Looking Out
1) Hair Ball: Edward Porten
The project Hair Ball caught my attention because of it’s interesting textures and realistic fur movement. I enjoy tinkering with 3D computer graphics and would also hope to explore the 3D features on open-processing as well. I found the “hair ball’s” ability to change it’s coat so smoothly and react to the viewer’s cursor naturally very alluring. The jump is a little sudden, however and I would have liked it better if there was more elasticity in the creature’s jump and body as it went up into the air. The code includes classes for it’s coat, it’s eyes and it’s movement. There are many properties involved with the eyes that creates a realistic feel to the little creature. Even though the form is so simple, its ability to interact with the viewer creatures an urge to interact back and discover all the little details in the form. Another observation I noticed while messing with the program was that when the mouse is placed over the creature, his fur spreads out a bit near the mouse. I do wish that a better job was done with the fur spreading.
2)FLUX: Avcansaray Caddesi
Flux is a fantastical video devoted to the famous sculptor Illhan Koman. It involves a series of generative randomized transformations on red sphere. The continuous movement reminds me of the mimicry of natural patterns or phenomenons, such as tornadoes, whirlwinds and clothes. The sphere evokes strong emotions through its movement and brilliance in colors. There was no source code present in this work, so I wasnt’ able to peek into the artist’s brilliance. In the near future, I would like to incorporate some of this brilliant movement into my pieces as well.
3)MagTentacles: Giovanni Carlo Mingati
MagTentacles proved to be yet another impressing art piece. Created by Giovanni, mag Tentacles follows a large loop that cause tentacles to emerge and submerge into a green from. It’s randomness and slow speed draws the viewer into the art piece because it almost looks like you’re about to see the other side, but then the tentacles rearrange into another view. For a moment, you see an octopus, then the next it’s gone and turned into a start, then next an anenome. I really like how the form rotates and almost seems to swim around in a blue vacuum, pushing the “water” aside as it moves its tentacles around. I do wish that the background was a bit darker; I think that would bring out the presented object even more. The Rings on the arms make good indicators of where the legs are positioned in the object until the sinc back. The source code is pretty short. It involves different vertices to the draw the beautiful “legs” of the “tentapus:)