Final application

So for my Final application I have decided to make it so it does not repeat itself due to the sound not liking it and it always playing up. I have kept the fading line and also the red on black because I really liked that scheme. Overall I feel this project went well despite a lot of confusion with the coding.

Here is the URL for my application : http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=41651

Development

What I found with the white lines is that when they turned white they became invisible but when they crossed the edge of the screen they still produced a sound and I didn't want that. So I made it that if the line was white it didn't produce a sound which did and didn't work. It worked in the sense that when it was white it didn't play a sound but then once they loop around again it cancels out the new black lines drawn and no sound is produced at all. This is quite a serious problem I need to address before hand in.

Development

I have changed the colour of the line and background and I reckon  it looks pretty cool. I made it so when you click the mouse it draws the line which starts off black and fades to red. I really like the aesthetic it produces and it looks a lot more interesting than just plain black and white.

Development

Now that it was working fairly well, I was tasked to try and make the line fade to white and it was fairly difficult because even when it is white it is still playing sound when it reaches the edge of the screen. I'm going to look into ways of stopping that from happening and also try mixing things up a little with some different colour schemes.

Development

After a some help from Ben I've got what I originally wanted for my app. I was shown that arrays aren't scary and I sort of understand how they work now which is good for me and my project.  It now scrolls along the screen and also makes a sound relative to it's y position once it reaches the edge. I am now a happy man. The line keeps going which is fine for a while but one you do it more than 15 times it can start to get a bit crowded on the screen which is a problem.

Development

I have managed to make it repeat itself and also change colour but I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here. I like the idea of the colours layering up as they go but the whole random colour scheme is a bit of a no go because some of the colours are a bit ugly. I'm happy with where I am now but I know I can take this further and get something even better.

Precedent image

I found an image of a conveyor belt because I thought it represented what I want to achieve very well. Like the conveyor belt I want to have my application move.

Development

I managed to get my line moving along the x axis and the y axis movement is restricted which I kind of like. It is a bit basic at the moment but I think I might make it change colours when it reaches the edge of the screen and I might make them build up over time and create these colourful layers. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do about the sound at this stage but I'll worry about that later.

First Code

I have figured out how to make my mouse draw a line wherever it goes but I am having problems figuring out how to get it to move while my mouse is moving. When I use the commands that I would normally use like x = x+2 it only moves when my mouse is still and only moves one line in that direction. I fear I may have to venture into the realm of arrays.

Initial Ideas

For Project 3 we are tasked to come up with a 'sound shape' that is both interactive and produces sound. For some initial ideas I drew up a couple of quick sketches.

For the first one I thought of having these strings which when you move your mouse over, depending on the speed of your mouse, creates a sound relative to the speed. When the mouse moves over the strings the strings will vibrate.

Another idea which was just a random thought was to have a farm like setting where when you click on each area of the picture, for example the barn you hear an animal sound. This idea is probably my most basic and not very interesting.

Another one was to have different sized balls which when dropped from different heights make different sounds. Large balls would make a low sound while big balls would make a high sound.

The idea that I thought was the coolest was a sort of conveyor like application where you have a line that is constantly moving from left to right and with the mouse you can shape it. When the line passes over the edge of the screen it makes a sound relative to it's y position.

PROJECT 3

Artist Statement

Project 2 – Thomas Martin                                                         Artists shomas Statement

For my interactive mouse toy I decided to look at swarms of insects and how they react to human interaction. My application consists of four dots which when brought close to the mouse pointer move away from it and try to avoid coming into contact, Like how insects flee from your finger for example, my dots do the same thing, but are limited to the screen size. As you get within fleeing range of the dots they change to black dots. When you manage to touch the dots they disappear and then reset randomly on the screen for you to have endless tries. Through my application I wanted to give the user a sense of chase and a sense of almightiness as these tiny harmless dots are chased down and harassed by your mouse pointer.

