Animating parameters

You can animate almost anything in Ultra Fractal, including all 

formula parameters

 and settings such 

as 

Maximum Iterations

 and 

Color Density

.

To animate a parameter, first set 

Animate mode

 to on and move the time slider to the frame 

where you want to create a new 

animation key

, as described in 

Creating animations

.

Parameters that can be animated will display a red animation indicator next to them while 

Animate mode is on. Simply type a new value or use the 

Explore

 feature to change the 

parameter.

A blue dot next to a parameter means that it is animated (i.e. has one or more 

animation keys

). If 

the blue dot turns into a yellow marker, this means that the parameter contains an animation key 

at the current frame. In this case, editing the parameter while 

Animate mode

 is on will change the 

value of the key at the current frame instead of inserting a new key.

If Animate mode is off, editing an animated parameter will adjust the values of all its animation keys. 

For example, if a parameter animates from the value 1 at frame 1 to 4 at frame 100, and the 

current frame is 1 and you change the value to 2, the value at frame 100 will change to 5. Floating 

point parameters with 

exponential interpolation

, such as Magnification and Color Density, are scaled 

instead of translated.

Complex, floating point, and integer 

parameters

 will be interpolated smoothly between animation 

keys. You can also animate enumerated and boolean parameters, but they will not be interpolated.

Right click a parameter for a menu with options to insert a new key at the current frame or to 

remove the existing key, and to jump to the previous and next key for that parameter. See 

Editing 

animations

.

Inserting a key manually is useful if you want to animate a parameter from frame 20 to 

frame 30, for example. If you just move the time slider to frame 30 and change the 

parameter, the parameter will be animated from frame 1 to frame 30, which is not what you 

want. 

Instead, first move the time slider to frame 20 and insert a key there (which does not 

change the value of the parameter). Then move to frame 30, turn Animate mode on, and 

edit the parameter to animate it.

Next: 

Animating gradients

See Also

218