Thanks to impromptu constructing the beautiful reptile skin was very simple. The reptile skin was not an intended destination, it just happens to be one I’m happy to settle for assessment. Because of its current form, I’ve decided to retrospectively name this project Reptile. Hence all PixelMaker posts have been moved into the Reptile category.

Reptile works by displaying storing the last 20 generated frames and displaying them in the cells according to the cell’s distance from the mouse input. A cell far from the mouse will display a frame many frames old. As you drag the mouse across the canvas, the canvas updates. When you stop moving, it stops generating and those idle frames are recorded as flat colours. When you start moving again the flat colours fill the screen as the canvas begins to draw the last x frames into the cells.

I like the canvas level pattern (the whole image), even with flat colours interspersed in amongst the generated cells, but I don’t like how the current input mechanics encourages you to run through patterns without stopping to appreciate them. In fact you are punished for stopping, because once you start moving again the flat colours fill your screen. I’d like to give more control back to the user so that you can craft the image instead of just watching it. At the moment it almost feels like moving the mouse cranks the projector so you can watch the film.

I’d like to see the mouse having a more obvious effect on the canvas too. I liked the turbulence of the original Photoshop mockup that was created by the randomly selected frames for each cell. In the current version the distance to the mouse is used and so a cell is never more than one frame off its neighbour, creating wave like effects. Both create interesting patterns, and at the moment I am imagining it in full screen with areas of turbulence, wave like forms and other effects from the other Photoshop mockups all controlled with mouse gestures. Hopefully I will have the time to construct this…

Another recording can be found [here]

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