Fractals
FractalToy: an online fractal explorer and video creator, rendering 3D fractals live in the browser with WebGL.
About
FractalToy is a WebGL-based online fractal explorer and video creation tool. It is a spin-off using the 3D engine technology developed for Clip3D, the online collaborative game creation tool. Test recordings were rendered with WebGL, with the images streamed to FFmpeg for compression and video encoding.
Features
Live in the browser
3D fractals raycast in WebGL shaders, rendered in real time as you move.
Fly and zoom
Fly through a fractal in 3D and zoom deep into it, through Mandelbox and Mandelbrot space.
Edit the fractal
An interface for exploring and editing fractals, with each one's settings beside the view.
Video creation
Frames rendered with WebGL are streamed to FFmpeg, which compresses and encodes them into video.
Built on Clip3D
A spin-off of the 3D engine made for Clip3D, the online collaborative game creation tool.
The Polygonals videos
The fractal flights in the Polygonals videos are made with it.
Screenshots
The explorer
FractalToy's interface for exploring and editing fractals, here zooming into a Mandelbox, with the fractal's settings in the panels beside it. Watch it in use ↗
Flying through The Garden
"The Garden" is a formula that's highly zoomable and full of variety: flying around it and exploring makes for long zooms. Watch the flight ↗
Renders
Technologies
- WebGL/GLSL - Rendering the 3D fractals live in the browser
- JavaScript - The explorer
- PHP - The FractalToy application
- MySQL - Database
- Node.js - Tools and utilities
- FFmpeg - Compressing and encoding the videos
Articles
- FractalToy - The fractal explorer itself, with all 26 renders and the test videos
- GLSL fractals - Animated fractals raycast in a fragment shader, with edge detection and toon shading
- GLSL raycasting - Raycasting 3D fractals inside a fragment shader
- Java animated Julia fractals - Animated Julia-style fractals in a Java applet
- Java Mandelbrot zoom - Drag out a rectangle to zoom into the Mandelbrot set
More art
- Polygonals - 3D fractal flights and shader visuals set to original music
- Experimental AI music - Tracks written with generative models, each with generated cover art