November 2018 – Page 6 – [OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Project Priors + Inspiration

For my project proposal, I am creating an animated children’s book. I have found two interactive stories that, while more advanced, have really interesting levels of interactivity.

The first project is “ENOUGH” by Isaac Cohen. This project is an animated story that loads as the user clicks the logo. I find this project really interesting because of its high level of interactivity from the words moving with the mouse and the jellyfish-like creature following the mouse.

ENOUGH

The second project is “a short journey” directed by Cher Ami. I appreciate this project for its very direct animation and creative use of interactivity. As each screen loads there is a “drag here” button that the user pulls across a line to begin the animation. For example the one on the right, zips the bag. When the animation ends, it moves to the next page.The aesthetic of this animation is truly beautiful.

a short journey

While both projects, are graphically quite different, they both grab the user and pull them into the story, through quite simple (to the user) animations. It’s really exciting to see how this concept can be produced and animated in such different ways.

Jenny Hu — Looking Outwards 12

In looking for inspiration for my final project, which will be some form of an audio sequencer (tagged with visual animations)— I’ll write here about three projects I’ve found that range from simple to more difficult and experimental.

The first project is Yamaha beats, by artist Louie Zong. Louie is a board artist for Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears, but also maintains a really strong set of work online— including music production, illustration, and games. His project Yamaha Beats is a simple sequencer made from Unity— where you can make music using the sounds of koroks, from ghibli. I like the simplicity, and hope I can make something at the very least like this, that is well crafted and beautifully made.
screenshot from Louie Zong’s sequencer game yamaha beats
The second project is Google’s Doodle for Oskar Fischinger’s 117th birthday. The project is pretty remarkable for all the nuances the program gives you— changing instruments, layering sequences, and crafting complex animation just to name a few. What I love is the little things the program adds in— like the fact I can click and drag, and the fade in and out of the actual sequence tool, which lets you appreciate the animations more.
screenshot from the google doodle
Finally, the third project, which is both audio + visual, but also physical. Golan Levin’s project Scrapple is an audio-visual sequencer that uses everyday objects as the markers for the musical composition. By placing things on a table, and having a projection, visitors can more physically reflect and be active in space— composing music in a different way.
I think it’s also important to note the really contrasting audio and visual tones/aesthetics here. Professor Golan’s leans heavier into electronic beats, Google’s leans into traditional instruments and analog animations (like Oskars’), and Louie’s uses non-traditional instrument sounds to feel more like a forest. I’ll have to do a lot of thinking towards how I want mine to come out!

Emily Zhou –– Final Project Proposal

My plan for the final project is to create an interactive software that guides the user through the timeline of humanity’s exploration of the moon.

The canvas would start with a white circle that represents the moon and smaller circles surrounding it that represent stars. Each of the stars serves as a milestone in moon exploration. I plan to include 20-25 events from a source at space.com.

When the user clicks a star, the year and description text of the first event will appear to the right. Some amount of random chords will also appear on the moon. When the user clicks another star, the first star will be connected by a line, the second event will be displayed, and more chords will randomly appear on the moon. At the end of the timeline, the moon will appear grey and spherical as a result of overlapping chords and all the stars will be connected.

Eunice Choe – Looking Outwards-12

Rise and Fall from Design I/O on Vimeo.

The colors change over time or when the user clicks.

The two projects I am comparing are Basecamp (2014) by Leander Herzog and Rise and Fall (2010) by Design I/O. Basecamp by Leander Herzog is an interactive animation of colorful pyramids made with D3.js. The animation is interactive because it changes color every time the user clicks on the screen. I admire the simplistic and colorful aspects of the animation and how it responds to the user through the color changes. For my final project, I want to create interactive, animated landscapes, so this project gives me a reference of how I can show depth and layering in my composition. Because the animation is simple, it lacks a narrative, which is more prevalent in the other project Rise and Fall by Design I/O. Rise and Fall is an interactive magazine cover made with openFrameworks. By rotating the magazine, the user goes through a journey in which they interact with surreal creatures and environments that switch back and forth from water to sky. I admire that this project allows the user to control their own paths and stories. I also admire how the animations respond to gravity and physics, which adds a sense of realism and complexity.

cmhoward-project12-finalproposal

For my project, I am proposing an animated children’s book. Each time the user clicks the arrow, it will move to a new page of the book. I am proposing that each page has one animation triggered by the user clicking on highlighted text. An animation could be the sun moving, plants growing, or rain falling.

