We'll talk now about how to render in Mandelbulb 3D with the purpose to achieve polished results,

that could be offered as prints. Even if you want to render small pictures for screen only, I hope this session
will help to get maximum impact for your pictures. Mandelbulb 3D improved dramatically since a while and
now offers very good lighting, lot of formulas, speedy rendering and many features. Thanks to Jesse for this
jewel! It's seen, by the constantly increasing number of mandelbulbs in DA, that it' gains popularity every day.
Yet still it lacks the versatility of UF when it comes to saving the picture in PSD format for future enhancement
in PShop. Also while providing some tools to add a background picture, this still is good only for animations,
but for a precise still composition, I'll offer you a better method later. One has to resist the impatience when
finding some interesting fractal to render and publish it immediately. Following some simple steps there, will
be much better results. Imagine how confusing would be to offer good low res fractal, next somebody wants it
as a print and gees... rendered big is not at all, what it was. So with this tutorial, you'll know how to deal with
such situations.
OK, let's see first how we organize our pictures before the final render. It's good to work in a strictly
proportional to the final target render format. For example I'm working usually at 800x544 which is
straightly proportional for render at 3280x2130. This way we avoid surprises. Next, keep in mind that the
intersections of the visual plane can make some troubles as nosy, bad lit pixels and bigger the picture this
problems will be more noticeable. The solution is to adjust the zoom, rotation and camera FOV to minimize
intersections, make them out of view. Of course there is situations where the purpose of the picture is to
show intersections, in this case the lighting would help to make them part of the game.
Let me review the Calculation Settings first before the final render, because most of the noise in the final
pictures comes with bad adjustments of the calculation settings.
RENDERING SETTINGS
OK, 1st we have the DE Stop. This is fundamental about what our fractal will look like, and has not
any thing to do with the noise. Just lower settings reveal more details; more rays are cast over the object
and sure more geometry is generated. Here the settings depend of how you want your fractal to be. A DE
Stop at 0.8 works well for big resolutions for very detailed fractals, but for some smooth style fractals
often seen as wallpapers could go up to 11 and even 100 and more. So it's up to you to decide, but keep
in mind, that you have to make a test render at your small resolution with this setting adjusted as for the high
res, because when rendered straight away with changed DE you'll be surprised by the lighting of the big
picture. So first we set Calculation at low res exactly as we will render and then we adjust the lighting.

Next is the Raystep Multiplier. This is the key to eliminate noise, those ugly black pixels. With lower
values more rays are cast before the program to decide the color of the final pixel. So it's fundamental to set it
well and test it at low res. Usually, I use a 0.05 or 0.04 for this tab, sometimes down to 0.02.
For the Stepwidth Limiter I found that a 0.01 is a good value to catch very small details.
For the Stepcount for Binary Search use a 12 as a good value. It deals with the normals calculations
and we need to set it high.
For smooth normals value of 4 is OK, still never ever leave it on zero! If the normals are not smoother
this will result in sharp straight lighted pixels which will give a noisy look again.
For Normals on DE I leave it unchecked. If checked the fractal renders just a bit faster as this tab reduces
the accurate calculation of distant normals. Sure it's a compromise, but if you can afford the time - render it
without this.
At the end First step random. This should be checked as it gives more natural look of the fractal and
reduces the sterility.
This are the settings for my fractal Welding Works. Note the low Raystep multiplier!

Now with all this set do low res render and let's adjust the lighting.

