still uncountable possibilities to connect them and uncountable sets of variables that produce shapes. Ok, probably you know a bit more about that than me and maybe there is a limit at wich you see the same shapes everywhere. I for my part are not yet at that point. Can you for sure say that you are at that point?
But don't get me wrong, going into other directions is good. I myself have many different directions in wich I proceed...or rather tumble. Macrophotography, astrophotography, fractals now *again* that I know how to xD (i didn't dare to upload all these random dicoveries since there was no real credit to me...only to the 'dice'), a bit 3D, 'normal' photography...I would want to do even more: microphotography (but lack a professional microscope) and even drawing if i would not produce only kids-scribble.
I hope you find your ways - I can say that my own broad interest annoys me. My gallery ist so unconsistent that I belive having few skills when being exceptional in them, is better than that. But I can't help it xD .
I want to show you another thing that could bring you in contact with exploring fractals again: liquid crystals. I was shocked when I saw these polarisation microscope shots of them:
[link]
The most fun part in Apo is xaos. It's quite a trick to use it properly, but if you master it... It allows you to make fractals filled with another fractals, and use these fractals as textures for another ones; or to create multi-pattern fractals.
Your list of "directions" is quite impressive. Mine is shorter (but more diverse
Natural fractals is an interesting thing. I've read quite a lot articles about these (including articles about liquid crystals). But I've never been into photography much so I prefer digitally created fractals to the photographed ones.
Math and physics are great
I used to program when I was younger, but nothing thrilling. Fractals in turbo pascal on a 386 cpu e.g.
Well, train train train
Ah, one more thing: how about making stereoscopic fractals? I'm trying this atm and it seems to work sometimes (by faking the 3D info through manipulation of some variables...it doesn't give very consistent 3D info, but it works when used carefully). If I find out how to use the 3D hack of apo in the right way it might be even very nice. And I actually think I'm going to buy Xenodream. I belive you know that program. Wouldn't that be a new source of exploration?
Ah, ok, I just read about your current relation to Apophysis. Well in that case...I was just thinking out loud all that stuff anyway, don't want to manipulate you lol.
It shouldn't be hard to make stereoscopic fractals. You won't even need to make two different formulas. Just shift the "yaw" and "x position" a bit.
I personally prefer Apo 2.09 over the 7x, so I didn't work much with 3d fractals. I just see no point in making the fractal look 3d-ish.
Oh, I saw some 3D fractals (not stereoscopic I mean, just with DOF ) that looked quite interesting. like scanning electron microscope shots. That's what I at least like sometimes, So I'll try to dig into that as well.
Most variations only affect x and y axes, so your fractal becomes flat and yaw just skews it. To make fractal look 3d you should use variations that affect z axis (like "z scale", "z blur", "bubble 3d", "linear 3d" and so on). Then the trick with yaw and x position will work as desired.
The 3d fractals made with Xenodream look more than Apo 3d fractals (IMO). The works of *Pasternak look quite cool: [link]
His site was also where I discovered Xenodream, but lets see first how I go with 3D bubbles and stuff. They look pretty fancy in his gallery.
You are not the kind who keeps secrets about you work huh? I could have asked pasternak to show me exaclty how to do his stuff, but that's neiter what I wan't nor would I dare to ask people directly about their techniques. I'm very gald I figured out many things on my own
I'll definately play around with 3D variations and the z axis, but first I want to bring my latest fractal here to print size without looking worse than the small version
And while it renders I'm on my telescope mirror. Have the hands full of grinding paste as I type xD . Just 2 or 3 more hours and I can start polishing \o/ that's where the real fun begins, cutting off nm by nm and doing measuring sessions that actually take longer that the few polishing streaks in beteween, to get a parabloid out of the sphere. It'S so cool that you can make a parabloid with a deviation of just a few nm from the ideal shape just by your own hands, and also measure it with a realtively simple selfmade device.
Actually, I'm planning to share the .flame file with all the fractals I've made. And I'm currently writing a tutorial with all my Apo "secrets" exposed. Both will be submitted here in a week or two.
As for the 3d bubbles... They don't have to be 3d in order to look 3d.
<flame name="starball" version="Apophysis 2.09" size="1024 1024" center="0 0" scale="256" oversample="1" filter="0.2" quality="5" background="0 0 0" brightness="19.4304347826087" gamma="5" gamma_threshold="0.1943" >
<xform weight="0.5" color="0.545" symmetry="0.967" opacity="0" noise="1" coefs="1 0 0 1 0 0" />
<xform weight="0.05" color="0.247" symmetry="0.96" linear="1" bubble="1" pre_blur="0.05" fan2="-1" coefs="-0.965926 0.258819 -0.258819 -0.965926 0.8 -0.8" fan2_x="0.05" fan2_y="3.1415926" chaos="0 0 0 0 " />
<xform weight="0.5" color="0" opacity="0" linear="0.5" bubble="1" noise="1" coefs="1 0 0 1 0 0" chaos="0 0 " />
<xform weight="0.5" color="0" bubble="1" coefs="1 0 0 1 -0.2 -0.2" chaos="1 0 " />
<xform weight="0.5" color="0.247" symmetry="0.96" linear="1" bubble="1" fan2="-1" coefs="0.707107 -0.707107 0.707107 0.707107 -0.21 -0.21" fan2_x="0" fan2_y="3.1415926" chaos="1 1 1 1 0 " />
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Try these params. It's a quick 5 minute "sketch" of what can be done with usual 2d variations in Apo 2.09.
Most likely you won't see anything new in these params... Probably except for massive xaos.