#043: Das Kollektiv

This is the first time one of my artworks is inspired by music! The song in question is Das Kollektiv by ASP. I’m taking a fairly literal interpretation of a swarm of little entities in between the walls, sucking out the essence of the “guests”. The images are pretty dark; you might need high contrast settings.

#044: Into Oblivion

This next one isn’t just inspired by music, but directly driven by it! There is already a post about it, so I’ll just post the visuals here.

Here is a video using a shortened version of Push Every Button by Lapfox:

#045: Canada’s Marvelous Singing & Dancing Animals

The next one is an animation driven by music – less a visualizer, because it needed to be heavily parameterized and the song isn’t as exchangeable. It’s also, uh, slightly more silly than the previous one.

The song is Python by Rolemusic and the images used are all public domain/CC0.

(Oh, and if you wonder why you can’t find this in the repository: It was made with Unity3D, not Processing.)

#046: A Slice of π

When making Into Oblivion, I was a bit frustrated that it was rather hard to gain good information from the FFT analysis and that it was utterly impossible to find which instrument was playing. I found both in MOD files.

If you want to learn more about it, head over to this blog post.

The song used are, in order:

• Rivendell by radix
• phantasmagoria by 4mat
• rsectro by 4mat
• zapped_out by 4mat

#047: Fractal Flames

After finding out about fractal flames in Apophysis 7x and discovering in the fractal flames paper by Scott Draves that the algorithm that creates those beautiful images is (for the most part) actually pretty straightforward, I just had to implement this myself in Processing. So yeah, nothing original here, but I had a lot of fun with this.

What fascinates me most is that the algorithm is based on an extremely simple concept: Pick a random position, transform it with a formula, draw a dot, transform it again, draw a dot, repeat. Throw in a few parameters and coloring based on how often a dot is visited. Then layer multiple of these formulas together. Nothing arcane here, yet the resulting images look both pleasing and complex!

#048: A Stroke of Color

The next one isn’t original either: I tried to recreate something similar to the stunning Composition #72 by Patrick Gunderson.

#049: Burrowers

And the last one for this batch. Just a few agents, running around, drawing lines, carving a nest for themselves in the digital earth.

As always, the source code for most of these can be found at the GitHub repository, open sourced under the MIT License.

If you want to run the sketches yourself, you just need to download Processing and open the PDE files. Sometimes you need to add a library, but mostly it’s really straightforward. If you need any help doing that, just send me a mail or comment here.

Unlike audio files like mp3, module files aren’t rendered down to just the audio information. Simplified, they have two elements: A collection of distinct audio samples and tracker information when to play which sample and how to modify its pitch, volume and other properties. So that means if your visualizer is a MOD player, you have all this juicy information available at your fingertips!

So there were a few things I needed:

• MOD files: I got those from ModArchive.org. I chose:
  • chiptune, phantasmagoria, rsectro and zapped_out by 4mat
  • Rivendell by radix
• A MOD tracker to analyze the MOD files: OpenMPT filled that spot quite nicely and was easy to get into even for a total beginner like me.
• A MOD processing library – of which I only found one! Luckily, PortaMod has (nearly) everything I needed, and the creator Brendan Ratliff was most helpful on Twitter.

Since this was my first foray into MOD music visualization and I wasn’t cooperating with a musician, I wanted to keep the visualizer as general as possible; any file that it could play should work. I also wanted to use as much information as possible. In the end, I chose a rotating circular representation divided into slices. Each slice is a MOD channel and each MOD sample was assigned a color. Pitch modifications made the radius go bigger, and everything is pulsating according to the output amplitude.

Downloads:

Executable for Windows
GitHub Repository (MIT License)

And now there’s been enough talk – have a preview video and a few screenshots!

The song used are, in order:

• Rivendell by radix
• phantasmagoria by 4mat
• rsectro by 4mat
• zapped_out by 4mat

Houdini is a 3d modeling/animation program with a procedural twist: Every action is saved in a node network and the node/action parameters can be changed or randomized later. That allows for generative artworks among other things. You can also just build the node network directly which feels very much like visual programming.

