Mandelbulb 3D Gradients 2 By Sharon E. Thomas

Just download the zip file into the Maps folder in Mandelbulb 3D (the zipped file is on the right of the page where the image titled Mandelbulb 3D Gradients is). Un-zip it and you will have 468 swatches of striped maps. You will already have maps that came with the program in the Maps folder. I first re-named them 1 to however many were in there. Then I started naming my swatches from the last number the original maps left off with and on to the last map. I ended up with maps 1 to 698. The maps that were already in my Maps folder were not in consecutive order so when I would be using the - Use a map for the diffuse color - option in lighting I would go from 1 to 15 then it would say - Map Not Found. I kept wondering what happened to all of the other maps that I knew were in that folder. So I went to the Maps folder and found out that they were not in consecutive order. The numbers were all over the place. So, you want to make sure to re-name the maps already in your map folder so that they are in consecutive order - 1 to however many you have or you are going to be scrolling through a bunch of blank maps and seeing the message - Map Not Found a lot. Then re-name the new maps starting from the last number you left off from. Now you will have several hundred maps named from 1 to however many you have. When you have a fractal done and you want to color it you go into the lighting panel and check the box saying - Use a map for the diffuse color. Then in the area right below that it says - Map number. Change the number in the box to one. Then you will be able to click the up button to scroll through all of the different maps that are in the maps folder. They will show up in the window to the right of the numbers box. This will change the color of your fractal that is in your main window. You can use the sliders below named - Offset X, Offset Y, Rotation and Scale to move through all of the different colors that are in that map so your fractal will have the colors change in different places. If you see a map in your Maps folder that you really like and want to use it - say it's map 475, then change the number in the box next to Map Number to 475 and that map will come up in the window to the right. Sometimes the fractal will not look like the color of the map showing in the box. This is sometimes because it's putting the map color over top of the color the fractal already is. In this case you need to scroll through the maps numbers until your fractal comes up in the color you want it, or first change your fractal to greys and then start using the colored maps. If this totally confuses you just let me know where you are stuck and I'll try help you some more. These are actually the same maps (gradients) I made for Apophysis

You can make your own maps very easily. All you need to do is find pictures in colors that you like, click the Print Screen button, go into the program Paint, and choose Paste. This will paste the page into Paint where you can then take the selection tool and select the area with the colors you want and then click Crop. Click Save As and browse to your Maps folder, name the picture you are saving the next number after the last map in your folder and you will have your first self made map. You can print screen some of your favorites fractals you have made or you can put things like color stripe or color blends in Google Search and choose Images. Then you can Print Screen the whole page, paste it into Paint and start selecting and cropping areas of colors you like. After you've saved the first map you can just click Paste again and it will re-paste the same page. Keep doing the same thing until you've made maps out of all of the colors you like on that page. Then just go back to
Google Images and Print Screen another area and follow the same instructions. Get creative with the words you put in search because great colors come up with all sorts of keywords. If you have 2 specific colors you want put just those two colors in search and all sorts of pictures with those two colors will come up and you can make them into maps. To me these instructions make perfect sense because I know the steps but I may be explaining something the wrong way and getting you totally confused. Just let me know if this is the case and I will help you out any way I can.

The size of the image you select for your own map doesn't matter. It will automatically be sized into thumbnail size once you've saved it to the Maps folder. You can also turn the maps you have sideways and save them that way too because they will come out in your fractal different ways if the colors go from top to bottom or from side to side.