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.