Coloring: Holon Sequence - Custom Gradient
#1
Hello Garth and other members,
please can you post here a simple, but typical sample to help me understand, in which cases it's reasonable to use the Holon Sequence - Custom Gradient coloring? Maybe a spiral wih two iterators and a constructor? I've found only samples with parametric gradient coloring but like to know what's possible with HS coloring. Thank you and regards
Kaspar
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#2
The reasons for that are mostly historical - the first versions of XD had only iterators, holon sequence coloring and parametric gradients. But there's another reason: HS coloring doesn't use gradients directly, but mixes increments from the gradients according to the holon at each iteration. The rate at which you want the colors to vary in the gradient depends on the holon scales. Parametric gradients have Gain and other controls that give quick adjustment of not only a whole gradient but the gradients for multiple holons. It doesn't give good control but does allow quick experimenting. When you use custom gradients with HS coloring, you get good control of one gradient at a time, but editing the gradient is a slow way to affect the holon coloring (and the gradient for each holon affects the whole fractal). They can work very well, but it's a case of browsing through the custom gradient presets to find something that works before editing the gradients directly. You need to find the right rates of change of colors in the early part of the gradients, as well as the choice of those colors.

Since the early days I generally avoid using HS coloring with any constructors because it colors them with noise instead of any patterns. In that case I prefer to use Metamorph coloring and let the iterators inherit all, inherit color, and use their Iteration Shift to rotate the inherited gradients at each iteration. But without any constructors, this isn't so good because at least one iterator has to have a pure color or pattern to be inherited, and the pattern is either stripes or based on some metamorph.

So the best case for HS coloring is with all iterators. With a spiral there will be many iterations of the largest holon and a good portion of the gradients will be used, but with smaller holon scales there may be only the first 5 to 20% of the gradients used so they need to have enough color variation there.
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#3
Hello Garth,

at first, thank you! I've rendered now a sample with HS coloring- custom gradient (please see "Images and..."), and there are some questions too:
- The first three iterations are not smooth enough, very different coloring; is this a question of editing the gradients or what can I do for a soft coloring change from first to second, third a.s.o. iteration?
- Is it reasonable to mix HS custom and parametric gradient for different holons?
- The renders with two iterators often are very dark; how to avoid this?
- Please can you try to pimp up my sample considering what I've asked above?

Thank you and regards
Kaspar
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#4
(09-11-2014, 03:44 AM)Kaspar Wrote: Hello Garth,

at first, thank you! I've rendered now a sample with HS coloring- custom gradient (please see "Images and..."), and there are some questions too:
- The first three iterations are not smooth enough, very different coloring; is this a question of editing the gradients or what can I do for a soft coloring change from first to second, third a.s.o. iteration?
Yes, it is mostly to do with the gradients having different starting colors, and also affected by the Mix parameter. If the gradients start with the same color (or Initial colors for parametric gradients) then they should blend more smoothly.

Quote:- Is it reasonable to mix HS custom and parametric gradient for different holons?
Yes, although it makes it harder to avoid the problem above.

Quote:- The renders with two iterators often are very dark; how to avoid this?
I am guessing a density issue - too much overall density takes longer to render and looks dark in the preview with shading on. Multiple iterators require the holon scales to be adjusted carefully.

Quote:- Please can you try to pimp up my sample considering what I've asked above?

Thank you and regards
Kaspar
No problem...
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#5
Hello Garth,

your metamorph coloring looks much better than HS, but I've much to learn about this. At last two questions:
- I like to save the rendered pic for changing colors and lighting later (without new rendering), therefore I've saved the pic (.jpg) and the depth map. After opening depth map and the pic (as unlight pic) some times later I can do changes. My question: Is this the right way to do this, or is there a quality loss? I thought saving the render as psd would save the depth map too but without success.

- Making a background shadow (see my last pic) there occurs a light soft yellow-brown gradient. Ist there a possibility to
a: changing shadow intensity (light or more dark) and angle?
b: changing color and intensity of this unwanted background gradient?

Thank you for support and patience; I think now it's enough for the next two weeks Smile

Best regards Kaspar
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#6
(09-12-2014, 06:20 AM)Kaspar Wrote: Hello Garth,

your metamorph coloring looks much better than HS, but I've much to learn about this. At last two questions:
- I like to save the rendered pic for changing colors and lighting later (without new rendering), therefore I've saved the pic (.jpg) and the depth map. After opening depth map and the pic (as unlight pic) some times later I can do changes. My question: Is this the right way to do this, or is there a quality loss? I thought saving the render as psd would save the depth map too but without success.
If you save the pic as .jpg there will be some quality loss. The depth map has to be saved separately, in either .pgm or .psd format to maintain quality. But there is no way to save and restore the shadow maps so it's not going to work if you use any shadows (which is almost always). Saving and restoring full render data is on the wishlist for the future.

Quote:- Making a background shadow (see my last pic) there occurs a light soft yellow-brown gradient. Ist there a possibility to
a: changing shadow intensity (light or more dark) and angle?
b: changing color and intensity of this unwanted background gradient?

The shadow intensity depends entirely on the relative brightness of the lights, and the angle depends on the angle of the lights casting shadows (set that before rendering in the Render tab, as shadow angles can't be changed after rendering, unless you render new) and the distance to the backplane.
Hard to answer without knowing how you did it. There are two ways to create a backplane: adding a Free holon with a planez constructor, in which case you can set its distance and coloring as you like, or using the Depth window to turn a background picture into a flat depth map.
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#7
Quote:Hard to answer without knowing how you did it. There are two ways to create a backplane: adding a Free holon with a planez constructor, in which case you can set its distance and coloring as you like, or using the Depth window to turn a background picture into a flat depth map.

Sorry, this was made in the depth window; it occurs when using some vertical angle. It' s no problem because it looks fine but it was unintended.
Regards
Kaspar
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#8
Ok, I checked it and the gradient comes from a combination of the vertical angle, true depth and iridescence.
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#9
(09-12-2014, 06:54 PM)Garth Thornton Wrote: Ok, I checked it and the gradient comes from a combination of the vertical angle, true depth and iridescence.
Ok., thank you. And a very last question: I've posted a pic using depth window to making shadows, and as you can see there is a ghost shadow from rendering before this (using depth window too). What can I do to reset all the rest before I render a new pic? I've used the "Render new" button, but it seems that a rest last rendering can survive that. Have found this sometimes before too, but maybe it's my mistake?

Regards Kaspar
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#10
That's actually a reflection, which doesn't work well in this case using the old lit picture as the reflection source. The ghost is a reflection of the shadow. It would be better to either set the reflection to 0 or create a background picture and use that as reflection source. Shadows are always live and cannot be ghosted except via reflection or refraction.
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