alchan-Looking Outwards 02

Proteus is a video game developed by Ed Key, released in 2013. Players can wander around a colorful, pixelated, procedurally-generated island filled with plants, strange animals, and the occasional remnant of civilization. The game’s soundtrack, composed by David Kanaga, also changes depending on the time of day and where the player is standing. I couldn’t find too much about the algorithms behind the game, but from playing the game there’s a certain amount of features (such as plants, animals, or structures) that can be randomly generated around the island, depending on the island’s “season.” The island’s topography and weather also are randomly generated. All this works together to create a strange, peaceful space that’s different every time the player visits it.

Even though there’s not much gameplay in the “traditional” sense–all you can do is walk around, listen to music, and take screenshots of the places you encounter–and what gameplay there is is fairly limited, Proteus has a vague, dream-like feel to it that I really enjoy. I also admire the way Key has created a world with a specific feel to it, despite or perhaps working along with the purposefully low-resolution graphics.

Proteus by Ed Key and David Kanaga

alchan-Project 01-face

alchan project 01

function setup() {
    createCanvas(500, 500);
    background(195, 240, 244);
    angleMode(DEGREES);
    smooth();
}

function draw() {
  //hair back
  noStroke();
  fill(31, 51, 68);
  arc(310, 260, 270, 280, 160, 380, CHORD);
  rect(175, 270, 270, 80);

  //neck
  fill(237, 217, 168);
  stroke(224, 179, 134);
  strokeWeight(5);
  rect(285, 300, 50, 130);

  noStroke();
  fill(224, 179, 134);
  rect(285, 300, 50, 75);

  //face
  fill(237, 217, 168);
  stroke(224, 179, 134);
  arc(310, 260, 190, 200, -90, 200, CHORD);

  //eyes
  noStroke();
  fill(0);
  ellipse(260, 246, 10, 10);
  ellipse(370, 246, 10, 10);

  //eyebrows
  stroke(31, 51, 68);
  strokeWeight(5);
  line(350, 225, 372, 225);

  //mouth
  stroke(224, 179, 134);
  line(280, 310, 340, 310);

  //hair front
  noStroke();
  fill(31, 51, 68);
  arc(200, 120, 270, 280, 2, 100, CHORD);

  stroke(31, 51, 68);
  noFill();
  arc(197, 135, 270, 280, 2, 70, OPEN);

  //shirt
  noStroke();
  fill(256);
  ellipse(310, 515, 300, 250);
}

I started off by figuring out how I wanted to represent the face and ended up with a highly simplified version made of more basic shapes. Once I had a rough layout of what I wanted to accomplish I essentially just used trial and error to put the face together. I found that the hardest part was calculating the position & other variables for each shape, and will probably try to find a more efficient way of figuring those factors out.

alchan-Looking Outwards 01

Loren Schmidt and Katie Rose Pipkin’s inflorescence.city (volume 1) is an example of generative art I find particularly intriguing. inflorescence.city is a procedurally generated series of texts, visualizations, and small interactive pieces that form an imaginary publication from an imaginary city. Each section of the publication is created by a different set of algorithms drawing from different source material. To make the project, which began as part of “National Novel Generation Month” but ended up extending beyond that, Schmidt and Rose used a combination of their own code and algorithms created by others, working in JavaScript, HTML5 canvas, and some Ruby.

I was drawn to the project partly because of its combination of both generated text and generated art, as well as its feel—even though the text is sometimes incoherent, the many different topics and sections make it seem more personal than a single piece of generated text. It’s interesting to think about where either of those particular aspects could go in future projects, whether they might lead to completely generated books (with text/ image combinations) or explorations of how something might feel more “human-made” than “computer-generated.”

inflorescence.city vol. 1 by Katie Rose Pipkin and Loren Schmidt (http://inflorescence.city)

Additional information about the work: an interview with Pipkin and Schmidt & a description from the Electronic Literature Knowledge Base.