UF 202203 Parameter Collection

Hi All,

This month 3 very beautiful fractals in the collection. As you can see in de upr file, there is a fourth fractal in the upr but I was unable to create it.

You can find the whole existing collection at the cloud of Microsoft:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=2AB35EAF574CA6CE!1034&authkey=!ALIZio6ZmgV1aAo&ithint=folder%2ctxt

Greetings from Belgium

Jan Vyvey

Hello Jan,

I'm new to UltraFractal and had a view into your shared collection which impresses me a lot.
These huge set of parameter files for sure have been taken a lot of time and I wanted to ask under which license you are distributing them.
Are they all your own property and under which condition can they be used by others?

Best regards
Wasili

Hello Laiki,

I'm glad you like the parameter collections on the cloud of MS but I must be very clear that

1. All of the collected parameter files are NOT, I repeat are NOT my property but they are the properties of the "boys and girls" of the UF community that created these files and placed them on these forum. The names are normally visible when you open the files in UF.
2. There is no distribution license that dictates whatever you may do with it or what not.
3. I suppose that perhaps Frederik Slijkerman, creator of Ultrafractal and owner of the Forum, could answer your question more in detail.

Greetings from Belgium,

Jan Vyvey

Hi laiki,

There are no formal rules around the sharing and use of parameters but there is a general understanding among UF users that it is ok for you to privately pick apart and learn from any image parameters you come across. They do still belong to the originating artists, of course, so you need to exercise caution and fairness around anything else you go on to do with the parameters...

If you choose to tweak the parameters to make a new image then you really should acknowledge the original artist if you publish that piece somewhere. Especially if there is still some resemblance to the original. It's only fair and polite to do so. If anything about doing this concerns you you could seek out the artist and ask for their opinion or permission to go ahead.

Where it gets murkier is where you have tweaked some parameters to such an extent that there is virtually nothing visible from the original. You have gone off on an extreme tangent where everything has changed. It's not uncommon. At this point many people would accept that it's probably ok to call that your own work but it would still be polite to acknowledge your starting point if you can.

People who share parameters understand that a certain level of trust in others is necessary. We do it to help new users learn or for others interested in how we achieved a certain effect. Personally, I share most of my images but stop short of sharing anything I am not comfortable about releasing to the world like this; my more advanced, complex works for example that I would rather keep private. A few artists freely share everything they do, others almost never give away any of their work, it's a choice we all make.

Bottom line is everyone needs to respect the work of others, be honest and fair around using parameters, and acknowledge these works where appropriate. Generally it works pretty well.

This is my understanding anyway. Jan here is merely collating images that have been posted on this public forum. The results of his years of efforts is a bit like a public lending library for anyone to use.

Hope this helps clear a few things up and sorry for the long winded reply!

Hello Velvet--Glove,

thanks for your detailed reply.
I also contacted Frederik Slijkerman, who pointed me to your copyright notice in the online help.

Unfortunately, every post published here is not subject of one defined license agreement, which would have been defined at the early beginnings of the forum, but each post and its parameter set must be discussed with the author.

The parameter dump also contains information about authors in its comment sections which shows, that sometimes multiple authors exists. In case someone would like to make use of the parameter set, be it for private or commercial use, it is needed to get the approval from all involved authors. This is basically ok but might not be possible as the information contains only a [nick]name.

In my case, I'm going to use fractals in a neuronal network to transfer its beauty to another image, generate NFTs and try to sell them. Even the fractal image itself will not be visible, it takes part in the creation process, and I don’t want to violate any licensing agreement by using pictures published somewhere.

In case a license agreement would have been defined that handles posts to this forum, I would need to discuss to the forum owner only. As this did not happen in the past, and I assume it is nearby impossible to change it now (maybe it is, I’m not a lawyer knowing such things), I will try to learn creating parameter myself, even the resulting fractals might not look that beautiful as these posted here.

Kind regards
Laiki