I am such a slacker sometimes! I haven't wrote a journal since November of last year, sheesh... :( So it's tutorial and tips time!
I use background images a good little bit in my Mandelbulb scenes, mostly clouds and skies, but sometimes mountains as well. It's a rare occasion indeed to find a background image that works well without some form of adjustment to get it to blend in and become an integral part of your work rather than something that just doesn't fit. I think it's important to spend the time to blend the background into your work, because if you don't, it can really distract from the Mandelbulb 3D scene you've created and perhaps
A little guide on how to use amazingIFS formula on Mandelbulb 3D.
Here is a simple procedure on how to obtain these caracteristic “kleinian” shapes or however they are named with a simple heightmap. This mini tutorial can be done with any other dIFS shapes tough, like SphereIFS, etc.
I've used for this example a very simple grayscale map, filled with neutral grey (RGB 192)
If you don't want to make it or can't, you can download it here: http://sta.sh/0fu5qld142i
Don't forget to add the map to the working folder you have for Mandelbulb 3D!
I've lowered the max. Iterations to 25 in the formula window to speed things a bit up b