Plasma Fractal Generator
Generate colorful plasma fractals with the diamond-square algorithm, animate their colors and download them as PNG or GIF.
This is a free online plasma fractal generator. Every click on the image creates a new plasma: the soft, cloudy and colorful pattern made by the diamond-square algorithm, also known as random midpoint displacement. Choose how rough it is, how big the blobs are and how it is painted, and download it as a PNG image up to 4K, or as an animated GIF with cycling colors.
The same algorithm draws clouds, terrain height maps and fire, so the tool can also be used to create textures and backgrounds for games and 3D programs. With the "Seamless (tileable)" option, the image can be repeated side by side without any visible seam.
Everything runs directly in your browser, on your own processor. No image is uploaded to a server, and nothing needs to be installed.
Plasma options
Click on the image to create a new random plasma with the same options.
How to generate a plasma fractal?
To create and save your own plasma fractal, follow these steps:
- Pick a style - Use the buttons above the image to try the classic RGB plasma, a psychedelic rainbow, clouds, a terrain map, fire, a lava lamp or a grayscale height map. They all keep the same seed, so you see the same plasma painted in different ways.
- Click on the image for a new plasma - Every click picks a new random seed. If you like one, write down its seed: typing it again recreates exactly the same plasma.
- Adjust the shape - Raise the roughness for a grainier, more detailed plasma, or lower it for a softer one. Change the number of blobs across the image to make the clouds bigger or smaller.
- Choose the colors - In RGB mode every color channel is a different plasma. In palette mode one plasma is painted with a gradient: choose one of the palettes, or two colors of your own. The color cycles and the color offset change how the colors are spread over the plasma.
- Make it seamless, if you need a texture - Turn on "Seamless (tileable)" and check the tiled preview: the right side of the image continues on the left side, and the top continues on the bottom.
- Choose the resolution - Select one of the common resolutions, or type any width and height up to 4096 pixels. The plasma keeps its shape when only the size changes, and gains finer detail.
- Download the image or the animation - Click "Download PNG image" to save exactly what you see. Click "Animate the colors" to watch the colors flow, and "Download GIF" to save one complete loop as an animated GIF.
Settings
Below are the parameters you can configure to generate the plasma fractal.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Seed | The number that the random values of the plasma are made from. The same seed and the same options always create the same image, on any computer. |
| Roughness | At every level of the algorithm the random displacement is multiplied by this number. With 0.5 the displacement is halved each time the cells are halved, which makes a smooth plasma; values closer to 1 keep strong displacements down to the smallest cells, which makes a grainy, noisy plasma; lower values make it soft and blurry. |
| Blobs across the image | How many cells of random values the plasma starts from, along the longest side of the image. With 1 cell only the 4 corners are random, which gives the classic plasma with a few big blobs. More cells give more, smaller blobs. |
| Seamless (tileable) | Makes the plasma wrap around: the points on the right side are calculated as neighbors of the points on the left side, and the bottom as neighbor of the top. The image can then be repeated like a tile without any visible seam. |
| Show a 2 x 2 tiled preview | Shows the image repeated four times below the main image, so you can check the seams of a seamless plasma. |
| Color mode | RGB uses three different plasmas, one for the red, one for the green and one for the blue channel, which creates the classic multicolored plasma. Palette uses a single plasma and paints it with a gradient, from the lowest to the highest point. |
| Palette | The gradient of the palette mode: Rainbow, Psychedelic, Lava lamp and Neon go around and come back to their first color; Fire, Ocean, Clouds, Terrain (map) and Grayscale (height map) go from the lowest to the highest point. Custom (two colors) uses the two colors you choose. |
| Contrast | Most points of a plasma are close to the middle height, and only a few reach the lowest and the highest values. A contrast above 1 stretches the heights around the middle over more of the colors, which makes them more vivid; the points beyond the extremes get the first or the last color. A contrast below 1 makes the image softer. |
| Color cycles | How many times the colors repeat between the lowest and the highest point. A value of 1 uses the colors once; higher values create many thin bands of color that follow the contour lines of the plasma. |
| Color offset | Shifts the colors along the plasma without changing its shape. This is the value that moves when the colors are animated. |
| Invert the colors | Reads the colors backwards: the lowest points get the colors of the highest ones, and the other way around. |
| Duration of one loop | The time, in seconds, that the colors take to go around once in the animation. The GIF contains exactly one loop, so it repeats without a jump. |
| Frames per second of the GIF | How many frames are saved for each second of the GIF. More frames make a smoother animation and a bigger file. The GIF has at most 300 frames. |
| Resolution / Width / Height | The size of the generated image in pixels, up to 4096 x 4096. Choose one of the common display resolutions, or type any width and height. |
What is a plasma fractal?
