Uncategorized – Page 2 – [OLD – FALL 2016] 15-104 • COMPUTING for CREATIVE PRACTICE

mreyes-lookingOutwards-12

ELIZA, Joseph Weizenbaum, 1964 to 1966,

ELIZA was essentially the first artificial companion computer program. Weizenbaum created ELIZA to act as an artificial therapist setting up the program to have certain rules to apply to certain phrases so that the program responds in a way that appears natural and human. Weizenbaum claims that his intent with ELIZA was to create a parody of “the responses of a non-directional psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview”.

Mountain, David OReily, 2014

Mountain is a “mountain simulator”/”relax em up” game. The only controls the player has in the game is to shift the camera and the rest of the gameplay is simply watching what happens to the mountain in the center of the screen. While there are many varying opinions on the game, critics often compliment its ability to invoke a stroke emotional response from players about this inanimate object.

What I admire about both these projects is there experimentation with emotional human response and the questioning the concept of caring. However, they do this in two very diffrent ways. ELIZA is mimicking and commenting on real life (more specifically a failed mental health system). Weizenbaum was actually disturbed by the response that ELIZA was considered “alive” by many people. ELIZA brings up questions of sincerity and the player’s need for a caretaker. While Mountain is actually cultivating an experience that unlike what the player has experienced in either real life or a video game. Mountain challenges the current definition of games and also the “active” role of a player.

mdambruc LookingOutwards-12

Fez, created by Phil Fish 2012

Trailer for Fez

The first project is the game Fez, created by Phil Fish. The character in this game lives in a 2D world but one day finds that he has the power to explore a 3D world. This video game is more focused on the beautiful pixel art graphics he has created. It is more of a “stop and smell the flowers” game, as opposed to just quickly trying to get through levels. I really appreciate the general aesthetic of this game and will be inspired by his use of graphics in my own interactive game, by using pixel art. This game notoriously took 5 years to be completely created, which frustrated many gamers that wanted to play the game. I appreciate Fish’s dedication to his work and the standards he has for himself – due to him recreating the game 3 times in order for it to be perfect.

Compared to Fez, the game Persist by adventure islands (created in 2013), is much simpler. However, they are both still utilizing platforms and are centered around the journey of a character. However I do enjoy the use of simple graphics to convey space. I chose Persist by adventure islands because I thought it was a simple game that i could base my own interactive game off of. Using basic key controls to navigate the player as well as a restarting system that returned the player to the beginning of the game if killed, I chose this game because those attributes are very similar to what I want to replicate in my own game. In Persist they could have overlooked having the levels be a bit more different from each other, however I do enjoy the use of a narrative they provide.

http://gamejolt.com/games/persist/15556#close

playable game of persist.

Liu Xiangqi-Looking Outwards 12

The first project I found interesting is “On Broadway” by Lev Manovich. In this project, he trying to analyze and present a city by collecting data from new media Instagram, Foursquare, Twitter, and from traditional indicators taxi and income. What interests me most is how he compressed a 3-D city into one single string(a street, Broadway), and by analyzing those aggregation of data, he found a clear division between city upper 110th street and below. This is a video.

The second project I admire is Phototrail by Nadav Hochman, Lev Manovich and Jay Chow. In this project, they collect data directly from photos uploaded to Instagram by people in different cities. Multiple grams are used to correlate the attributes of photos and other factors. For example, they used radicals to organize the images by their visual attribute (hue, brightness, texture, etc.) and by when and where they were taken. One parameter decides the angle; another parameter controls the radius (how far a photo is from the center).

mdambruc Final-Project-Proposal

For my final project, I want to create an interactive game. My concept for the game is to have a koala character that is trying to reach the top of a tree. Along the way, he faces a few difficulties such as other koalas and rocks that the koala has to jump over to dodge. The game will be moving upwards and as the koala progresses the player is rewarded with facts about koalas. I want to be able to use the directional keys on the keyboard for the player to use this game. I also might want to experiment with creating pixel art for the background of the game. I was inspired to create this based off of this video.