Final

This is my final application, it is very simple and basic but I think it really gets the point through. I didn't want to go crazy with the colours so I just used black and white as I thought i gave an overall good effect. In the end there were a lot of things I would have liked to do, for example, have many more dots, maybe even over 100 to give that "swarm" effect. Another one I would have liked to do is have them moving on their own when the mouse is not in contact with them which would've given them life almost.It's not until these final few days that I realized how hard this coding is and just how much time is required.

here is a link to my final http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=36312

Array Tutorial

This tutorial came courtesy of DCG Online Training, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4hrQNhPjVI
This was one of the more easier tutorials to follow because all the others were so complex and I just felt like ripping my hair out or banging my head against a brick wall, they are not fun to learn or easy to do.

This was just a basic tutorial on how to get lot's of squares onto the screen and also use arrays. I'm going to try and implement some of what I've learned into my own code but I don't think I will have much luck.

Final experiment

So I have found out how to stop my dot going off the screen and I am a happy man. I am pretty happy with this code and I am going to really work on this for my final and try and get way more dots on the screen.
Here is a picture of it, it probably looks like every other picture of mine on this project.

My tutors suggested I use arrays to put heaps of objects on the screen so I am going to try and get them working, maybe do some tutorials and surf the net for some examples.

Research

Some cool websites I found were these:

http://www.zefrank.com/memory/stringspin/spin_1.html

I like this one because the app is constantly rotating and when you click and drag your mouse it creates a rotating line which when you click the draw button creates these amazing 3D shapes. It is fun to see just how crazy the designs you can make are but it lags up heaps if you do too many lines.


http://neave.com/bouncy-balls/

I like this bouncy ball one because the movements of the balls are very fluid and smooth. It is also very fun to just throw these around and bounce them off the wall.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/page/4/

This website has tonnes of different interactive apps for your iphone/ipad or just the computer and many of them are quite interesting.



Probably my favorite application is the chain curtain where you can drag and rip it with your mouse and it is one of the best interactive apps I've seen. It just has so much interaction and it is really fun to use. You could just sit in class all day and play with this...but it wouldn't get much work done.
This is the link : http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=20140

Here is a picture of the application. It and many others can be found on openprocessing.org.
You really have to try it to understand how fun it is.

More Development

This is another of my development, its a similar version to the others but I changed the background so when you get into the vicinity of the dot it turns black so you can't see it and which makes it harder. I like this but I don't think it really works the best. I think it's a pretty good idea nonethehless.
here is the link to it : http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=36425

I also decided to get another precedent image, one of a cat and a mouse to reinforce that idea of " Cat and Mouse". I wanted to keep this in mind when designing these applications.

Development

This is one of my first goes at my project. It is having A LOT of problems. One problem is, there is only one, but once I get one working right I will be able to apply it to many others hopefully. Another problem is that when you chase the dot away, once it gets to the edge of the screen, it doesn't stop...I am yet to build some kind of barrier to stop those pesky dots from running away from me. It is taking a LONG time to get this working and it is beginning to hurt my head haha.
here is the link for this one: http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=36426

Tutorials

This is a tutorial that we did in class. It is an app where when you move the mouse it drags the ball. It's simple but very cool. If I could somehow reverse the code I could make my dots get repelled like I had planned.
Here is a picture of the tutorial:

What I also want to look at in the future is adding more dots but I really have to get just one working first before I start adding more.

Precedent Images

I have chosen to go with my first idea which was the "Fleeing object", the thing that runs from the mouse pointer. It is a simple concept but it has a lot of potential and I think I can pull it off pretty well.

Since it reminded me of an insect I decided to get images of swarms of insects. As you approach them with your finger they scatter as if there is some sort of invisible barrier around your finger. That is something I want to achieve from the images. The same with the school of fish, as the diver swims near the fish, they generally scatter and swim off. The image with the fish shows a really good example of the "invisible barrier" as the fish are circling the diver but keeping a certain distance away.

Project 3

For Project 3 we have to make some sort of interactive mouse toy, an interactive application.