A plasma fractal is an image made by the diamond-square algorithm. It is a height map: every pixel has a height, and the colors only show those heights, in the same way as a topographic map shows the altitude of a landscape.
The algorithm starts with a grid of a few random heights, and fills the space between them over and over, each time with cells half the size:
- Diamond step - The center of every square gets the average of the 4 corners of the square, plus a small random value.
- Square step - The middle of every side of the squares gets the average of the 4 points around it (which form a diamond), plus a small random value.
- Repeat with smaller cells - The squares are now half the size, and the random value is multiplied by the roughness, so every new level adds smaller details with less strength. The steps repeat until every pixel has a height.
Because each level adds the same kind of detail at half the scale, the result looks the same at every magnification, which is what makes it a fractal. The roughness r is related to the Hurst exponent H of the surface by r = 2-H: a roughness of 0.5 is H = 1, a very smooth surface, and a roughness of about 0.71 is H = 0.5, the roughness of a random walk (Brownian motion).
The method was published in 1982 by Alain Fournier, Don Fussell and Loren Carpenter, who used it to draw the landscapes of the first computer-generated movie scenes. It became famous as the "Plasma" and "Render Clouds" filters of image editors such as GIMP and Photoshop, and as the source of countless terrains of video games.
The animation of the colors is a trick of the old computer demos called palette cycling (or color cycling): the image itself never changes, only the colors assigned to the heights move, which makes the plasma look like it is flowing.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is this plasma fractal generator free to use?Yes, this tool is 100% free and works directly in your browser, with no installation and no sign-up required.
Are the images uploaded to a server?No. The plasma is calculated by your own browser and the image never leaves your computer.
Can I use the generated images in my own projects?Yes. The images are created by an algorithm and random numbers, and you can use them in websites, wallpapers, games, 3D textures, videos and printed material.
What is the difference between a plasma fractal and Perlin noise?Both create smooth random patterns, but in different ways. The plasma fractal subdivides a grid and adds random displacements at every level, so it naturally contains detail at every scale. Perlin noise interpolates random gradients on a single grid, so one layer only has blobs of one size; it needs several layers (octaves) added together to look like a fractal.
Can I use the plasma as a height map for a terrain?Yes. Choose the palette "Grayscale (height map)": black is the lowest point and white is the highest point. Most 3D programs and game engines can turn a grayscale image into a terrain. The palette "Terrain (map)" paints the same heights as water, sand, grass, forest, rock and snow.
How do I create a seamless texture?Turn on "Seamless (tileable)". The algorithm then treats the image as if its sides were glued together, so the right side continues on the left side and the bottom on the top. The tiled preview shows the image repeated 2 x 2, so you can check that the seams are invisible.
Why do I sometimes see straight lines or creases in the plasma?This is a known artifact of the diamond-square algorithm: the points along the lines of the first grids are calculated before the others, and with a high roughness they can leave faint straight creases. A lower roughness, or more blobs across the image, makes them less visible.
Will the plasma look the same if I change the resolution?Yes, as long as the proportions of the image stay the same. Every random value depends only on the seed and on its position in the plasma, so a bigger image has the same blobs in the same places, with finer detail. If the proportions change (from 4:3 to 16:9, for example), the starting grid changes and the plasma is different.
Why is the GIF file so big?A GIF stores every frame as a separate image with at most 256 colors. A big resolution, a long loop and many frames per second all multiply the size of the file. For a lighter GIF, use a smaller resolution, a shorter loop or fewer frames per second.
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