LookingOutwards-09 – [OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Joanne Lee – Looking Outwards 09

Nunu & Willump League of Legends Champion Spotlight

In Robert Oh’s first Looking Outward, he reviewed the visual game update of a longtime League of Legends (multiplayer online game) champion. He mentioned that, “Riot is aiming towards making their boring characters more interesting by adding new skills that make them feel more fun to play.” As an avid player of this game, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Although I only started playing League of Legends 2 years ago, I find that something that keeps me engaged in the game is the consistent changes they make to their champions, gameplay, items, and abilities. This is a very great strategy implemented by Riot Games to keep the game feeling fresh despite the base mechanics of the game remaining the same.

One aspect I would like to clarify on is when Robert states that every couple months, Riot chooses to to update old characters to make them feel fresh and new. The original Nunu was released far back on February 21, 2009. The updated Nunu was released on August 29, 2018. It took about 9 years for them to update this champion. Many other champions are also waiting on a visual game update. My hypothesis is that they want to make sure that their updates will be radical and refreshing and not just minor changes. In between, they will often release brand new champions, further delaying the updates of previous champions.

As a player of this champion, the visual game update proved to be very exciting and worth the wait. I hope Riot will continue to re-envision their previous art and champion styles in order to keep the game a fresh and exciting game to play!

Looking Outwards 9 Liz Maday

I am using 1 of my grace days for this late submission.

For this Looking Outwards post, I was inspired by Kai Zhang’s post on Kinetic Generative Music Installation (2017) by Andrius Sarapovas. This project creates an environment that you walk into, which contains various forms of instruments that create sounds meant to represent connections to a 4G network in Lithuania. There are a lot of features of the instrumental setup that correlate to the amount of data being processed and the number of connections to the network. The setup was also designed to take into account the size and features of the space it was built in. I think that this installation is a really cool idea, something I would want to experience myself. I like how the experience of this project has the potential to meet the expectations of the subject, or to make them view big data in a new way. I agree with Kai’s assessment that this exhibit made something relatively “cold” such as data connections into something “warm” like the echoing music which was produced. I think that this project could also have the effect of making the subject feel as if they are “part of something bigger”, through the experience of literally walking within the space and experiencing something that creates a sonic collage of interconnected events which are happening in the world. I also appreciated the pleasant nature of the sound that was created – for example, the designer could have chosen to make the sounds more harsh or pointed, but this richer sound has a more welcoming and relaxing effect on the listener. I think that this choice reflects the designer’s intent with this piece.

Robert Oh- Looking Outwards-09

James White- Early Forge random output using Vormator shapes Version 4 (2007)

For this week’s Looking Outwards, I decided to use Joanne Lee’s Looking Outwards-06 Post.

I really appreciate randomness and how White was able to use it in order to create such beautiful art. His program, Forge, creates art pieces where many features and elements are all random and out of his control. I really do love how art can look so amazing complex and detailed despite the fact that everything was created randomly. Supporting Joanne’s opinion, I really do appreciate the fact that White created this program to allow other artists to use to also implement randomness in their art.

KadeStewart – LookingOutwards – 09

Helen Reynolds highlighted an interesting project in her Looking Outwards 01. As she says, the Cat Explorer is both simple and informative. This combination makes important information accessible, which is perfect for a project, such as this, that brings niche information outside of its usual group. The Cat Explorer motivates me with its simplicity and potential for impact.

The Cat Explorer

Jenni Lee — Looking Outwards — 09

For this week’s looking outwards, I chose to analyze my classmate Elena Deng’s post about the disney movie, Frozen. She chose to analyze a video which described the process of creating life-like snow in the movie. The animators explain that they used a method where they created very small particles of snow and assign them a random volume and size. After factoring velocities as well as collision variables for each of those particles, the grain of snow is then able to move. I found this to be particularly interesting, as I am a designer who has interest in motion graphics and animation, and seeing the behind-the-scenes making of this animation was very inspiring and creatively stimulating. The methods used in this project very applicable to a blend of interests in both physical products and also animation.

JasonZhu-Project-09-Portrait

sketch

/* Jason Zhu
Section E
jlzhu@andrew.cmu.edu
Project-10
*/

var terrainSpeed = 0.0003;
var terrainDetail = 0.0008;
var flags = [];

function setup() {
    createCanvas(480, 300);
    frameRate(50);
    for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++){
        var rx = random(width);
        flags[i] = makeflag(rx);
    }
}

function draw() {
    background(246,201,116)
    push();
    beginShape(); 
    noStroke();
    fill(104,176,247)
    vertex(0, height);
    for (var x = 0; x < width; x++) {
        var t = (x * terrainDetail) + (millis() * terrainSpeed);
        var y = map(noise(t), 0,1, 0, height);
        vertex(x, y - 50); 
    }
    vertex(width, height)
    endShape();
    pop();
    displayHorizon();
    updateAndDisplayflags();
    removeflagsThatHaveSlippedOutOfView();
    addNewflagsWithSomeRandomProbability(); 
}
function updateAndDisplayflags(){
    // Update the flag's positions, and display them.
    for (var i = 0; i < flags.length; i++){
        flags[i].move();
        flags[i].display();
    }
}

function removeflagsThatHaveSlippedOutOfView(){
    var flagsToKeep = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < flags.length; i++){
        if (flags[i].x + flags[i].breadth > 0) {
            flagsToKeep.push(flags[i]);
        }
    }
    flags = flagsToKeep; // remember the surviving flags
}

function addNewflagsWithSomeRandomProbability() {
    // With a very tiny probability, add a new flag to the end.
    var newflagLikelihood = 0.007; 
    if (random(0,1) < newflagLikelihood) {
        flags.push(makeflag(width));
    }
}