The story is about a lion who is a farmer and his plants are dying in the hot sun so he needs to figure out how to make it rain. After interacting with a few other animals, he finally realizes he has to dance to make it rain (subject to change!)

I am still considering whether the majority of the animation will be hand coded in p5.js or if that will be specifically for the animated objects. It depends on how complicated the final storyline becomes. It may be easier to do a hybrid where the static objects are drawn and the animated objects are coded.

I believe this project will help me learn more about interactivity and animation within p5.js. I am excited to see how this process goes!

Judy Li-Project-12-Proposal

For the final project, I would like to do an animation with sound. I wasn’t sure what kind of animation I wanted to do, but I am deciding between my routine/ritual or a short animation of a film that I really like. I would start the canvas with a white background and have a title that shows up through a darker opacity after ‘x’ amount of seconds. And then, the animation would start. I would like to have my character exactly in the middle and having the background/foreground move around her. To make different backgrounds of the animation, I would have a start time and an end time for each background and the objects in the background/foreground. To make this project all flow together, I would like to digitally draw the characters using a style that I like.

The image above is what I would imagine my animation to be like. The link to the animation is here.

Jenny Hu — Project 12 : Proposal

For my final project, I want to make some form of a simple, but well-crafted audio sequencer— a tool where someone can compose simple music and have it played back to them. I want to utilize animations per moment of ‘collision’ for each part— in order to connect both the visual and auditory. So in some ways, this is like an audio-visualizer, but in this case, people will get to produce their own simple compositions!

Catherine Coyle – Project 12 – Proposal

For my final project I’d really like to make some kind of relaxing game. I think this would be a nice opportunity to make a game which I really want to do as well as make it look appealing visually. In this vein, I thought about making some kind of cute little gardening game. The player would be able to choose what seeds to plant and water them by clicking. There could be random events like weather or animals coming to visit. Different plants’ properties would be stored in objects. I think this idea is something I’d enjoy working on as well as something that I will hopefully be proud to show off when I’m done!

A concept of some initial ideas for the project

Julie Choi – Final Project Proposal – 12

For my final project for this class, I would like to make an interactive game that involved both the mouse, camera, and a patterned background of some sort. The patterns will lie across the white space of the screen on the background. The patterns will be composed of different shapes with different shapes and different colors. The task is to “pop” or click on the right colors or the shapes in order to win. when the person on the camera moves, the patterns will move according to the silhouette of the person in the camera. When the user finishes the game, the screen will transition into a different screen and will inform the user whether they have won or lost the game.

This is how the game will start when the user first interacts with the screen.

Julie Choi – Looking Outwards – 12

Sand Dollar with sand stroke painting technique.

This is a project called Sand Dollar by a programming company called Complexification. This project was created through a constructed radical pattern through a technique called sand stroke painting. The radical form is controlled under a delicate craft of tree-like structure that is slowly turned clockwise around the origin. Hundred of radical patterns are created through programming creating a form with its own unique shape.

This installation is called 1984X1984 by an electronic artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. When a person stands in front of the screen, it mimics the silhouette of the object by shifting the patterns on the screen. This is one art piece from his series, Shadow Box in which it is built upon a computerized tracking system. The background pattern is pulled out from random addresses photographed by Google Street View. The piece is moved by any object interacting in front of the screen.

These two projects have a very similar characteristic. They are both generated through programming with a basis of patterns that fill up the visual composition. These projects can potentially inspire my final project because there are many ways to play around with patterns. I plan to create my final project with a pattern of some sort that has the ability to interact with another factor. I personally enjoy interactive art because the second element that reacts to the base of the art becomes part of the artwork.