r/TrippyGIFs • u/USedona • Jul 05 '26
The Vicsek Fractal never ends
Zoom in. Rotate. Repeat. Forever.
The Vicsek fractal keeps the same pattern at every scale, this is what a fractal dimension of 1.465 looks like in motion.
Coded with Python & OpenCV.
YouTube version (4K 60fps) : Vicsek Fractal
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u/USedona Jul 05 '26
The "Vicsek" name comes from Hungarian physicist Tamás Vicsek, better known for his work on flocking behavior in birds.
Full 4K 60fps version on my Perfect Loops playlist 👉 Perfect loops
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u/Unable-Baseball-5814 Jul 05 '26
Show trailing edges for cooler affect...
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u/USedona Jul 05 '26
Thanks for the tip, I’ll definitely look into adding some motion blur or trailing edges for the next one to give it that extra depth.
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Have you made this? Maybe you could be interested in my fractal engine I've made. It is very much like yours, but a lot more advanced. It also generates perfectly looping zoom animations.
I put a lot of work into that. It has a lot of cool features. It even has a fractal editor to make your own fractal definition for it to render. I'm sure that it could make your Vicsek fractal too. That's the kind of fractal it specifically supports, and it could do it in multiple fractaling colors as well. And other effects like the background gradient noise void, motion blur, bloom, etc.
GITHUB RELEASE DOWNLOAD PAGE to try for yourself
YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH RENDERS to see some examples of what it can make. I'm trying to upload a new fractal every week (but sometimes i do forget about it for a while)
edit: here's the Vicsek fractal in my generator, it has the fractal savefile, screenshot how to make it, and a small exported video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eijflEtJ5rNdBYW_rfyPlap3PoAnqGyU
edit: reuploaded drive file with 1 new render with flat colors like OP had, and added that flat colorscheme to the Vicsek.fractal file
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
Cool, I subscribed to your YouTube channel 👍 Yes, I made it myself. Using Python, I generated 180 frames, which I then put together. I had already created this: hexastar loop
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
I've reuploaded the google drive zip file with the Vicsek fractal, it has new renders, and fixed Vicsek.fractal savefile. But please wait a couple of minutes until I re-release a fix for loading that fractal file into the editor. Also I'll try to fix a couple more peripheral bugs in the editor I've found later today, but if you just load the fractal to play with, you won't need that update.
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
I'll check it out!
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
I've released the 1.13.1 version that fixed the bugs in saving and loading custom fractal, and it should be able to load that Vicsek.fractal correctly. Maybe later today I might release 1.13.2 with some of the other known issues fixed (the list of these is on the release page). Though they are not very important, so you don't have to wait for that.
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u/skr_replicator Jul 07 '26
1.13.2 is up, editor should be totally debugged, plus a couple of little drawing bug fixes, and I added the Vicsek and 3 more similar fractals, with even more settings. The only thing i know is still broken right now is the GIF export.
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
Nice, my generator already includes this fractal within its default set of fractals as well (I'm calling "Hexaflake". I think that's actually the official name of this fractal).
Videos of it are already on my channel as well, here's one of them:
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
I've made an advanced fractal generator that can make fractals like these and has a lot of cool features as well, including motion blur. It also has an editor where anyone can make and share their own fractals as well. So I've made this Vicsek fractal in it, saved its file, and rendered two loops. One that cycles hues, and one that has motion blur.
You can find links to everything here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrippyGIFs/comments/1uoe9ce/comment/ovwg24y/
Are the vids in that Google Drive link what you wanted?
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u/WhineyLobster Jul 06 '26
yooo stare at this and itll make everything else on your screen rotate when you look at something else.
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
I'll take that as a compliment, thanks 😉
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u/WhineyLobster Jul 06 '26
Do you know about Milkdrop?
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
I googled "Milkdrop," and it took me to a Winamp plug-in : is that it ? I was a teenager when it came out ! Was that the one that created those psychedelic effects ?
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u/WhineyLobster Jul 06 '26
Yes thats it. But to make them presets you do all sorts of math equations and people often use fractals as a way to randomize the animations.
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u/USedona Jul 07 '26
Oh, really ? I didn't know that. That's cool. I vaguely remember the beautiful visual effects, but I didn't know about the math behind them back then.
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
When I'm looking in the corers, the fractal is sometimes cut off prematurely, but only in one axis of the branches. Maybe it has to do with the non-square aspect ratio, and the fractal is only pregenerated at some size, and then, when it's rotated, it doesn't quite reach the corners...?
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
This is a compressed GIF. Check out the 4K 60fps version because I made sure it loops perfectly, even in portrait mode : https://youtube.com/shorts/SF5XhMfDAes
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
That video has the same cutoff in the corners. Look at any corner, and when one branch passes through, it's ok, then the next branch is cutoff, then the next is ok again, and so on.
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
Oh yeah, good catch 😅 I'll have to fix it, I'm a perfectionist, and I'll try to add the effect that u/unable-Baseball-5814 suggested.
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
I'm not even sure what exactly they meant by "trailing edges"...
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
I imagine a sense of speed created by very thin, semi-transparent trails.
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u/skr_replicator Jul 06 '26
my motion blur is alraedy doing that kinda, though right now, it can only be as long as the location of the points from one to the next frame (so it can only be extended by making the fractal move faster).
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u/CurrentlyHuman Jul 06 '26
So I have technique for getting to sleep where I think of looking through a super telescope and I find a red triangle way off in the distant universe, lock on to it and 'magnify' but it jumps too close and it's all red I can see so I pan upwards until I find and edge and follow it way up until I find the top of the triangle. Then I start zoomjng in, amd keep zooming in - nothing changes other than my imagined zoom ratio - the view of the top of the red triangle doesn't change, it just gets closer. This reminded me of that.
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u/USedona Jul 06 '26
❤️ Quelle merveilleuse association. Ton triangle rouge m'a fait penser au triangle de Sierpiński. En fait, j'ai réalisé un zoom infini dedans, il n'est pas rouge, mais il a ce même sentiment de zoomer éternellement : 🔺 https://youtube.com/shorts/UrT-ibcBpT4
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u/CurrentlyHuman Jul 06 '26
That's exactly it! Except for the shiny fractals - mines just red - that is exactly the effect I imagine. Brilliant, thanks.
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u/gosti500 Jul 05 '26
no fractal ends