So this batch contains the first things I’ve ever done with Houdini. Most are inspired by the fabulous Entagma tutorial series.

#050: Starry Polygon

The first one is based on the Entagma “Poly Rembrandt” tutorial series. The tutorial produces great results, but I was missing that randomization touch that leads to every image generated being different. Using colored noise textures as input instead of images worked quite well for that.

#051: Wisps

Next up is my first seamlessly looping video!

Sadly, I couldn’t find a looping video player. I guess the above GIF must suffice for that; but at least you can see a non-looping sequence in far better resolution here:

#052: Dancing Tiles

After my previous experiences with music visualizers, I tried to make one in Houdini with the help of this tutorial about audio-driven animation.

The tile position changes are animated to the beat of one of the percussion instruments, the jittering is in tune with the amplitude and the color of the light changes roughly according to the frequency of the tune. This is made possible by using a multi-track arrangement I took from http://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-mtk.htm: Lacuna (Excerpt) by APZX.

It didn’t turned out as impactful as I would’ve hoped – but because of the half-transparent tiles it took a really, really excessive amount of time to render and I didn’t want to redo it.

#053: Melted Sphere

Next, I discovered my love for melted things with this Entagma tutorial. I also learnt that the recipe for an awesome looking image is 1.) place a light source in the middle of an object and 2.) activate subsurface scattering.

#054: Crystals

Here I tried to use volumes generated by noise to make a cave with stalagmites and stalactites. Instead, I got this. I think I’m pretty fine with that.

I also learnt how to use the compositing capabilities of Houdini to lighten up the resulting image right after rendering.

#055: Steel Wool

Steel Wool uses curl noise flow around a procedurally generated object. I wanted to use subsurface scattering again, but stumbled upon the metallic effect instead and quite liked it.

#056: Paper Leaves

This looks almost more 2D than most 2D stuff I’ve done so far. Mesh splinters, highly transparent and with lighting from behind.

And that’s it for this batch! In case you want to see the contents of any of the Houdini files yourself, just install the free Houdini Apprentice Edition and head to my Houdini GitHub repository to get the project files.

GitHub repository

Class Documentation

Overview

• Countdown: Useful for things like cooldowns or spawn delays. It is also helpful for tweening things by using the PercentElapsed property.
• EditorHelper: Gets the [Tooltip] attribute content of fields for editor classes. Might get more helper methods in the future.
• LINQExtensions: A collection of extension methods for IEnumerable, List and arrays.
• MathHelper: Helper methods for time-independent eased lerping, mapping and angles.
• MeshCreator: Makes it more convenient to create meshes via code.
• NoiseOutputValue: Enter a range and a speed in the editor, get an output value that fluctuates over time using Perlin Noise.
• RandomBag: A RandomBag gives you random items from a group while ensuring that in a certain interval every item was given back the same number of times.
• Range: Editable data types that take an int/float range. Used for things like “Spawn 2 to 4 enemies.”
• RollingArray: Collection that keeps the last x elements that are added to it.
• Singleton: Allows easy and convenient creation of a Singleton. Optionally makes a Singleton persist between scenes while ensuring that only one exists.
• UnityHelper: Contains a plethora of useful extensions and helpers for Transform, GameObject, Vector2/3/4, Rect and more.
• XmlHelper: Serializes data to XML strings and makes accessing optional element content and attributes in general XMLs easier.

Usage

To use the scripts, just drop them into the Assets folder of your projects. Or better yet, make an “Assets/Extensions/TobisUnityUtitilites” folder and drop them there. Hurray for proper organisation.

You can also just use selected scripts, but you should check the “Dependencies” section in the respective folder to make sure you copy everything you need.

#036: Among the Stars

Based on a work by the ever-fabulous Titouan Millet! It turned out not to look like the original too much and instead has its own charm.

#037: Energy Transfer

An experiment with agents and attractors.

#038: Deep Into Vector Space

This is definitely one of my favourites of the batch! Another experiment with agents and attractors, gone wrong because I botched up a rotation formula – and the result looked far too good to pass up on.

#039: Digital Eye

And here’s my second favourite. The radial symmetry combined with the artifacts created by the dense lines and the interlocking colors are interesting to look at. I’m really happy how they this turned out!

