LookingOutwards-01 – Page 3 – [OLD SEMESTER] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

LO: My Inspiration

Title: Threads
Author: Bill Ralph
Link: https://billralph.com/threads/

Bill Ralph is a mathematician, artist and professor at Brock University in Canada. He is interested in the intersection of math and art, as his pieces are made entirely from mathematical scripts and formulas transformed into computer code. He creates his artworks using a loop and randomizing system, which can continuously auto generate variations of his pieces within minutes. He is greatly influenced and inspired by the works of Leonardo da Vinci, such as Vitruvian Man, Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. They both share the belief that there is no art without mathematical logic. I believe his work and approach have a lot of future potential in terms of AI generated art. If any imagery can be translated into a mathematical algorithm and be manipulatable by simply changing parameters, an unlimited amount of artwork and its variations can be generated within seconds. I am a huge fan of his pieces because at first they look creative, abstract and random without any logic at all. I could not tell that there is an entire mathematical system behind each piece. The viewer would assume that he is a typical abstract artist and will draw in an uncontrolled, fluid motion. However it is actually quite the opposite, he strategically knows exactly what shapes he’ll create and the exact position of them.

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One of the computational projects that inspired me was the animation in Pixar’s Brave. Specifically, the animation of Merida’s hair. Pixar spent three years developing the software, called Taz, that was needed to properly animate her hair. The movie production took four years. Taz made sure the interactions between the strands of hair were accurate and that each coil maintained its bounce and shape. It was also used to give Merida’s hair the realistic volume and movement that curly hair would have. Additionally, they used another software to imitate the way curly hair reacts to light.

Before Merida, animations mainly had straight hair since the technology for curly/wavy hair hadn’t been developed. Both Disney and Pixar have been wanting to animate characters with curly hair. For example, Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” was originally supposed to have wavy hair. Even Tiana in “Princess and the Frog” alludes to having curly hair with small face-framing pieces, however, her hair is tied back for most of the movie so it can’t be properly seen. Growing up with wavy/curly hair and seeing my favorite characters have straight shiny hair, impacted how I saw my hair and as a result made me wish my hair was also straight. With this technology, animators had the ability to create characters with diverse hair, which leads to more representation. We are starting to see this now, with characters in more recent films such as “Encanto”.

LO: Machine Hallucinations

In New York City, there is an immersive art museum called Artechouse. Here the museum displays various works, but the one that I saw was called “Machine Hallucinations” by Refik Anadol. His exhibit included images generated using NFT art; these images were made from various datasets of New York City and public photography. Looking at some of the pictures I could clearly tell they were cityscapes and looking closer they were made up of smaller images reminiscent of city life; others began as small, obscure parts that joined into a collective image that became recognizable. I find these works so interesting because apart from the story their primary image holds, there are also stories in their make-up. This type of art is relatively new and has been becoming more popular, with exhibits like the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit that brings motion and music to his paintings. I think this type of art gives us a new perspective on old ideas by creating similar and vaguely familiar images that force us to draw the connection between the art and the original reference. Apart from the music and lighting, the art these AI systems generate immerses us into the origins of the art by deconstructing it.

Machine Hallucinations by Refik Anadol
https://refikanadol.com/works/machine-hallucination/

LO: My Inspiration

One “creative technologies” project that really stands out to me is the Gravity Harps installation. The piece was commissioned by Icelandic musician Björk’s Biophilia tour, who wanted custom instruments for her studio album, requesting the help of Robot Music inventor Andy Cavatorta (who partnered with Pattern Studios for the electronics of the piece). The collaborative project involved mechanics, sound engineers, designers, and musicians and took one year to complete. The piece involves 11 harp strings attached to mechanical pendulums that use python code to formulate specific melodies that are played in succession of each swinging harp.

What I especially appreciate about this piece is how natural the integration with technology and music was undertaken. It’s always a risk to “overcompute” a creative practice within these types of projects, which undermine the beauty of arts based performances. However, the project reimagines how a traditional instrument can be computed in a way that makes one still appreciate the creative elements in its practice – e.g rhythm, timing, notes, etc. In context of the musician’s tour biophilia (which refers to humans’ tendency to seek connection with nature), the piece makes use of “natural” elements like physics and motion to create music. This project suggests ways to compute more instruments, possibly creating a machine based orchestra.

Source #1: Inventing Björk’s Gravity Harp, The New Yorker
Andrew Marantz

https://www.pattenstudio.com/works/gravity-harps/

LO: Dark Souls

I find the video games in the Dark Souls franchise to be artistically inspiring. I particularly admire the third installment of the franchise, Dark Souls III. This role playing game creates a dark, foreboding atmosphere with inspiration from classical art. The architecture is based on medieval European designs and the characters are inspired from classic sci-fi literature such as H.P. Lovecraft and Braum Stoker. The world design is immersive with a non-linear progression path. In this way, each person creates their own unique experience.

The game was developed by Bandai Namco Entertainment, Inc. and FromSoftware, Inc. under the direction of Hidetaka Miyazaki, Isamu Okanu, and Yui Tanimura. Based on the release date of Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III took about two years to develop. FromSoftware has its own proprietary game engine, known to the gaming community by the unofficial name Dantelion. This engine is written in C++ and is likely an extension of the game engines developed for Dark Souls I and II. The game engine is reusable and extendable and is likely the backbone for the developer’s most recent release, Elden Ring.

The Official Launch Trailer for the game can be viewed at https://youtu.be/igzqz0d4VFE.

