Esfera_mod_by_spxl_6
based on Esfera.pde by David Pena
Source code:
Esfera_mod_by_spxl_6.pde
Hair.pde
Oscillator.pde
On Thursday 18 December there was another VJlondon.org meeting at Cafe 1001, and again there was a triple-head setup with three projectors onto the back wall of the main room. Nice!
I’d decided that this time I’d work on this Processing sketch to have some 4:1 content for the massive screen. Up until this point, the tentacled object in space had been stationary and not especially interesting-looking. On Thursday morning I started tweaking the program with a view to actually being able to VJ with it, adding a bunch of new features like being able to move it around, make it bigger (“zoom”) or smaller, and more easily change some of the parameters. The tentacle shape changed a bit, as well as the appearance with some new oscillators to change the red, green and blue of the colour, and some mystery 1′s and 0′s on the surfaces. I’m no expert on lighting yet, but at least I managed to do something about it being so dark (as appears in Esfera mod by spxl 5).
I was perhaps a little too engrossed in what I was doing, and at some point realised I was already running late for the gathering!.. and rushed off to Brick Lane with my still warm code. The setup at Cafe 1001 was improved on last time, with a large table for laptops, etc bhind a raised bench with the projectors on it.
The tentacled space thingo was quite well received by the crew, though at that stage it was a bit of a beast to deal with effectively. Having pointer and keyboard inputs, I plugged in my Wacom and handed it to Rob to move it around while tapping at some controls myself on the keyboard. Even at 1920×480 it seemed to run pretty fast (and so it damnwell should!), and with the ultra-widescreen had a nice spacious and spacey feel about it.
I also tried running the radial gradient array sketch at that resolution, but, being a 2D pixel-based affair, my machine just wasn’t fast enough (or rather the program is too intensive) to get above a crawl instead of scintillating flashing colours.
Nevertheless, both sketches have been updated since then, and the Game of Life sketch created, and I’m starting to get a bit mental with trying to put nice comments and such on everything as well as make improvements and add new features. I think the commenting is taking as much time as anything else!.. and of course generally tidying things up, rearranging files on the webserver, updating all the past blog entries with Processing sketches to have a consistent look, and so on. I think I should really investigate creating a plugin or filter or something for WordPress – maybe a little database to keep track of the sketches and format them all nicely. I’m already running in to versioning issues, and changing the structure of the files is bad news for old blog posts!
Yesterday I did some work on creating a better timewarp effect – rather than change the speed of all of the oscillators, instead manipulate the “number of milliseconds” that have passed (this value is used in calculations by the oscillators) and also modify things like how far the object moves or rotates for the frame. Since the program was using simple easing logic, I’ve fudged it by multiplying the easing factor by the square of the (less then 1.0) timewarp factor, or leaving it alone if the timewarp factor is 1 or more (making the movement “faster than the mouse”, as it were, seemed like a bad idea).
You see the brighter patch of red on the top-right of the sphere in the screenshot? That’s caused by five point lights just near the sphere arranged around the funnel of text. unfortunately the Java applet doesn’t seem to play on my machine (nor does version 5 of this sketch), and I think the lights (or use of lighting generally) is what causes it to fail. Then again, I don’t actually know, so this is only a guess! If you have the PDE installed you should be able to recreate the sketch from the source files.
-spxl
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3D Graphics, Animation, Cafe 1001, Interactive, OpenGL, Processing Sketch, Site Maintenance, Subpixel's Creations, Subpixel's Gigs, VJ / Visuals, VJlondon.org
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