mecha-project12-proposal

For this project, I am planning on collaborating with Allissa Chan (section E) in order to create a story-based game in which the choices a user makes affects the rest of the story. The story/ game will be presented as a series of images with text. Players will be able to choose options/ text prompts by pressing corresponding keys.

The story will revolve around the player’s trip to a grocery store, in which the player can choose to buy items that will help them progress. Each part of the story will have a different character that will respond to different objects that the user decides to purchase.

We will also implement randomness in order to make it so that each user’s experience is a little different. We will randomize the order in which characters may appear in the story as well as different events that may help the player later on.

svitoora – Proposal

I am interested in learning how to implement the genetic algorithm from Dan Shiftman’s The Nature of Code. Artistically, I am inspired by nature and I try to mimic it with technology. I’ve modeled a recursive L-system, gravity/entropy, and a basic swarm behavior. Now I want to model a living and evolving system. I plan on working on this over Thanksgiving break, so it’s a highly feasible project. Aesthetically, it’ll look similar to my turtle project which I went back and modified. The difference is that somehow there should be an evolutionary component incorporated. All of the renderings of the project will be done in simple geometric forms whereby it’ll look similar to a particle system because I am inspired by cells. I’m not 100% sure where this will take me, but one concrete thing is that I will be learning how to model evolution and there’ll be a lot of class and object-based behaviors.

My swarm behavior sketch inspired by a petri dish.

svitoora – Looking Outward 12

Google’s DeepMind AI just taught itself to walk

I admire how I can watch the model slowly evolve into fitness. The project was created by Google’s DeepMind AI, and it involves teaching various models how to traverse across an obstacle. The model learned how to walk, run, balance, and climb. I am not actually sure if this is a machine learning AI, it could most likely be a genetic algorithm that is making this work. Regardless of the underlying algorithm, it is still an impressive feat of compressing the natural process of evolution.

Ant Behavior

I admire how a swarm behavior is represented here. The nodes simply randomly search the space, and one it found food it starts moving back to its hive leaving behind a trail of chemicals. If other nodes found the trail of chemical they simply followed it. It’s amazing how such a simple rule can produce such complex behavior. One downfall for this piece of “art” is that it is very unaesthetic. The system is implemented via a grid system, which is fine, but it is represented using simply rectangles as if this was the early 90s. Really the aesthetic of just sucks.

http://www.natureincode.com/code/various/ants.html

rmanagad-proposal

Example of a recursive loading icon, posted by /u/Caybris on Reddit.

For my final project, I’d like to create a series of recursively-generated loading icons, following multiple stylistic variations. This is in-line with an exploration of communications design variables–specifically, how color and images can be used in a moving picture to engage and hold a viewer’s attention. This is important in liminal spaces such as loading screens, where visitors to a website or video need some visual component to tell them that progress is being made. A visually-engaging loading icon, like the above, would make the interstitial space between pages seem shorter.

In doing this, I’d like to explore different illustration methods–from existing on the three-dimensional plane to using p5js physics– that can be translated efficiently to Processing.

alchan-Looking Outwards 12

For my final project I’m probably going to create a game (with Maddy Cha) along the lines of interactive fiction/ visual novels.

Kentucky Route Zero Act I, 2013, by Cardboard Computer

The first relevant project is Kentucky Route Zero, one of my favorite games. It’s being developed by Cardboard Computer, a small indie studio releasing the game in 5 acts (the 1st act was released in 2013, and the 5th act is supposed to come out in early 2018). It’s a magical-realist adventure game inspired by point-and-click games & interactive fiction, but with a heavy focus on characters and mood. It’s essentially a winding interactive story. I really admire this focus, especially compared to more combat- or puzzle-oriented “traditional” video games. While we’re definitely not going to attempt something this ambitious (or in a similar storytelling genre), I really like how the game handles story and text.

overview of the latest version of Twine

The second project is Twine. It was originally created by Chris Klimas in 2009, but its development has since been open-sourced and is now maintained by several other people. It’s a tool meant to make the creation of interactive fiction accessible, essentially generating a series of hyperlinked HTML pages at its simplest. Games or fiction created with twine are thus easily customizable since they can be extended with Javascript, CSS, or any number of other possibilities. I admire Twine since it radically simplifies the process of making a story (as simple as writing passages and connecting them), and makes it easy to visualize the game/ story as a whole. P5 doesn’t really have the option of hyperlinks, but the idea of branching storylines and keeping track of past choices definitely applies to what we’d like to do.

yoonyouk-project12-proposal

For my project, I wanted to create a piano keyboard using the the keyboard of the computer. By pressing different keys, a different note will be played. To accompany these notes, I wanted to add different patterns, shapes, and colors. If chord, or multiple keys are played at the same time, then different patterns will be drawn. I am still deciding whether I want this to be an actual keyboard where a user will hit the keys, or use a piano song and generate the shapes according to those notes. When the keys are played I want to make the background so that the colors adjust the background and maybe even the appearing shapes.

