to my friends...

i say this. i will not play WOW, but i might play this:

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

friggin hell.

Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo.

why can't i do that?

opening night...

group collaboration:

not that impressed, at all:

my piece set up and working:

whilst they play war...

i will start working on next years project.
some of us don't get command and conquer.

...and i'm sure i'm meant to have a break at some point. *sigh*

LINKS!
*gosh*

blast theory
eyebeam
ARS Electronica
article on we love technology, as the site is currently down.
waldemeyer


books i need to remember:
responsive environments
4Dsocial
the fundamentals of digital art

i could note all this down somewhere or simply send myself an email but i'll only end up loosing it all.

NXTing.

mmm... dirty keyboard.
i have been playing more with the NXT brick, and lo and behold i have a video of my interactive piece in action:



it's reacting to luke making "pop" noises. and general discussion of the effects of a black hole.

i'm stalking your ass.

with this piece of AWESOME.



there's all these pleasing graphs, 60% of my visitors are on dirty PCs, and 40% are using dirty internet explorer, and two were on dirty dial-up. people spend an average of 33 seconds on here, someone stayed on for a whopping 1 minute 45 seconds!! i don't know what bounce rate is but there's a hell of a lot of it. the amount of visitors coming off google matches those coming off magnetic north. i've had 54 visitors, and most of them are noobs.

so yeah, i know you're there, and i know what version of flash you've got installed.
it's making me a bit power mad.

one can't help but think...

if only i was at this stage a few weeks ago, maybe everything would run more smoothly and i wouldn't be stressing my arse off.
but that's not how things have worked out so lets go on with it anyway.

i have now started playing with the Lego NXT brick, using it to input data from it's microphone via bluetooth to processing. it's working great and everyone sitting near me is enjoying having an excuse to make loud noises. i wanted to play with the NXT brick from week one but in hindsight it probably would have been a bit too complex at such an early stage, but it could have informed my ideas a bit more. i did go off on one a bit, as i was unsure of what code i would actually need to use but oh well. the important thing is i'm LEARNING!!

i've also been working on the actual images that will be showing off what the code does. i'm not the most skilled illustrator in the world so i've just embraced this fact and made them doodle-ish.

look:






after the doodling came the illustratoring. although i would have liked to have drawn all the paths myself, using my drawings as guides, i just don't have the time for that much faffage, so instead reverted to the old evil that is livetrace. i feel a bit dirty now but i have images to use. after some whinging someone who will remain un-named managed to persuade me into using livepaint which was PAP. made me waste precious, precious time. so i did most of the colouring in with paths...



tedious.
but it works.
illustrator is defiantly one of those programs i don't fully comprehend.

progress this week

or since i last blogged really.

more testy sketchy things:

blossom_test_020 - after some trouble shooting with anna, realizing that it was a rouge semi-colon that messed up my pushMatrix / popMatrix.

blossom_test_021 - trying once again to get my head around rotate script, which as it turns out isn't as simple as i thought it was going to be. as it uses radians, instead of nice easy degrees.

blossom_test_022 - using different coloured flowers to see exactly what is going on in this script.

blossom_test_023 - looking at how changing the order of translate and rotate affects the code.

and i've also been playing with animation:

blossom_ani_001 - animating a flower moving left to right across the screen.

blossom_ani_002 - trying to use a sequence of images to create an animation. DOESN'T WORK.

blossom_ani_003 - animation increasing opacity. doesn't work.

blossom_ani_004 - trying to use GIFs instead of SVGs, to see if the problem is with the file type. works, kindof.

blossom_ani_005 - animation increasing opacity. trying GIF. working!!!

blossom_ani_006 - trying to use a different piece of code to import and display images, but doesn't like that line again!!!!

blossom_ani_007 - rotate animation script (wish i found this a couple of days ago!!!) works fine with GIF, might try with SVG.

i'm having some problems though. i've been using SVGs throughout my experiements as they're all nice and scalable, but i can't get some of the animation codes to work with SVGs, so i've had to start using GIFs aswell. which is annoying. hopefully this will be sorted for my final piece.

i've also made a prototype of what i want my final piece to be like. it's very basic, instead of being controlled by decibels it's controlled by keyboard controls: q, w, e, r, t. i was going to make it qwerty but t was pretty finalish. you might have to hold down the keys for a little while before some flowers start to appear.