Because of this video, I will also be putting koala sounds into the game. Here is a quick sketch of general setup of game. The tree would be vertical in the actual game.

Looking Outwards 12: Sound Calligraphy/Lyrical Wrap

For the final Looking Outwards post, I decided to compare the projects of artists Ulla Rauter‘s “Sound Calligraphy” and Ronald Pellegrino‘s “Lyrical Wrap.”

Ulla Rauter is a artist and musician whose works focus on the intersection of fine art and sound. Rauter’s “Sound Calligraphy” explores the relationship between script and sound. In a live performance, Rauter draws calligraphic forms, which is then translated into sound through a scanner that employs camera and computer technology; in other words, she is essentially exploring how to draw/write sound. It appears that she attempts to draw certain words (i.e. “somebody”) as shown by the words on the upper right-hand corner, but I am unsure how they correlate to the line marks she makes in her calligraphy. Before watching the performance video, I expected her to write words on the scanner and have them translate into sound.

Sound Calligraphy from Ulla Rauter on Vimeo.

Ronald Pellegrino is an artist that has been involved in intersecting sound and light through electronic art since its inception. His work “Lyrical Wrap” combines five decades of his work in electronic arts into a piece that pairs sound with abstract grids, lines, and various shapes that constantly change. I kind of like how the piece gives off a mysterious air, mostly due to the eerie sounds and accompanying holographic visuals. It makes the viewer feel like they are in some kind of weird dream. Pellegrino has a variety of similar videos, which can all be accessed through his Vimeo channel.

Lyrical Wrap from Ronald Pellegrino on Vimeo.

mreyes-Project Proposal – chat bot

In another class I am making a suriel virtual pet type game using the p5.play library. What I am currently working on is for the “pet” to have needs witch you have to cater to and the pet responds depending on how you interact with it (such as getting board, and a button to click that allows you to play with it). I would like to expand on this current project by allowing the player to talk to the pet and based on the sound levels in the player’s voice the pet will respond in a diffrent way. Additionally I would like to have a sound/ vocab bank of things the pet can say witch progressively gets more sophisticated the more you talk to it (similar to a furby).

I have only ever tested the mic function using the P5 text editor. It might not be able to work using sublime or index even when the terminal is edited. This means it would require the person grading it to download the P5 text editor and play with it that way.

Here is what the program currently looks like. I will try to post the code itself once it is more refined.

screen-shot-2016-11-17-at-4-04-09-pm

Final Project Proposal

For my final project, I am intending to make some kind of game/interactive particle system. I have a few inspirations that I discussed in my looking outwards for this week. I want to have particles move towards a cursor controlled by the mouse, making the user have to avoid the particles for as long as possible to avoid ending the game. I have a number of code examples from past notes, assignments, and labs that I can pull from, combine, and finally use as a template to start my project. These examples range from Flock, to Mouse Particles, Generative Landscape, Jitter Points, Phyllotactic Spiral, and Animation step to circle. My biggest hopes are that I can create a meaningful representation and relation to the particles that appear as well as making more complex elements of game structure functional (such as points, levels, etc.)

Looking Outwards 12: Project Priors and Precursors

There are two inspirations for my project. The first is one of my favorite game apps from 2010, Tilt to Live, and the second is a visualization of immigration lobbies.

The game app Tilt to Live, developed by One Man Left Studios, is a survival game in which the user tilts their phone to move a cursor around the screen. The objective is to avoid the continual appearance of red particles that are attracted to the cursor and will end the game if the two make contact. To slow the steady barrage of red particles, the cursor can pick up various power-ups that destroy particles. I am considering a recreation of a similar type of game. I am considering adding more physical and mutual interactions to the particles. I might use a similar concept to drive an interactive mouse display instead as a game might be difficult, but the idea could use some exploration.