*Works Cited
Aikat, Kajol. “Code up: 5 Best Programming Languages for Building Games in 2021.” TechGig, TechGig, 26 Nov. 2021, https://content.techgig.com/technology-unplugged/5-best-programming -languages-for-programmers-in-2021/articleshow/87934631.cms.

“Dark Souls III.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 12 Apr. 2016, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4795016/.

“FromSoftware, Dark Souls III.” Products | FromSoftware, Inc., https://www.fromsoftware.jp/ww/detail.html?csm=097.

“Souls Modding.” FromSoftware Game Engines – Souls Modding, http://soulsmodding.wikidot.com/topic:engines.

L0 My Inspiration

An interactive project involving a creative bent that I find inspirational is Cooking Mama, specifically the version played on the Nintendo DS.

I admire Cooking Mama because it is an interactive game in which the player must skillfully time and perform tasks to Mama’s standards. The game is challenging, entertaining, and even vaguely informative of cooking skills.
Cooking Mama was developed by Office Create and published by Taito, Majesco Entertainment, and 505 Games. There isn’t much detail about the software, but this game was pretty groundbreaking because of the new touch screen technology on the Nintendo DS.

While there are many known sequels to the game, there are no publicly known prior works in which the developers could have been inspired by (other than different Nintendo DS games). Cooking Mama was a great success that many sequels were created, each having a different theme or challenges.

LO: Art and industry

I saw a project testing done by an Italian startup company, called Wasp, designing and making 3D printed houses. It stood out t0 me for several reasons. First the promise of affordable housing due to the fact that much of the labor is done computationally. Secondly, it was much more aesthetically pleasing to me than other 3d printed house prototypes I had seen. 3D printed houses have some obvious characteristics, like the layering for example, and many see them as a drawback. Wasp, rather than disguising the fact that it was 3d printed, designed a house that complimented the characteristics of the process. A design that took advantage of the more unusual, non-rectilinear forms you can afford to create when the labor is computationally driven, and was allegedly inspired by mason wasp nests. A great example of working well within the constraints given, like we have the opportunity to do when making art using js draw.

The original creators were a designer daughter and electrical technician father who were inspired when messing around with 3d printers. They got their start by adapting the technology of plastic 3d printers to a different extruder that could be used with clay. They made and sold ceramics this way. Developing the technique to print a full house took 9 years.

While the project probably did involve some custom software, I did not find any specific mention of it. I did see that they were using grasshopper, a fairly common program for architects. I was originally exposed to the project on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MLJs1KRa0Y

LO: My Inspiration

The video game Valorant inspires me. Unlike other first-person shooting games, Valorant has artistic visual graphics instead of realistic graphics, beautiful maps inspired by cities around the world, as well as character and game lore. Even though it sounds like just another video game, I think that the amount of effort the creators put into the graphic artistry and backstories of elements in the game really helps the users connect with the content and characters.

Valorant was developed by the company Riot Games, and designed by Trevor Romleski and Salvatore Garozzo. The game took 6 years to create and was officially launched in June 2020. Valorant is developed using Unreal Engine 4 but I am unsure if they used custom software and scripts.

Valorant was inspired by other tactical shooter games such as Counter-Strike which is a game with very similar shooting/buying mechanics, and Overwatch with similar agent abilities. The art style is inspired by an illustrative visual design style which is a balance between realism and cel-shaded animation.

In the growing world of gaming, Valorant has a future in competitive esports, as well as an introduction to stylistic video games. In the two years, it has been out, it has an increasing player base and multiple international tournaments. This game also plants a seed in the development of illustrative shooting games.

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LO: My Inspiration

My inspiration for this portrait came mostly from the video game and anime art of the 1970s-1990s. Games like Policenauts and shows like Urusei Yatsura have been a consistent source of inspiration for me in my art. (In terms of storyline? Ask me about Ursula K. LeGuin.)

In particular, when it comes to digital art I’ve always been inspired by the pixel-art mastery of the PC 98 games. (yeah yeah I’m a nerd) Shallow romance novella games aside, the PC 98 series has one game which really interested me, the aforementioned Policenauts.

A digital visual novel from 1994, it is probably one of my favorite examples of pixel-art character design out there. This game was developed by Konami and the storyline was written by Hideo Kojima. Kojima had worked on other projects like Snatcher before Policenauts, and this heavily influenced his characters and storyline. Additionally he drew from real life and television to come up with his plot points and other story and design aspects. Despite having never played any of these PC98 games, I’ve watched run throughs and have always been amazed at their quality and how it’s held up over time. The pixel-art graphics rival those employed by contemporary retro callback games, and the character design is full of color and life! (despite only existing in pixelated format) To me the plot isn’t as relevant as the art, so the pixel=art scenes, given the limitations of tech at the time, are really fascinating to me even if I find the dialogue and the plotline boring. Kojima also created a new scripting engine for the story aspects of the game. (the reasons for which are irrelevant but humorous if you look into it)

The game wasn’t as popular as some of his other work, but it got an overhaul in the early 2000s when it transferred to other consoles and had cel animation grafted onto it instead of the pixel-art. I however prefer the pixel-art, as it leaves some of the more shocking colors and gives a rougher quality to the linework.

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The animated movie Soul by Pixar. I really enjoyed the scenes where the protagonist plays the piano, and how engaging and real the whole experience was despite it having many unrealistic character designs. The movie took 4 years to make but the studio has been developing its character animation and modeling system for decades longer. Pixar is especially known for creating its own software and system mapping out motions from videos and manually mapping the character’s body parts and movements. I think the attention to detail from sweater fuzz to the various hand muscles that move when playing an instrument and being able to incorporate that in an animation movie is super cool and would allow future generations to have a really immersive imagination and movie-watching experience.

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