CLICKY!

it's pretty basic, but my code is developing. i'm seperating everything up with pushMatrix and popMatrix, and discovering what i end up with if i put in stupid numbers. some of the movement such as what happens when you press q is pretty much how i want it, i just need to bring in the right imagery. some other keys need a bit more work though.

the applet is a little tempermental so be patient!

plans plans plans

bits of code i need to mush together into a prototype of a final piece:

blossom_test_010 - trying to change the number of flowers that appear depending on which key is pressed.

blossom_test_011 - trying to make the background change colour with the increasing number of flowers.

blossom_test_014 - using translate to change placement of SVG.

blossom_test_015 - using the translate and random functions together.

blossom_test_020 - after some trouble shooting with anna, realizing that it was a rouge semi-colon that messed up my pushMatrix / popMatrix.

might make it in if i get time / a miracle:

blossom_test_023 - looking at how changing the order of translate and rotate affects the code.

animating the SVGs.

what else i need to learn:

NXT controls, probably just the microphone.

progress

i hit another stumbling block today. as it turns out, rotating objects in processing isn't as simple as one first thought. i thought it would be a simple case of using degrees, but instead processing uses this weirdness called "radians". which i can't remember learning all those years ago.

after some blank staring as several people tried to explain to me what they were, which involves those little weird sin, cos and tan buttons on fancy calculators, i eventually found something that made some kind of sense to me on wikipedia.



god bless you wikipedia.

i also found a nice script in processing that converts degrees into radians, which is nice.

and i created a little program to see how it all works. here is a pretty flower circle.



once again, i have been thwarted by assuming that things will be relatively simple. i'm getting my head around it, now i just need to get all the code i've been working on into one piece which will achieve what i want, which is mostly prettiness.

since...

i don't have the time to export and put on my site every experiment i've made since tinkering around with processing, instead here is a list of the bits i've played with, not working from tutorials but instead trying to add on little bits of code where i can, and seeing what i can get to work.

the bits that refuse to work are highlighted as i need to remember i need to tackle them.


blossom_test_001 - importing SVG, and using a varialbe to determine how many flowers appear.

blossom_test_002 - spreading the flowers across the screen, playing with variables and using delay for the first time.

blossom_test_003 - attempt no.1 to import more than one SVG, and another attempt to control frame rate. now refreshes with mouse click.

blossom_test_004 - attempt to keep piece animated until mouse clicked. left mouse button stops animation, right restarts it.

blossom_test_005 - attempt to control which flowers appear using keyboard - doesn't work. - FIXED

blossom_test_006 - attempt number two to get the keyboard script working. brings up blue flower when 'b' key is pressed.

blossom_test_007 - attempt number three with the keyboard script. trying to get the purple flower to work aswell.

blossom_test_008 - attempt to make a flower appear where ever the mouse does.

blossom_test_009 - attempt to make a bunch of pretty little flowers chase the mouse.

blossom_test_010 - trying to change the number of flowers that appear depending on which key is pressed.

blossom_test_011 - trying to make the background change colour with the increasing number of flowers.

blossom_test_012 - seeing how easy it is to implement noise function. it's pap. not sure how to get it working.

blossom_test_013 - seeing how easy it is to implement noiseSeed function. it's pap. not sure how to get it working.

blossom_test_014 - using translate to change placement of SVG.

blossom_test_015 - using the translate and random functions together.

blossom_test_016 - testing out the pushMatrix and popMatrix commands, to control what is affected by the translate function. seems to work ok with the blue flower, but appears to affect the variable controlling the purple flower.

blossom_test_017 - trying out the pushMatirx and popMatrix commands with using variables in the code. trying to see how it works.

blossom_test_018 - trying out the pushMatirx and popMatrix commands with using variables in the code. trying to see how it works. it seems with a pushMatrix and popMatrix around the blue flower, it cancels out the variable on the purple flower, even though it should mean that the code for the blue flower should have no affect on the purple flower.

blossom_test_019 - first attempt with fancy rotate script.


although i've spent all this time tinkering away, and i feel like i'm getting my head round it, there are parts where i don't understand why it isn't working, it just doesn't behave in the way i expect it to. i think most of this will work itself out over time, but with only 18 days till the deadline there isn't much left.

i can see the bits that i need to use to make what i want to make, and i'm pretty sure i know how to put them together, but then something unexpectedly doesn't work and fudges everything up! i'm getting very frustrated with it.

i don't think i'm going to bother trying to get the noise function to work at this stage. it might produce some interesting results but i think i'll be able to create something i like if i can get the rotate, translate and random scripts working how i want them to.

my main focus over the next couple of days is going to be coming up with some hand drawn visuals using nice things like ink and brushes and pencils. i've tinkered in illustrator but there's no real spark there at the moment, and while the code definately needs work, if i don't work on the visuals as well it will end up looking pap anyway!

stress stress stress stress.

flora n fauna.

i took photos, of all sorts of pretty plants that live in my mothers garden.
you can see them all here.

actually getting along with processing

after some more tinkering away with the code, i finally feel like i'm getting somewhere with it, and that it's all starting to make sense! which is nice.

i've successfully managed to import more than one SVG and print it onto the screen, so now i'm starting to play with variables and other functions, some which control the frame rate like delay, and Loop. I've also been looking into mouse and keyboard inputs, using the mouse to refresh the image and stop and start the animation, and the keyboard to control which flowers appear. here's pretty much what i'm producing with my code experiments at the moment:



all the code i've written makes images like this one, all it does is import two SVGs and put them in random places. i've just been experimenting with different ways of getting the program to run.

