The Hidden Worlds of Fractals

Discover the otherworldly creations of Mandelbulb 3D

After watching Alex Garland’s annihilation, I was curious how the vfx team achieved the source of the shimmer effect (near the end scene when Natalie Portman was in the lighthouse cave along with an amorphous mass of undulating stuff). It had that unique, infinitely detailed look that left me scratching my head as to how it was acheived.

https://www.artofvfx.com/annihilation-andrew-whitehurst-overall-vfx-supervisor-double-negative/

A little digging and I discovered it was created in Houdini using a mandelbulb fractal. A little more digging and I discovered Mandelbulb3D, (MB3D for short) a free, 3D Fractal generating software.

Now on first inspection, I was skeptical. The UI was a bit clunky and the default fractal looked pretty cartoonish. Additionally there’s a lot of settings, many of which can be intimidating for anyone not familiar with fractals and the math/reasoning behind them.

Open up Mandelbulb 3D and this is what you get.

There also isn’t much in the way of product tutorials or a ‘getting started’ flow..but hey, I get it, this is a free tool and I’m grateful it exists at all!

After a week or so of stumbling through the software, things finally started to click (with help from some youtube tutorials). I’m so glad I stuck with it because before long, I was generating some really interesting fractals. A few months later and I think it’s fair to say that Mandelbulb 3D is one of the coolest free tools I’ve ever used. Although ‘coolest’ is selling it short. Boundless or transcendental might be more suitable adjectives.

The worlds within Mandelbulb are complex and beautiful. Sometimes I’d stumble upon a familiar structure. Be it a branching network of vines or the jagged strata of an exposed cliff face. Other times the structures can be frighteningly unfamiliar. Ghostly whisps and glassy tendrals reaching for miles into the sky. Or at least that’s what I might see in it. After all, I think there’s a lot of interpretation when it comes to exploring fractals. Much like the way we see faces on the surface of Mars, there’s a lot of familiarity to be found within the complexity of a mandelbulb fractal.

In a way, exploring a mandelbulb fractal is a bit like exploring yourself. An unending, 3-dimensional Rorschach test.

For a creative like myself, it’s a profound resource to draw inspiration and combine with other tools like after effects as part of my vfx workflow.

Exploration

Part of the attraction for me is really just exploring the fractals. Similar to No Man’s Sky or Minecraft , these are procedurally generated worlds dense with detail and anomalies. Once you’re happy with the formula values of your fractal, you can move the viewport/camera through 3D space just like a video game until you find something of interest. There is a real sense of being the first person to ever gaze upon a particular structure. As with the pattern on a snowflake, no two are alike. (Unless of course you neglect to play with the values of a particular formula…then they’ll be alike 😂)

Star Wars anyone?

Cinematography

As a filmmaker/vfx artist, another reason I find MB3D so interesting is being able to compose a shot as I would live action or a 3D product shot. For example, I set my viewport to a cinemascope aspect ratio (2:35:1) for that widescreen, cinematic look. I loosely utilize the rule of thirds to help compose a shot.

Once I’ve settled on a composition I start thinking about color and atmospheric effects. Adding fog and volumetric lighting can have a massive impact on our sense of scale.

Atmosphere and lighting

The lighting system in MB3D is surprisingly flexible! You can add ambient lights which generate a kind of global fill, then you can add individual lights which you can reposition in 3D space just like any other 3D software.

Here’s a few samples showing how fog and atmospheric effects can help create a sense of scale for your fractals.

This bizarre shape felt like it could be an angel from a live action Evangelion

This fractal reminded me of the Martian craft seen in John Carter, so I went with a dusty, brown atmospheric look

Atmospheric depth here is awesome. Feels like some colossal ship suspended in orbit.

Lighting and indeed the absence of light can have a profound affect on your fractals. Once I understood how you can combine ambient light with some spots, things started getting even more interesting.

Here are some samples of how I’ve used multiple lights in one scene.

Here I’ve added some colored lights too. Notice the warm underbelly of these side sections. Also the cooler central light I used to highlight some of the Giger-esque pillars found on the top of this structure.

Sometimes just placing a single light at the base of a crevasse is enough. Feels like we’re looking into the molten core of some machine or creature.

This structure really blew my mind. It felt very organic and jellyfish-like so I went with an underwater look. An internal blue light hints at some bio-luminesce while a more neutral edge light from above acts as sunlight.

Sci-fi cityscape.

One of the creepier fractals I’ve generated! A volumetric light along with some fog helps sell the scale of these terrifying titans. This was one of the few times I saw humanoid shapes in the fractals.

Practical application — VFX

One practical use of fractals is in visual effects. Here’s an example of something I cooked up for a short film:

For this shot I rendered a slow push-in and tilt-up from Mandelbulb3D. I used a single warm light (where the sun is located) and some brighter fog to help back-illuminate the main nebulas structure.

Then I imported the shot into After Effects, tracked it using 3D camera tracker and started adding in elements such as the smoke and dust particles, as well as the sun object followed by some post effects.

Just a sample of the kinds of things that are possible using Mandelbulb as a starting point.

Practical application — Concept Art

Another use is generating concept art. Part of the fun is using your imagination and expanding on something you see in a particular structure. I’ve rendered fractals that look like faces, spacecraft, landscapes…all sorts of things. Here’s an example where I saw a 3-headed hydra/dragon creature in a vast cavern. In the foreground, I saw the beginnings of a blade-yielding protagonist, who stumbled into the lair.

I brought the render into Procreate and started painting in some detail.

Here’s the export — untouched straight from Mandelbulb 3D

And here’s the impage after a couple of hours in Procreate

Latest Fractal renders

Here’s the latest fractals I’ve generated in the past month or two. I’ve been introducing more color into my fractals, and also utilizing more volumetric lighting to help with scale.

One of my favorites — caption for this would be something like …”and so, the machine went to work, harvesting the minerals it needed to finish the structure, unresting and relentless in it’s mission — as programmed by it’s creators eons ago”

This one was interesting in that it’s really detailed and yet also quite formless, strange vines and webbing that feels pretty chaotic and a little unsettling!

Loved how the volumetric light beams through those structures in the upper right of the frame. This is another shot that might work well as concept art.

Again opting for a single volumetric “sky” light with lots of atmospheric depth. Makes this structure feel like a floating city/castle in some far off land.

These last few renders were also left to render for a longer period of time, resulting in a much smoother, more attractive image with less noise and more resolved detail.

Thanks for reading!

Like the story? Gimme those claps and make sure to follow me.

Got any insights related to MB3D, Fractals, VFX? Send me a message.