#040: Once Upon A Galaxy

Originally, #039 was intended as a planet system – turns out that they don’t look equally interesting when they are small though. It might be better if I could generate them one by one to get a pleasent combination, but I’m not sure if it would be worth the effort.

#041: Of Silk And Light

An experiment with pendulums.

#042: Wipers

And the last one for this batch.

Download

Windows (32 bit)

Windows (64 bit)

Source Code (GitHub, MIT license)

Instructions:

• Among The Stars:
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to take 1000 steps and pause.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
  • 1/2/3 switches between velocity/mixed/position modes.
• Energy Transfer:
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to pause and take 200 steps.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
  • A to refresh and finish 200 steps with same color scheme.
  • S to refresh and finish 200 steps with changed color scheme.
• Deep Into Vector Space
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to finish the current painting, or a new one if the current one is already finished.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
  • A to refresh and finish a new painting with same color scheme.
  • S to refresh and finish a new painting with changed color scheme.
  • Space to take a screenshot.
• Digital Eye
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Right-click to refresh, but keep color scheme.
• Once Upon A Galaxy
  • Left-click to refresh.
• Of Silk And Light
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Right-click to refresh, but keep color scheme.
• Wipers
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to draw 200 steps and pause.
  • Right-click to pause/resume.
  • A to reset and draw 200 steps with the current color scheme (and then pause).
  • B to reset and draw 200 steps with another color scheme (and then pause).

If you’re not on Windows, fret not; for some reason I can’t compile for Mac and Linux, but you can just download Processing and open the sketch files. Sometimes you need to add a library, but mostly it’s really straightforward. If you need any help doing that, just send me a mail or comment here.

#029: Plasma Blob

This one isn’t terribly impressive, but it was made in a few minutes to demonstrate Processing to a colleague and is reasonably nice to look at.

#030: Mara’s Ocean

A typographic variation of #028: Isles using the Mara’s Eye font.

#031: Chimera Maker: What Has Science Done?!

The sillyness levels go through the roof with this one. For executables for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android and for more pictures, check out it’s own blog post!

#032: Grass Tree

Another ad-hoc Processing tutorial I gave for a ground of friends. This one was a bit more involved than #029: Plasma Blob and looks pretty nice!

#033: Dance of the Fireflies

An experiment with boids/flocking. Unfortunately a little dark-ish, so it’s best observed at night – just like real fireflies!

#034: Living Constellations

Stars float around and form constellations with nearby other stars.

#035: Smoky Silk

Yet another silk variation.

Download

Windows (32 bit)

Windows (64 bit)

Source Code (GitHub, MIT license)

Instructions:

• Plasma Blob: Left-click to refresh.
• Maras Ocean:
  • Left-click or X to refresh.
  • Right-click or C to refresh, but keep color palette.
  • Middle-click or V to refresh, but switch colors.
• Grass Trees:
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Right-click to instantly finish growing.
• Dance of the Fireflies
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to take 1000 steps and pause.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
  • A to refresh and finish 1000 steps with same color.
  • S to refresh and finish 1000 steps with changed color.
• Living Constellations
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
• Smoky Silk
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to take 1000 steps and pause.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.

If you’re not on Windows, fret not; for some reason I can’t compile for Mac and Linux, but you can just download Processing and open the sketch files. Sometimes you need to add a library, but mostly it’s really straightforward. If you need any help doing that, just send me a mail or comment here.

The song is Python by Rolemusic and the images used are all public domain/CC0.

If any of the animals aren’t Canadian after all, this is an unintentional error; I just identified them by the way they move their snouts.

I’ve used spectrum analysis (powered by minim) and Processing to make a reactive artwork. It works especially for songs with breaks and theme changes where it becomes really apparent that the result is really dependent on the currently played music.

If you are Windows, you can download it here – edit the default.xml to use your own music, change the color scheme. Check out the readme for the controls!

The source code is, as always for my generative art in Processing, available at the GitHub repository and open source. You can open it with Processing 3 – just import Minim.

