JWildfireSwan 1.0: Flame Editor
Initially, JWildfireSwan was intended solely as an editor for flame fractals. Admittedly with high ambitions, but only for this type of fractal art. Then came the extension to AI-assisted fractal art (“ai img2img”) based on flame fractals (I know that the use of AI in art is a subject of controversy in some quarters, and I share some of the concerns. Nevertheless, I believe it is a very useful extension that can certainly achieve breathtaking results. In JWildfireSwan, this feature is disabled by default and not even visible, so that artists who reject the use of AI do not have to deal with it at all.).
JWildfireSwan 2.0: Flame Painter
Version 2.0 introduced the ‘Flame Painter’ extension, which combines algorithm-based art (flame fractals) with more direct human influence. It allows for the drawing and construction of complex artworks, whereby individual fractals serve as ‘brushes’ or basic structures.
JWildfireSwan 3.0: MandelBro3D
Version 3.0 further expands the ‘fractal toolbox’: the new ‘MandelBro3D’ module can generate true 3D fractals and render them in very high, almost photo-realistic quality, with animation also possible. This module, too, sets out with very high ambitions. It is extremely flexible when it comes to creating fractals (allowing you to create shapes that have never been seen before) and features a very powerful renderer, which supports different materials, a wide variety of light sources (including realistic models for sky lighting) and even genuinely luminous fractal details on surfaces.
In various places, a ‘bridge’ is built to flame fractals: for example, with hybrid 3D fractals, you can choose from a wide range of ‘variations’ known from the world of flames, which influence the shape of the fractal.
MandelBro3D also features a function for creating AI-based art, in this case based on rendered 3D fractals. This feature is also completely optional and not visible until you enable it. You might wonder what the advantage of this feature is compared to using another AI ImgImg service, where you can also upload fractal art. Well, JWildfireSwan uses the rendered image merely as a reference; in addition, a prompt is generated based on an analysis of the fractal scene and a few random values. So if you were to upload just the image, you would get different results.
The software is highly complex and powerful enough to easily turn it into a standalone product. However, the plan from the outset was to integrate it into JWildfireSwan.
This has many advantages during implementation (many components can be reused; in fact, the entire render pipeline used for flame fractals could be reused, with appropriate extensions). But it also has many advantages later on; for instance, all components can be improved and ‘hardened’ together. The biggest advantage, however, is for the user: they only have one piece of software that they need to update and launch, and whose scope of functionality and stability is constantly growing. Many concepts are also simply the same to use, e.g. modulated motion curves for fractal animations.
The software is still very new, and as described above, very complex. It will therefore contain bugs (although, relatively speaking, it actually contains very few bugs, but there are always bugs). If you find a bug, please report it via the official bug tracking tool. Feature requests are also welcome.
Happy rendering!
Andreas