Fractaliz3r - Cinematic 3D Fractal Explorer

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Explore, render, and animate 3D fractals with cinematic quality

Overview

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Fractaliz3r is a high-performance, cinematic 3D fractal explorer and renderer built on GLSL shaders with progressive raymarching and full Monte Carlo path tracing. It supports 12 fractal types, audio-reactive rendering, VR 360 export, animation with keyframes, and exports up to 16K resolution.

warnotte/Fractaliz3r

Java

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Features

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Fractal Library (12 Types)

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Cinematic Rendering Pipeline

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• Monte Carlo Path Tracing with configurable bounces, NEE + MIS, and GGX microfacet BRDF
• Physical Materials: Lambertian, Metallic (Smith G2 geometry), and Glass (two-surface refraction through SDF)
• Volumetric Fog & God Rays: Shadow-aware Henyey-Greenstein scattering
• Depth of Field: 9 cinematic lens presets (Standard, Cinema, Anamorphic, Vintage, Petzval, Miniature, Dream, Night, Prism) with shaped bokeh, anamorphic blur, cat’s eye vignetting, tilt-shift, and chromatic aberration
• Optics & Lens Effects: Anamorphic flares, lens dirt, procedural starbursts
• Color Grading: Built-in LUT styles (Cinema, Vintage, Matrix, Neon, Noir)
• Subsurface Scattering: Physically-approximated SSS with configurable radius and color
• Ray-Marched Reflections: Real-time reflection bounces for metallic/glass surfaces
• 9 Coloring Modes: Standard, Iteration Bands, Distance, Angular, Blend, Contour, HSV Direct, Dual Palette, Neon

Environments

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• Procedural Environments: Clouds, Deep Space, Ocean, Studio - all with spatial parallax
• HDRI Environment Maps: .hdr, .png, .jpg loading with rotation and lighting mix controls

Visual Gradient Editor

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GPU-based 1D texture (256x1, RGB32F) with a visual canvas editor:

• Draggable color stops with add/delete
• 10 built-in presets (Magma, Ice, Forest, Neon, Spectral, Sunset, Ocean, Aurora, Pastel, Monochrome)
• Color Strength and Palette Shift parameters
• Cyclic wrapping for orbit trap coloring

Audio-Reactive Fractals

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• Real-time spectrum analysis (8 bands, beat detection, onset detection)
• Fractal geometry morphing driven by bass/mid/treble energy
• Shader-level color shift, glow, FOV pulse, camera shake, space warp, palette jump
• Post-process pump (exposure, saturation, chromatic aberration, vignette on beats)
• Offline export: Pre-analyze audio via FFmpeg, then render frame-by-frame with full path tracing for synchronized music videos

Animation System

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• Timeline with keyframe tracks and easing curves
• @Animatable annotation auto-discovers fractal parameters for animation
• Per-fractal scoped tracks (e.g., mandelbulb.power, mandelbox.scale)
• Motion blur export with configurable shutter angle (0-360 degrees)

VR & 360 Exploration

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• Equirectangular Projection: Full 360 spherical panoramas
• Automated Metadata: XMP Photo Sphere tags for images, ExifTool for video
• VR Presets: 2K (2048x1024) and 4K (4096x2048)

Export Pipeline

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• Tiled Rendering: Automatic tile-based rendering for exports up to 16K (15360x8640)
• Image Export: PNG and JPEG (95% quality) with optional 360 metadata
• Video Export: H.265 HEVC via FFmpeg with +faststart for web
• 3D Mesh Export: Marching Cubes extraction to glTF 2.0 and Wavefront OBJ formats

UI & Interaction

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• Dice Randomizer: One-click randomization with undo/redo history and per-slider lock
• Morph Crossfade: Smooth interpolation between two parameter snapshots
• Infinite Zoom: Adaptive speed with double-precision coordinate rebasing
• Cross-Section Clipping Plane: X/Y/Z axis slicing through any fractal
• 3D Orientation Compass: Real-time quaternion-based axis display
• Click-to-Focus: Middle-click or Ctrl+click to pick focal distance from the viewport

Gallery

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Getting Started

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Prerequisites

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• Java 21 or higher
• Maven for building
• FFmpeg (optional): In system PATH for MP4 video export and audio pre-analysis
• ExifTool (optional): In system PATH for 360 video metadata injection

Run

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git clone https://github.com/warnotte/Fractaliz3r.git
cd Fractaliz3r
mvn compile
mvn javafx:run

Build Release

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mvn clean javafx:jlink package -DskipTests

Creates a self-contained runtime in target/image/ with bin/fractaliz3r.bat. No JDK needed on target machine.

Controls

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Technical Stack

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License

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This project is provided for non-commercial use only. You are free to use, study, and modify the code, but commercial exploitation, redistribution for profit, or inclusion in commercial products is strictly prohibited.