This visual is Untangling the Webs of Immigration Lobbies with an unknown creator. I think that this type of grouping and relating might be a good approach to redesign the game. I like how there are distinct differences and a strong set of rules governing the relationship of the particles. I want to keep this kind of idea in mind when I create my particle game/interaction. While I design my game, I want to keep in mind what the particles represent. As in the case with this project, there is a meaning behind every particle. Perhaps I can do something similar in my project.

Isabella Hong – Final Project Proposal

For my final project, I want to create an audiovisual mixer like Daito Manabe’s “Arigato Skating.” In his production, Manabe used cameras to capture the movement of the junior skaters on the ice and used projectors to project visuals on to the ice in line with the movements. In the end, it looked like twinkling lights and lines were emerging from the skaters’ blades as they performed on the ice.

My idea is to have shapes and patterns emerge from the user’s mouse. The different objects that will be drawn as the mouse moves will depend on the song’s (which I have yet to choose) current rhythm. This way, the visual is in accordance to the audio, hence an audiovisual mixer.

These are some preliminary sketches and ideas that I have for the audio and visuals. They will become solidified once I choose the exact portion of one of the songs I have in mind.

Project 10

jmmedenb-10c

//Jessica Medenbach
//jmmedenb@andrew.cmu.edu
//Tuesdays at 1:30PM
//Assignment-10c

var balloons = [];
var tSpeed = 0.0001;
var tDetail = 0.003;


function setup() {
    createCanvas(600, 400); 
    
    // create an initial collection of fish
    for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++){
        balloons[i] = makeBalloons(random(width),random(height-100));
    }
    frameRate(12);
}


function draw() {
    var cB = 20;
    x = map(cB,0,height,255,0);
    background(255);
   

    //sea
    beginShape(); 
    fill(100,255,255);
    vertex(0,height);
    for (var x = 0; x < width; x++) {
        var t = (x * tDetail) + (millis() * tSpeed);
        var y = map(noise(t), 1,0,100, height);
        vertex(x, y);
    }
    vertex(width,height);
    endShape(CLOSE);
    updateAndDisplayBalloons();
    removeBalloons();
    addNewBalloons();



}

//boats
function updateAndDisplayBalloons(){
    for (var i = 0; i < balloons.length; i++){
        balloons[i].move();
        balloons[i].display();
    }
}


function removeBalloons(){
    var balloonsToKeep = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < balloons.length; i++){
        if (balloons[i].x + balloons[i].bodySize > 0) {
            balloonsToKeep.push(balloons[i]);
        }
    }
    balloons = balloonsToKeep; // only keeps ballons on screen
}


function addNewBalloons() {
    // adds new ballons
    var newBalloonsLikelihood = 0.02; 
    if (random(0,1) < newBalloonsLikelihood) {
        balloons.push(makeBalloons(width,random(2,height-100)));
    }
}


// updates of balloons 
function balloonsFloat() {
    this.x += this.speed;
}
    

// balloons
function balloonsDisplay() {
     
    noStroke(); 
    push();
    fill(255,100,100);
   ellipse(this.x, this.y, this.bodySize, this.bodyWidth);
   rect(this.x, this.y+10, 10, 20);
    pop();
   fill(0);
   rect(this.x+5, this.y+30, 1, 30);

}




function makeBalloons(LocationX,LocationY) {
    var balloons = {x: LocationX+300,
                y: LocationY+275,
                bodyWidth: (50,50),
                bodySize: (50,50),
                speed: random(-3.0,-1.0),
                colorR: random(130,240),
                colorG: random(20,80),
                move: balloonsFloat,
                display: balloonsDisplay}
    return balloons;
}

I started out wanting to make boats for this project but then started thinking about things that get lost at sea, such as bottles or objects. Then I started thinking of when people accidentally let go of balloons, or events for children where everyone is given a balloon and they all inevitably accidentally let go of them and you just see a sea of balloons in the sky. I remember as a kid wondering where they went. I put together these two thoughts and decided to make a sea of balloons in the sea. I then decided to create a moving image of watching the sea of balloons floating together, perhaps people see them, perhaps they don’t, but they’re there. Maybe the sea is where all the lost balloons end up.