I’d love to have the time to test the various effects for Reptile. I began prototyping a rotated cells demo. I flipped the pixel paths (well technically they’re not individual pixels cause they’re actually 4×4 pixels wide, but for simplicity I call them pixels) four ways and recorded the generated images to a queue 20 frames long. Unfortunately it began slowing down to unacceptable rates and I decided to let it go and wait for the end of semester to start the code from scratch and build it almost entirely in objective-c. The other two pieces need a lot more work to get them to the same standard, so its probably for the best that my code is hitting the performance wall.

As a consolation, attached are some unadulterated high-res images [1] [2].

If I get a chance I will come back to add some polish to the piece for assessment, ie fade-in fade-out, tone down the flat colour squares etc…

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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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I feel this idea holds the most potential to create interesting complex dynamic patterns. So now I am going to implement it.

Mechanics:

• How will cells maintain old frames?
  • the last n generated frames will be maintained in memory.
  • each cell will hold a variable that determines which frame it displays, eg. current frame – 5.
• What frame will a cell display? Either:
  • When the mouse runs through a cell, that cell will display the latest frame. As time passes the cell will begin to decay and show older frames until it hits the last frame and then fade out (or blur out).
  • or use the existing “distances” table as the indices into the frames list (this is the cheapest so it will be prototyped first).
• Notes:
  • next: if the mouse moves through cells quickly, the cells could spin?

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I want to break away from from the grid structure I’ve been using so far and explore some more free-form and dynamic arrangements of the cells. The images below were doctored in Photoshop to demonstrate the various ideas as cheap as possible.

• The cells could be rearranged and dynamically resized, snapping to the nearest cell size multiple. However this exposes the pixelation.
• The cells could be rotated.
• The cells could have some form of permanence so that some frames will stay on screen for a period of time.
• Opacity could be applied to individual cells.
• Or the cells could be blurred.
• or any combination of the above… which I’ll leave to your imagination.

There would also be numerous animated options that I will attempt after this iteration.

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I hooked up the kick to the distance from the coloured circles and it gives a real sense of tension. So I’ve named this piece High Voltage.

I also add a trail to the player’s movement so it gives a greater sense of exploration by showing where you’ve been. Furthermore, it fits the old skool style, tonar! haha

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It is very simple. The player controls the movement of the white dot, and the player’s distance to the fixed coloured circles controls the music in various ways. Essentially, you get to explore the space.

I dropped the fill out of the circles as shown in the second image so as to better distinguish between player and environmental objects. I’d like to see other features in there affecting the music – like clouds floating above the environment that the player can stand underneath to further affect the sound. Because the coloured circles have fixed locations you don’t have the ability to layer the effects on the sound, other than to stand near two of them. Moving objects give more variability.

video recording to come…

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During the development of PixelMaker I found that the experience falls flat when the mechanics of the piece are completely exposed. It makes for a nice tool, but I’m not looking to make Photoshop. So I don’t want to give the user complete control for the sound generator either. I think Electroplankton faced an uphill battle in the marketplace because its fails to provide a depth of motivation for play. I don’t want to get into it here, as its a shame it didn’t succeed, but in terms of a game, Electroplankton fails to insight player motivation. I like to provide motivation for players to experience the piece. I think the quintessential exploration mechanic of adventure games fits the style of play, so I am going to pursue this avenue further for the music generator.

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While the PixelMaker is coming along well I need to make three pieces for assessment. I started mucking around in Impromptu looking for something to spark my interest. I played with Core Image filters and they are very cool! I am quite impressed by the tools OS X ships with!

Ok so obviously the Minx and I had fun with the webcam and the filters… hehe but it looks waaaay to Photoshop. However I do like CIShadedMaterial, and while it could look really tacky I thought by hue adjusting the orb and using the right shapes it could make some pretty cool looking droplets and so forth. Anyway, I’m stuck in Impromptu with the CIShadedMaterial, its the only filter I can’t get to work! I tried using it ages ago when I started using the filters with the webcam and still no luck. But I’ll persevere…

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I created my first musical recording using the Crystal Audio Unit and Impromptu [download it].

I coded the piece so that all the instruments sync to the same beat (albeit a fairly chaotic beat), and I feel it restricts the sound. However, I like the mid bass sound that wanders on a sin wave and I want to keep that, I also like the kick drum. A fast beating kick has impact, I like that and want to use it again.

I don’t like the randomness of it, particularly how the piece never returns to the same bar. I generated the piece in code, and manually turned things on and off. I’m not sure how much more fun it would be if it was in an interface…

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I could create a music generator for each instrument in the piece and let the user hold the instrument on a generated bar it plays one they like. So the instrument would generate a bar of music, play it, generate a new one play it and on goes the cycle, however while playing a bar the user could choose to stop the generator on that bar and loop on that bar. The user can then do this for each instrument.

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