Some initial ideas I had was to have some sort of thing which you chase with the mouse pointer and as you get close to it, it runs away, almost like insects running away when you get near or a cat and mouse type thing.

Another one was like how the keys on a virtual keyboard expand when you press them. I thought instead of pressing them you could run your mouse over it to make them pop out.

Another one was having vertical lines down the screen which bend away from your mouse pointer as it gets close. It would be like there is an invisible barrier around the pointer. This one might be a bit tricky to do though.

Final Eight Sketches

These are my Final eight images which I have produced by only using intersecting ellipses.

Some research for Final

 
So for my Final patterns, I decided to look at some existing intersecting circle patterns and see how they match up to my own. The first one I loved because these simple circles were arranged in a particular way to give this stunning flower pattern. If one of the circles were off then the whole pattern would be ruined .








This picture is a classic one, the three colours intersecting to create other colours. I like this one because it shows what the two colours would produce if they were combined. I could easily use this in my own designs by mixing two colours or playing with the transparency to give different levels of one colour. There are so many possibilities for these designs that the ideas are just endless.

Favourite sketch

This is probably one of my favourite sketches I have done so far. What I like about it is that all of these intersecting circles create this amazing, all most web like structure. It's hard to believe that just a simple circle if multiplied can create these beautiful designs. I will use this as my base code for my final eight sketches and just work on the random aspects and also the intersecting circles.

Some Class Experimentation

 These are two of the examples that were done in class. This one on the right had increasing circles which came from the top left corner and as the sketch went on the screen slowly turned to red so the lines were'nt visible. I could use this feature in my final possibly. I liked the fact that it wasn't just stationary like most of the other sketches but it had movement.

This Picture shows another example done in class but this one looked at noise and the patterns it can make. I found this one interesting because each time you restarted the sketch you got these unique patterns and even through the slightest change in numbers, you can get vastly different results.

More Experimentation

 For the first picture I worked on the same code as the previous one but tweaked it a bit and it still kept the same main pattern but it was more darker and dense on the top than it was evenly spread like the other one.

For the the second picture I decided to try out circles so I created two ellipses exactly the same but slighty off from eachother. I used the random feature again with the positioning and colour of the circles. It turned out pretty good but it can be improved.

The third one I used the the previous code but instead of having two ellipses, I had five, all evenly spaced from eachother. As they scattered across the screen they were being produced at random scales, colours and positions. This result is much better than the previous one.

These next images were just experiments using the mouse click function so my shapes chaged colour as they appeared on the screen but I found that it wasn't very cool or pretty overall.

This last image was created by lengthening the width of the ellipses just to give a different effect. I thought it worked quite well and may incorporate this technique later on in the project.



Experimentation

So for the first couple of studios the class looked at basically learning the ropes of the processing program. Here are a picture from the processing I made.

This one I really liked because it was one of my first

goes at playing with the random feature and by tweaking it I produced this pattern which built up over time which I thought was really awesome looking. I found that keeping it in one colour was better because having red, blue and green all in the one pattern made it look pretty ugly.

Processing Test

here is one of my first attempts at using the processing program

Final Algirithim

My final algirithim is as follows:

Algirithim:
Circle - 5cm diameter
move right 2.5cm
repeat x12


Repetition:
move down 5cm
repeat x6

Every second circle will be solid black and the transparency of the circles changes as it gets further across the page

Final Pattern

This is my final , I decided to make the pattern go from light to dark and transparent to non-transparent which I thought worked well. The algirithm for this design will be posted in the next post.

Initial Drawings

Here were some initial drawings I did just to find out what worked and what didn't. I found that circles, when they intersect create some amazing patterns within eachother. I will experiment with resizing, and making the circles transparent for my final one.

Initial inspiration

Here are some pictures I found on Google images that interested me, I looked at tesselating patterns and also designs made as a result of a spirograph which I thought looked amazing. My favourite picture is the second one because they used a series of circles that intersect to create a range of different shapes and that is something that I would like to try working with.