February 2017 Challenge - S.F.B.M

Hello all. Here is February's challenge for you. I was all set to do something else when I discovered the formula in question wasn't working any more. A formula update last year seems to have "broken" it. I've notified the author so maybe I can introduce you to it another time.

So this month's challenge is a bit of a rush job. A couple of people have requested something along these lines, using S.F.B.M colouring, so it seemed like a good one to be getting on with. I know it's been done before as a challenge elsewhere but it's not one I've tried myself and I hope it will be new to a few of you too. S.F.B.M  is such an important colouring that many of us use every day but I think we could all learn a lot more about it through a challenge like this. Yes?

So... what do you need to do? The idea of this challenge is to focus on the combination of a Pixel formula with one of the S.F.B.M. colourings. Most of your layers should use this combination and the S.F.B.M style should be clearly visible. You can use other formulas/colourings if you really need to but please keep your work focussed on the subject in hand and keep these "extras" to an absolute minimum. A simple jos frame layer, for example, will be allowed, as will a single layer of something else providing it does not overpower the S.F.B.M elements of the design. You may use mappings with this challenge if you like.

Choose your weapons:

• Remember that the S.F.B.Ms are designed to work best with pixel formulas.
  
  • There are quite a few Pixel  formulas in the public database. Any of them with "pixel" in the name is allowed.
    
  • Have a look at some of the more unusual ones... as an example of what you might find I discovered one called  "Pixel 2" in ss2.ufm which had some interesting properties. This is unusual because most pixel formulas do absolutely nothing, that is the point of them; no fractal structure is generated. PS. See comment from rsidwell below!
• S.F.B.M colourings are found in sam.ucl. There are four of them.
  
  • If you're into plugin style colourings you can try loading  "Monnier's S.F.B.M. II Texture" from reb.ulb as your trap shape. This has the same parameters as the classic sam colourings but plugin techniques may offer some different and perhaps more unusual ways of working with the colouring.
  • You can find quite extensive information on what the various parameters do in the formula's Help file. You can access this  through the ? button on the Outside tab when you have loaded a sam colouring. If this doesn't do anything then update your formulas and try again, Samuel Monnier has corrected a small problem to do with accessing these Help files just recently. If all else fails use Windows Explorer to navigate to Ultra Fractal 5 >  Help on Formulas > sam-help where you will find both sfbm.htm and sfbmii.htm. These should open in your browser for reading. Have you ever wondered what the "Epsilon" parameter is for and why it often doesn't seem to do anything? Well, these help documents explain all those mysterious settings!
    PS. I don't think these sam help files are included in UF's installer. If you don't have them you can download sam-help Here Unzip the  folder inside and drop it in your Help on Formulas folder.
    

So... the challenge is to build a fractal picture using these rather limited tools. It won't be easy but that is what makes this a "challenge"! Your design will most likely be quite abstract and textural. Try using a few different layers to build up your image and play with colours. I have selected a few images from DA's gallery for inspiration and to illustrate the sort of thing this colouring is capable of. Most don't have parameters so I'm guessing at how they were made but they look pretty S.F.B.M-y to me! There are also a couple of texture packs in there which have a few S.F.B.M layers you might find useful as a starting point if you do not have your own collection of these textures yet. So check those out if you're stuck for ideas or you need a starting point.

Finally, the full rules for this challenge are in the box below - please read through them so you are clear about what is required!



Thanks and have fun!