Possible composition of shapes on the screen

With this project, I want to play around with how the shapes will appear on the screen not simply just pop out. Preferably, I would like them to draw out on the screen or transition through opacities. I also need to consider how the shapes will be placed on the screen according to the other shapes and not have everything simply merge together on a single screen.

dayoungl Final Project Proposal

For the final Project, I will be collaborating with Kate Ko from section B. Together, we will be using p5js to create a Pac-man inspired interactive game which will be divided into 3 stages. The basic components of the game include a main character in which users are able to control with keys, enemies of the main character, and the “foods” the character feeds on to either get larger or smaller. From stage 1 to 3, the stages get harder with more frequencies of “enemies” appearing on the screen. In order to progress to the next stage, the users need to reach certain points. Users gain points by the number of enemies they defeat..? We are still working on the structure of the game, but I hope this give a general idea of what our game will be like. In terms of diving up workload, we will be working together to create the basic structure of the program (the ; I will be focusing mainly on the visual components and integrating them into the code and Kate will be focusing on the coding that’s needed afterwards, mostly working on interactive element of the code.

rmanagad-lookingoutwards12-sectione

Project One: Spotify – Pride Stories by Studio Giant Ant

Year of Creation: 2016

Link to Project Work: http://www.giantant.ca/spotify-pride-stories

Link to Creator Bio:http://www.giantant.ca/about/

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Project Two: Most Female and Male Occupations Since 1950 by Flowing Information

Year of Creation: 2016

Link to Project Work: http://flowingdata.com/2017/09/11/most-female-and-male-occupations-since-1950/

Link to Creator Bio: http://flowingdata.com/

The two projects I chose to compare for my final Looking Outwards take two different approaches in delivering messages to audiences — both, however, are rooted in computational media, with varying degrees of computation usage.

Giant Ant’s Spotify Pride Stories is an information visualization-animation discussing the role of same-sex marriage laws in the workplace, and the lifestyles of stakeholders tied to those laws. It uses primarily Adobe Illustrator and Adobe AfterEffects to tell a story with their information, and uses computationally-derived data to form infographics on specific moments within the animation.

In comparison, Flowing Data’s Most Female and Male Occupations Since 1950 is a static infographic running on javascript and HTML/CSS that encourages user interaction through mouse-hover. Viewers are introduced to the topic of gender in the workplace through a gradient visualization, which they can experience for themselves by placing their cursor over different areas within the inforgraphic.

As a set, these two projects represent approaches to design that I’m very invested in — animation, world-building, and information delivery.

dayoungl Looking Outwards-11

For this week’s looking outwards, I looked into a concept of computer orchestra. The computer orchestra was created by group of students from ECAL, which stands for the University of Art and Design of Lausanne, Switzerland in 2013. What is interesting about their project is that the compute orchestra is not an orchestra based on computer generated sound but sounds that users upload to a server that’s later integrated into a form of an orchestra. Just like any other human orchestra, there is a conductor (a person) and musicians (computers). Rather than describing it in words, It’s really easier to understand the concept when you look at the attached video above. The way that the voices uploaded to the server is played according to gestures of the conductor; of course, conductor’s gestures are programmed accordingly and conductor can control so many aspects of the orchestra just by using his or her body. The students programmed the computer orchestra using Processing, SimpleOpenNi, and Ableton Live. On their website, they also specified that they used 10-12 computers, tripods, and Kinect.

Computer Orchestra is an interactive installation consisting of multiple computers. Close to a configuration of a classical orchestra, it proposes a new approach to music by allowing the user to conduct his/her own orchestra.

Movements of his/her hands are recognized accurately with a Kinect motion controller connected to a central computer. It will then give instructions to a multitude of musician screens. Screen-musicians then not only send sounds back to the conductor but also produce visual feedback.

yoonyouk-LookingOutwards-11

The Classifyer is a gadget that can detect the mood of a social setting and the play the appropriate music. The table can detect different drinks: beer, wine, hot beverages and even catch sounds from the environment whether it be conversations or background sounds. The creators, Benedict Huebermen, Stephanie Lee, Kelvyn Marte, wanted this gadget to enhance the ambience of each environment. The algorithm would be the detection of the different drinks and then the projection of the sounds.

I thought it was cool that the gadget could play the sounds that correlated with different drinks. I also found it particularly interesting that the students of this project determined that drinks were the indicators of the different moods of different settings. Perhaps this product would then be most appropriate in kitchen, bar, or restaurant settings.

Learn more through this link.