in two different areas. The first is in the interactions between
the touch screen interface and a visual that is being manipulated.
In this example I show four different touch controls working in
tandem to control a simplistic Fly Swarm visual plug-in. The
graphics in this case are very simplistic - the more important
aspect of this test is the interaction that is accomplished.
The four elements that make this work are:
Enable Toggle:
- used to completely enable/disable the visual
New Fly Trigger:
- used to create a new fly with the current slider settings
Size Slider:
- used to specify a ceiling for the fly size
Color Picker:
- used to specify the fly's body color
Each of these controls can be used simultaneously / independently
from one another.
I am pleased with these results - but the interaction needs to be,
linked to a visual with more sophistication.
The second portion of the video looks at an investigation that I
have done to modify an existing generative fish visual written
in the same technology as my project: koi fish pond
This processing "sketch" example seemed to fit my needs well.
With some modification - I can use this example and apply it
to my interactive visual plug-in - just like the fly example.
Before beginning this process, I began experimenting with
changing the graphics of the fish. For my visual - I prefer
fish swimming side to side, as opposed to a top-down view.
I create a series of new fish "skins" using open source
images of fish from a textbook. This seemed to work nicely.
Second - I took this a little further and separated a layer
to allow the fins, lips, spots, etc of the fish to be tinted a
separate color from the main body of the fish. Now in the
sketch I adapted the way the fish are painted by including
a desaturated layer for the body and the fins layer. I select
two random colors for each fish which is applied as a tint to
the desaturated layers, and painted body first, fins layer second.
You get some funky color combos with a complete rgb random,
but in the plug-in application of this visual, the user will be able
to select more fine tuned color ranges for these elements using
a few color picker touch controls on the surface.
Next steps, of course, are to do this integration work, and also
add constraints on some other parameters of the visual - such
as a central point for the fish to swim around, the ability to
select a background image or another generative element, etc.
Blog 09 - Phishtyxx from Aaron Lieb on Vimeo.
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