LIGHTING
Lighting is fundamental for a good picture in any size. The geometry by itself is not sufficient to make
emotional picture, to provoke the spectators imagination. With good lighting a fractal converts into a moody
landscape, mysterious alien construction and so on. In my life I had the opportunity to work 1 year with a
great master of movies lighting: Jean-Marc Furio and learned a lot. You can check this name in IMDB to see
the movies where he did the lighting. So let's try to make Hollywood style lighting:
You need at least 3 or 4 Global lights and the rest will be used as spotlights. The programs gives us 6
lights and sure less light used result to a faster render, yet poor results. So far, 5 or 6 lights are a
must.
Ambient section of the menu: Defining the ambient and Depth with good colors is the key to rich nuances.
We have 2 colors (top and bottom) for each + the amount. The Fog also is very important 2 colors again,
Amount and 2 levels for offset. The Fog and the Ambient Shadow amounts can drastically change the look of
the fractal contrasting, eerie etc. Keep in mind that the FOG usually changes when rendered big and
you'll need to readjust it after the high res render!!!
The global lights are what brings atmosphere and fills with air our scene. Also, if you dont have colors
assigned to the object, they'll colorize it too. Can't go in details about how to colorize the object, it's not at all
so hard. You should know that the metal objects have high Specular and also the Second Reflection slider
should go high for these objects. Stone objects have low specular and Second reflection. So play with these
settings before the lights. The diffuse of the objects is where we see their actual color; you have to define
also there the zone with the maximum shadow and some intermediate levels. Keep in mind that the diffuse is
always darker than the specular.
OK, let set the Global lights. The first light is our Main light, Put it's diffuse at (Cos/2+)^2, specularuty to
32 works well, increasing it makes smaller and brighter specular spots. So this light of course should be
put on Global and Lightangles relative to object is checked. Adjust its angle to show maximum volumes and
let's go to the color. The color is very important here and also this color will be the brightest of the other
Global lights. Here it's up to you, but keep in mind that it depends by the object color. If you try to light an
object with complementary color of it's diffuse as a light, it will look dull.
Make a second Global Light with Diffuse Cos/2+, this will be our Fill light. Choose a bit darker color than
the first light and now its good idea to give it some contrasting color in respect to the main light. Adjust its
angles to something perpendicular of the Main light.
Do the same for the Third Light with Diffuse Cos/2.
It's color will give some nuances to the picture and remember, more nuances = better, richer look. Use it to
light some parts from unusual angle like from bottom, for example. This light should be darker than the first 2.
Now Spotlights or Positional lights in Mandelbulb 3D. We use them to focus the spectator attention to
given zone or detail and sometimes to reveal some distant detail, that goes in shadows without
spotlight. For example in my fractal "Welding Works" I used 2 contrasted spotlights to illuminate the center.
Here we use the same procedure, defining them as Positional Lights. The specularity can go higher than 32 if
a metal look is needed. You have a button called Mid where you can click and then click over the picture to
position the lamp exactly where needed. The amount is defined with exponential style, experiment here to
adjust further.
Go back to the Ambient section and fine tune the FOG and Ambient Shadow. Now test the hard shadow
with the 1st Main Light. The program doesn't have any tool to adjust this shadow amount, but we'll have a
solution for this. Yet the hard shadows can reveal more volume so we'll need them. But we'll render them
separately.
Decide if you'll use DOF in the Postprocess settings. Test it if so. Again keep in mind that when rendered big
you have to increase after the level of DOF as this: the default values of 5.0 and 0.5 will become something
like 7.0 and 0.7 or 9.0 and 0.9. This is because you have more pixels in big and the radius of DOF
encompasses smaller area if left unchanged. Unmark for now its tab Calculate DOF automatically,

unmark also Calculate the Hard shadows automatically!!!

Keep the Ambient shadows checked and also set it to SSAO24r.
Forget about background picture, we'll put it in PhotoShop
This is how your Postprocess settings before final render should look like:

OK, all set, now hit Calculate 3D.

OK, the render is done, now what?
First readjust the fog and ambient shadow to what look is needed.
Next go to the Postprocess section and calculate the DOF as you need it, adjust it well, hit the button Get Z
from image and click on the picture where you need all in focus. After the DOF calculation save the picture as

Fractal_01.png Don't forget to set it to 1:1 scale. Next very important! Save also from the ZBUF button
the buffer as Fractal _03.png! Mandelbulb 3D doesn't save the alpha information within the picture, but if
you plan to use a background image we'll need it. So we'll get it from the buffer.
OK, now hit Calculate Hard shadows and wait. After the calculation you have to recalculate the DOF as it
resets!
Save this image as Fractal_02.Png
All is done, save the M3I and we go to PShop

PHOTOSHOP
Here it will be easy: Open all 3 pictures. On Fractal_01 rename the layer to something. Now put below an
empty layer and fill it with some clean color. Over the Fractal_01 put Fractal_02 (with the hard shadows).
Now On top of all put the zBuffer image like this:

On the zBuffer Layer select with the Magic Wand (press W) some black zone. The Magic Wand should be
set to Tolerance - 16 and anti-aliased. These black spots are the zones where the fractal is perforated and
where the background should be seen. Now go to Menu Select and choose Similar. All black spots are
selected as on the illustration:

Next press Shift+F6 and bring the feather menu. Give to the selection a feather of 1. Delete this zBuffer layer
while keeping the selection. Hide layer Fractal_02 go to Fractal_01 and press Delete. You should see the
background color. Press Ctrl+H to hide the selection and zoom to some zone to see the selection border. If
there is some ghost contour press Delete one more time. Now unhide Fractal _02 and repeat the Delete
process. OK, now deselect and open your background image and place it behind the 2 fractals. Get rid of the
layer with clean color. Put your background picture as the very bottom layer.
Put the Layer - Fractal_02 on Overlay and adjust its opacity. This way we obtain 2 advantages, we get richer
contrasting picture and we'll also use the hard shadows but with control over their intensity. Now here it
depends if your fractal is dark or light, but Fractal_02 should go from 29% to 45% for transparency. If
needed, you can make slight Hue and Saturation on both layers to compose them better over the
background. Now flatten all, bring your framing and signature and place the picture there.
Do a final contrast and brightness adjust with Menu - Image - Adjustments Curves, as I explained in
my previous tutorial, for example like this.

OK, flatten all and save as PNG. That's it.

You can upload your deviation and also be sure, you have a quality high res print.
Happy Mandelbulbing!