Fractal shores

In this tutorial we’ll create the fantasy landscape shown above. The image was originally produced as a commercial print, but we’re going to recreate it without spending a penny on software! For this, we’ll need the help of no less than three free applications. To begin with, we’ll use Terragen to create the landscape itself. Terragen is a wonderful 3D fractal landscape generator that’s capable of producing impressive, eye-catching vistas with stunning lighting effects and moody atmospheres.

The software comes in two editions: the free version and a more powerful commercial edition. Since we’ll be working with the free version, we’ll be somewhat restricted when it comes to adjusting quality settings. This means we can only use terrain files up to a specific level of detail, and our render output resolution is limited to 1,280x960 pixels.

As soon as we’ve finished creating our landscape, our next action will be to fire up Apophysis, which is a simple-to-use fractal flame generator. Normally, Apophysis is used to create highly detailed, complex and beautiful standalone fractal images, but it can also be used to create swirling nebulae for a space picture. For the purposes of our tutorial, we’ll use it to create cloud trails that we can place in the sky above our landscape. Apophysis works like any other image-generating software, so this can be achieved with a minimum of fuss: there is a good selection of presets to play with, settings to modify the results, and a range of render-quality options.

When we’ve worked through the process of creating our fractal, we’ll switch applications and begin to combine the landscape and the cloud trails within the open source image-editing application The Gimp. This is where we’ll create our beautiful, unique sky effect. The great thing about The Gimp is that it’s almost as powerful as Photoshop, which means you can unleash your imagination! It’s a solid tool with which to manipulate photos, change colours, sharpen edges or soften and blur images. With our three applications at the ready, let’s make a start.

Click here to download the support files (~18MB)