now that i feel like i'm getting the hang of the code, i think i need to concentrate more on how i want the images to look, and what inputs of going to use, and how i can represent the data.

trying to get along with processing.

i don't seem to be getting parts of the programming language, although it's similar to actionscript and javascript in places (both of which i can just about get along with), in others it becomes too mathy and my brain refuses to compute it. i think the reason i get on with HTML and CSS so well is because it resembles english, i can easily translate it into sentences. as soon as my brain sees numbers, it just yells "NO!!! NOT WORDS!" and there's white noise in my head.

of course i'm determined to get over this, and whilst it involves spending much of my time staring at the code trying to figure out just exactly what i'm doing wrong, i'm starting to feel like i'm getting somewhere.

in my little experiments in the past couple of weeks i've managed to messily mash two bits of code i found together, one which generated random rectangles and another which imported SVG images, to create a piece of code that randomly placed the SVG on the screen. and after a bit of help it now has a variable which draws the SVG more than once.





keep in mind that these are just tests! i'll be creating some nicer SVGs over the coming weeks.

i'm no longer attempting to use the SVG script i mentioned in an earlier post, as it just doesn't seem to work for me! so i'm instead using candy, which allows fancy things like fills and shapes, and is actually built into the latest release of processing.

my next serious of faffage, or rather experiments, is going to include playing with varibles, including more than one SVG file and creating some kind of background. maybe. and taking more photos of pretty flowers and making them into pretty SVGs.

SVG in processing

since i love the look of Joshua Davis' work so much, i've been pointed in the direction of importing SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics or illustrator files to those slightly less geeky peeps). which will hopefully mean that i'll be able to create some elements in illustrator, and then import them into processing to create random pretty imagery.

my searching has found this little import script, which allows you to import SVG's made of paths. fancy things like fills and ellipses don't work at the moment. the script was used to create the elements that make up the creatures in this little program called manifest.

and now, i must faff with it.

all kinds of AWESOME.

i've been flitting around the place and found some cool stuff, most of which has been nicked from pixelsumo, but it's cool none the less.

started off looking around the processing blogs, seeing more of what's possible (it seems asking what isn't possible with processing would be the easier option). and found some nice videos:


Traffic Sketch 2 from Mark Chadwick on Vimeo.

and some nice images:


(real life sculpture, but pretty as hell. by tsa works)


(by David Muth)

i also looked into how people used processing to hack existing hardware, such as this hack by Daniel Shiffman, who has hacked a LED tile which is pretty mesmerizing. And here he' controlling a program made in processing, by calling it on his phone:

Calling Processing again from shiffman on Vimeo.


blinks and buttons is a project using processing (and mobile processing) and the flickr API. they've made a table with a screen full of photos, which then projects photos taken at the same time along the side through a glass stone. And a camera which takes other peoples photos. You simply press the shutter button at the moment you want to remember, and the camera contacts flickr which then sends you a photo taken by someone else at the same time. which is a nice idea methinks.

nothing to do with processing but when i found it i thought it was just that clever that i had to post it. here marc owen has created an avatar machine, which lets you walk around in real life viewing yourself as you would view an avatar.

so steve doesn't beat me up

he threatened me and everything.

river of cars

i like blossom.

working, working, working, working.

probs for teh website.

fio is on her hols.

one has been playing far too much guitar hero, mario galaxy and FF7.
i have access to so many games and consoles here, it's GOOD.
the internet is a bit pap though.

I've started working on the second CSS sheet for my site, as well as trying to find out how to set up my own web cam feed. i can't seem to find much really useful information about setting up a web cam feed, i've downloaded several programs but have no idea how to get the feed onto my site. more research needed methinks.

here is what it looks like so far:


needs ALOT more work, just hoping that my CSS swappy code works fine in the end. need to think of more patterns to use. at first i was going to go with something a bit floral, inspired by this pretty tree in the backgarden, but decided to go with pink cubes of doom.



not much is different from the original CSS sheet really, still need to work on the fonts and links.

i've also been reading this REALLY big book.



for my final major project i want to do something with processing, at the moment i'm still trying to find out what's possible (it's seems that almost anything is really). i'm just hoping i'm not biting off more than i can chew.

workage.

here's what the home page now looks like:

i've decided to go with a 2d illustrator kokeshi instead of a 3D one, mainly to save on time. i've also decided to make a different kokeshi for each different CSS layout, as well as changing the site logo, background, and any other elements that i can faff around with. there's also going to be a sad robot next to my flickr feed, but i've yet to make him.

and here are the info and play sections of the site:



same basic CSS, just different backgrounds. the info section is going to hold a lot more than it currently does, still thinking about what i'm going to put in there. and the play section is basically going to be a list with some small thumbnails of random things i've made for the heck of it, and as it says, there's nothing to put up there just yet.