The video explains most of the process. And it’s a couple of months old now but I keep forgetting to add it here. So here it is.
Also there are images in the details post.
pings from the void
· ) -) –) —) —-) ——) ———) ————–) ——————–)
Vector Image Fields
Been busy. But there’s always time for PONG.
I finally had a weekend off so I put together this face tracking PONG demo using openCV. It’s just like the original PONG. But. With. Your. Face. There should be a nice HD version at Vimeo. I try to explain what’s happening in the video so watch it to hear what’s going on. Strangely enough keeping composed while trying to smack cubes with your face is a little tricky.
March was insane. I got back home and the next day was the first class of the year. And I haven’t stopped. Every project I was working on came to a grinding halt. Which was a little annoying. But there is great stuff coming down the line that I’m looking forward to getting out there. GFSGames has their first lot of 3rd years and they are awesome.
But next week is the mid term break so it’s scramble to get ahead time. No rest for the wicked or the convenor.
MattD
New Year, New Library
As part of getting ready for my new job, I’m in the process of publishing a lot of the common code that I’ve been using over the years and I thought why not start a collection. And so the very humble and small PolymonkeyLibs begins.
Details »
When in doubt add more polys
Tessellate test on Evolving Geometry from matt ditton on Vimeo.
More tests, this time on the effect of tessellation on the geometry. Thanks for JohnK for the idea. I quite like low-fi polygons. But seeing the higher res version is quite nice. The full description is on the vimeo page.
Evolving Geometry. Or what I did with my Sunday.
Evolving Geometry from matt ditton on Vimeo.
For my first attempt at making a genetic algorithm, is there any better subject than the Mona Lisa and some random dude from google image search?
The premise is simple. By randomly changing the color, position and diagonal edge direction of a grid of polygons can you turn it into the target image.
All written in Processing, the grid draws to a PGraphic on every change and a fitness test is done against the target image. If the fitness is better than or equal the change is kept. If not, it’s reverted. Keeping the equal-to in the test causes that crazy vertex movement in the lower image, so that bugs going.
The left image is the grid with vertex colour, the right is the target and the middle is the wireframe of the polygons. The number is the fitness. The lower the number the closer tobeing an exact match.
This is the slowed down version for making a video. I’ve got it running in a thread and it’s stupid fast. But because I’m drawing in the thread I’m getting colour sync errors in the main draw thread. It works fast but the flashing colours get pretty distracting.
Inspiration for this work has to go to Karl Sims and Roger Alsing. They are the giants, I’m just standing here.
Processing vs. Unity
Recently I’ve been using Unity3D. And I’m impressed. I’ve been working in game engines for about a decade and I’ve never encountered one that is so easy to use. It’s got basically everything you need, integrated with any package you’d want to use, and you can get a license for $200. That is amazing.
Because I’m also teaching it I’ve been putting together a bit of reference material about it. The first one is a Processing vs. Unity document. It covers some of the syntax differences between UnityScript (a Mono run version of JavaScript) and Processing (well it’s Java under the hood). and here it is..
Processing SBS and HD
SBS ONE, First Australians from matt ditton on Vimeo.
I’ve posted a version of the processing SBS work to vimeo. You can watch it in all it’s HD glory.
So like, what happened to Matt?
Over the last few months I’ve been working on a number of projects that are slowly getting to a stage where I can talk about them. In the coming weeks I’ll be updating the site and writing up some details on all of them. But as a teaser.
One of the big one’s was work that I did for Qube Konstrukt. Qube was after something different while they worked for SBS ONE and SBS TWO. So enter Processing and that Generative “look”. As luck would have it they called me up, had a chat and hit the ground running making cool stuff.
There are few projects that I’ve worked on that have been so rewarding. It was a dream to work on, and Qube are flat out awesome. And now the output is slowly making it’s way into the world. To begin with SBS has posted a (badly compressed) selection of their new station id’s to their facebook page. You can see them here.
The first two are from Qube, the next two are by Mighty Nice and the last three are from Iloura. Amazing stuff all round. The sound reactive particle system in the first one (the red one) is mine.
GCAP 2008 – And now my talk
Some wonderful people posted the entire talk on you tube. That’s brilliant I was told no one got it. So here it is…
My screen is full of lines
More videos of stuff I’m working on at the moment. This time vector forces and particle collision are sitting on my mind.
Vector Force System from matt ditton on Vimeo.