keeran.com

Have got a bit closer to what I want to achieve with these randomly generated graphics. I have introduced what I am calling ‘paths’ to yesterday’s random movement code. Basically when the walker is generated it is issued a direction modifier and a count for how many steps that modifier should be applied to it’s current trajectory. This means I can set walkers off on randomly generated curve paths and see what happens.

Next step is to implement some kind of collision detection so that I don’t get bundles of walkers mashing up in the same area as this can create quite a nasty effect. When they do sprout off from the ‘pack’ there’s a good chance the effect will look cool though!

Demo here, Source here.

Have had a weird couple of days recently. After deciding to merge my blogs, my priority was to get a custom design for this site online ASAP, so about a week ago I was playing in Photoshop and while I could get the colours and the rough layout pretty much how I wanted it, I knew there was detail missing that I really wanted to achieve. Unfortunately I’m not skilled enough (yet) to get the blurry design ‘idea’ out of my head and onto paper *or* digital canvas, so I started thinking in terms of representing the kind of thing I wanted as code…

I remember a long long time ago, in a Flash channel on EFNet (it was either #flashhelp or #actionscript), saying to some of the regulars there that I wanted to get to the point where I could create ‘pretty’ things with code. I started messing around with movieclip-based particle systems and was enjoying where it was going, and then I got a full time job as a web developer and that was pretty much the end of my journey into what is now called Generative Art.

Well now I’ve decided to pick up where I left off, with a short term goal of creating an interesting and unique set of graphics for this site and a long term goal of flexing what little creative muscle I have and hopefully learning and developing my skills on the way.

I’ve uploaded my day-1 efforts – it’s simple stuff as you can see if you check out the source, but it’s a good starting point to build on I think.

Have a look at it here, and download the source here.

If you’re into this sort of thing there are loads of sites out there with some truely excellent work to view. A good starting point is the CodeTree project, where I have just made my first submission!

Update
After a request on IRC, I’ve uploaded 2 other versions:

Larger – Same as first but on a much bigger canvas
Larger, Dark with auto – using colours from my first tests, with mouse-click to activate auto mode

A capture from the last version posted – I’m loving the dark spacey feel it creates – I’m going to modify this to generate similar scenes rapidly so I can just see the finished result as I quite like it.