Fractaliz3r - Cinematic 3D Fractal Explorer

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

Overview

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Fractaliz3r (v3.0) is a high-performance, cinematic 3D fractal explorer and renderer built on GLSL shaders with progressive raymarching and full Monte Carlo path tracing. Build complex scenes in a visual node graph compositor, combine 14 fractal types with CSG operations and surface effects, drive them with audio, and export up to 16K resolution, VR 360, video and 3D meshes.

warnotte/Fractaliz3r

Java

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Features

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Node Graph Compositor

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The primary user interface for fractal exploration. Build complex fractal scenes by composing multiple fractals in a visual node tree:

• Composable trees: Combine any number of fractals with CSG operations and coordinate transforms
• 4 CSG operations: Union, Intersect, Subtract, Morph — all with smooth blending
• 7 transform modes: Standard (translate/rotate/scale), Mirror, Twist, Bend, Taper, Repetition, Repetition 1D
• 11 SDF primitives: Sphere, Box, Rounded Box, Plane, Torus, Cylinder, Capsule, Cone, Octahedron, Pyramid, Hex Prism
• 3 surface effects: Erosion, Crystallization, Moss — per-node, composable, stackable
• Per-node materials: Material overrides (color mode, roughness, metallic, IOR, emission) on any subtree
• Per-node parameters: Each fractal node stores its own independent settings
• Visual editor: Canvas-based tree view with drag, zoom, context menus, and undo/redo
• Single-shader compilation: The entire tree compiles into one GPU shader

Fractal Library (14 Types)

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IFS fractals (Kaleidoscopic, Polyhedral, Sierpinski, Apollonian) support a configurable base primitive (Sphere, Box, Octahedron, Torus, Rounded Box).

Cinematic Rendering Pipeline

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• Cone Tracing: Pixel-aware adaptive epsilon based on pixel footprint — structural stability, no flickering on distant details, consistent sharpness across resolutions
• 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)
• Advanced Lighting: Additional light with Spot mode (cone angle, edge softness), area radius for soft penumbras, and tight range attenuation
• 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
• 13 Coloring Modes: 9 orbit-trap + 4 scale-invariant geometry-based, with adaptive sampling

Surface Effects (Per-Node)

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• Erosion Simulation: Procedural weathering (cracks, hydraulic channels, thermal rounding)
• Crystallization: Voronoi-based crystal growth on fractal surfaces
• Moss/Lichen: Organic growth favoring crevices and horizontal surfaces
• Composable: Wrap any subtree of the node graph, stack multiple effects
• Domain Distortion: Global twist/bend/taper/repetition transforms (also available per-node)

Environments

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• Procedural Environments: Clouds, Deep Space (Legacy/Cinematic/Ultra), 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
• Spline Camera Paths: Catmull-Rom interpolation for smooth camera trajectories
• @Animatable annotation auto-discovers fractal parameters for animation
• Node graph animation: Per-node tracks (e.g., "Mandelbulb".power, "Twist".strength)
• 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), with pixel-radius corrected cone tracing at full resolution
• Image Export: PNG and JPEG (95% quality) with optional 360 metadata
• Depth/Normal AOV Export: 16-bit depth, 8-bit normals for compositing
• Video Export: H.265 HEVC via FFmpeg with +faststart for web
• 3D Mesh Export: GPU-accelerated Marching Cubes extraction to glTF 2.0, Wavefront OBJ and PLY 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.