Here is a video using a shortened version of Push Every Button by Lapfox:

The Greater Book of Transmutation is mainly based on a free association database that I found here. It’s about making things, using materials that are commonly associated with them – e.g., a cat might be made from “being feline”, “claws”, “meows” and “being graceful” and “tail”. Throw in a system of tools with actions that use/transform materials, a bit of word classification, a markov chain latin words generator, a lot of silliness and bit LaTeX, and you get:

You can find the resulting PDF here.

The source code (MIT license) written in Python is also available.

An example:

How to make a book in 12 easy steps:

Materials:

• 10 hymns
• 178 readings
• 10 clear concepts of poem
• 4 clear concepts of guide

Tools:

• bucket with water
• vessel
• pet unicorn
• ballpoint pen

Instructions:

1. Let vessel cool down.
2. Heat vessel.
3. Dip 10 clear concepts of poem into the bucket with water.
4. Feed 10 clear concepts of wet poem to your pet unicorn.
5. Let your pet unicorn lick 10 hymns.
6. Pet your pet unicorn.
7. Wait for a long time.
8. Wait until your pet unicorn poops. Receive 124.89 ounces of a very dirty pile of “wet poem”
9. Draw a magic circle on the floor using the ballpoint pen.
10. Draw a cross into the circle and place 10 licked hymns, 178 readings, 4 clear concepts of guide and 124.89 ounces of a very dirty pile of “wet poem” on each corner.
11. Whisper the following spell: “Alchemia implacabilis! Meio clystermitto clodigo condocefaciencia, millibi! Verca bisellatrocinium! Creditor circumbrans!”
12. Reluctantly, a book will appear inside the circle.

That might also help those that are struggling to make a book. And if you are missing one of the materials or tools, maybe another entry in The Greater Book of Transmutation could help you make it!

Used data sources:

• Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., & Schreiber, T. A. (1998). The University of South Florida word association, rhyme, and word fragment norms
• English Club: Uncountable Nouns List
• LATIN-ENGLISH DICTIONARY WORDLIST Version 1.97FC by William Whitaker

I had a lot of fun with electronics in my last project, so I wanted to do more of that. And I still had a Touch Board that I never had time to use so far – an Arduino with capacitive sensing, which, among other things, can do this:

It worked quite well for very low ranges (<4cm), which was suitable for our purposes. At first we tried to make one crystal which players can touch from multiple directions, but players used to swirl their hands around it like it was a crystal ball and that didn’t make for very predictable controls. In the end, we settled for 5 cardboard crystals, each with only one function and aluminium foil inside. The capacitive sensing actually worked really well through the cardboard! Some crystals controlled movement, and the closer you got to them, the faster the movement got. (And not being able to see why cardboard can sense how close you get to it added a fun technological-magical aspect to the whole thing.)

Apart from that, we also wanted to have generative creatures – kind of like my Chimera Maker, but this time I also got to procedurally animate the creatures! Kailin Zhu drew them and created the crystals you see in the video and pictures below, Titouan Millet made beautiful generative cloud shaders and Peter van Haaften generative music and sounds.

Oh, and I also made the creature nest, a separate executable which showed the creatures flying away from and returning to earth, seen in the video on the monitor. It communicates with the main game via a server using the Yahoo Games Network (formerly PlayerIO). I tried to make it work with standard Unity peer-to-peer networking, but the University network didn’t like direct connections at all.

Finally, all this generativeness combined resulted in:

Magical creatures have escaped into the heavens,
and the player must sift through layers of clouds
to bring them back to the earth.

Using a set of five crystal touch/distance-sensing controllers,
the player wanders through a generative audio/visual cloud world
to catch these lost mythical beings and return them to their home.

Credits:

• Titouan Millet – Programming and generative visuals
• Kailin Zhu – Craft and illustration
• Tobias Wehrum – Programming, electronics, and generative creature engine/animation
• Peter van Haaften – Generative music and sound engine

The video footage was recorded by Mattias Graham and Tobias Wehrum.

This project was made possible through the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Center’s Critical Hit: Games Collaboratory and the support of Concordia University and Dawson College and financial contribution of the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie.

Work in Progress and Playtest