// method to update position of flag every frame
function flagMove() {
    this.x += this.speed;
}
    

// draw the flag
function flagDisplay() {
    var floorHeight = 10;
    var bHeight = this.nFloors * floorHeight;
    noStroke();
    // pole
    push();
    translate(this.x, height - 30);
    fill(30, 37, 35);
    rect(0, -bHeight * 1.03, this.breadth, bHeight);
    // flag 
    fill(12, 36, 112);
    triangle(5, -bHeight * 1.03, 40, 20-bHeight, 5, 30 - bHeight);
    pop();
}

function makeflag(birthLocationX) {
    var bldg = {x: birthLocationX,
                breadth: 6,
                speed: -.75,
                nFloors: round(random(1,10)),
                move: flagMove,
                display: flagDisplay}
    return bldg;
}


function displayHorizon(){
    noStroke();
    fill(55,222,153)
    rect (0,height-30, width, height-30); 
}

For this project, I wanted to look at recreating a scene from an old film. I created flags underwater to get the look and feel of what I was going for. It was a bit hard to get what I wanted to happen so I had to simplify quite a bit. This project was definitely a struggle for me compared to past projects.

Yiran Xuan – Looking Outwards 09

Audrey Zheng’s Looking Outward 03 Entry about Madeline Gannon’s work, REVERB caught my attention due to my own interest into 3D printing and bringing digital objects into the physical world. I was curious about what the explanation meant by “tracking a squid’s movements through time and space”, and what it had to do with a kinect, until I watched the video. Essentially, a hand’s movements are tracked, and a virtual “squid” follows it and mirrors it across a virtual human model. A snapshot of its tentacle’s positions are recorded and the compilation of these snapshots form a discrete but connected shape. It looks beautiful for 3 reasons I believe: it is complex at first glace, it is symmetrical, and its lines are smooth. I have concerns whether all generated necklaces are structurally sound when printed, however…

Link to the work

Jisoo Geum – Looking Outwards 09

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seaquence/id1106270489?mt=8

Seaquence (app) by Gabriel Dunne and Ryan Alexander (2017).

Of all the Looking Outwards written by my peers, I really liked Emily Shou’s week 4 – sound art post. I felt like the direction she took in choosing the sound art piece was very interesting since the project, Seaquence, is an iOS app that can be downloaded by everyone. I agree with Emily that the creators did a great job visualizing the forms of living organisms since they tend to look very complicated and unappealing.

I also agree with Emily that the creators made a unique choice in selecting the theme. Sequence does have a unique vision in turning something unconventional into a digital masterpiece. The part that I admire the most about Sequence is the accessibility and interactivity. Music masking software tends to be very convoluted as if it is only usable by professionals. However, Seaquence flipped the whole idea of ‘music for experts’ and made the activity approachable.

Yingyang Zhou-LookingOutwards-9

This week looking outwards is about one post I found interesting and couldb be furthur looking into. It’s a sonic playground by Yuri Suzuki, original posted on Robert Oh’s post in looking outwards 4.

Sonic Playground continues the High Museum’s multiyear initiative to animate its outdoor space with commissions that engage visitors in participatory art experiences. It is the High’s first venture into exploring the notion of audible play—how the sounds all around us can be constructed, altered and experienced. The installation transforms the piazza into a welcoming atmosphere for socializing and recreation and serves as a stage for performances and art-making activities the High is co-organizing with local arts organizations.

The project targeted on childeren but also the public because of the scale and apperance of it to get more attention on the soundwave that happning in our daily life, you’ll find something different just hearing more into detail by this device.

One of the most intriguing pieces will be the Parabolic dishes. These require a certain amount of exploring, finding the exact spot where you can hear the reflection of sound at its most prominent.

Working alongside the engineers the design was tweaked to make the piece acoustically sound as well as structurally safe. This required changing the sound horns to faceted horns and adding extra supports to enhance the structural sterdyness.

Looking Outwards 9 rrandell

https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2018/2018/09/21/looking-outward-04-2/

This is the link to the peer Looking Outwards ^

http://loop.ph/portfolio/sonumbra-de-vincy/

This is a link to the artist page ^

This is the video of the art ^

For this Looking Outwards I was really inspired by Arden Wolf’s commentary on her Looking Outwards assignment 4 about the intersection between computation and sound. Her commentary was about Sonumbra de Vincy, a site specific artwork that is called a Responsive Light Emitting Environment. The Sonumbra de Vincy is designed to be a commentary on extreme weather changes and climatic swings in the atmosphere. These changes are being explored in this artwork through sound, light and human interaction with the installation itself. I really agree with Ardens commentary on the hearkening the structures to trees to resonate with the climate changes in the artist’s intention. Arden’s commentary delved into the technology that the artist used to create it, but not much behind the concept of extreme weather and such of the artwork– but more the world context of the work.