Digital Art

I've seen enough people who have done some cool math-driven effect in flash once or twice, some even were trying to do that daily (bit 101), but this whole thing is not organized into anything close to asm/c demoscene. Sure, there are few prods at pouet.net or flashscene.org, but finding people interested in team work on something like that in flash isn't easy even there.

So, I resurrected my old flashkit account to post it here, in flash/math forum, supposedly frequented by people who can actually code something fancy. This is the plan: I am looking for people who will create some cool effect in flash using AS1/2, let's say 1kb thingie. We will then chain all things together, and get someone to compose music for that. This should end up in some good production running for several minutes.

Why the hell you would want to do that? Just for kicks. Also, think about it as investment. Resulting demo goes to every participant portfolio, so you are making 1kb script, and in return you have say, 64kb... well, probably much less, but mp3 will make up for that :)

I am working on my part (just a spin-off from flashmove.com contest entry, but I have some plans for great improvement).

:grouphug:

I am very interested in procedural art stuff in Flash, but in a different direction than what you are proposing. I don't know how to do the sort of effects that you linked to, unfortunately, and I don't really have ideas for a segment in a demo. So I don't think I'd be able to contribute, sorry. I would enjoy observing how it turns out though, if other people end up working on it.

I don't really care "direction", so don't give me lame excuses. and no, noone joined :(

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Originally Posted by realMakc

I don't really care "direction", so don't give me lame excuses. and no, noone joined :(

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It sounds like you are pretty disappointed that no one has joined yet. I am afraid that by using a loaded phrase like "lame excuses" however, you are making it even less likely for people to decide to help.

No one is obligated to contribute to your project. We are not stupid or lazy, just because we don't think that your project would be a good fit for our interests or talents. We are busy. We have other things that we could be doing.

That said, I would like to see this happen. Maybe we can come up with a project that more people would be interested in? Or to get us started, why don't you post some ideas of effects we might make, or good techniques to use? I imagine that like me, many Flash programmers are unfamiliar with the conventions of the demoscene, and could use some suggestions.

By the way, here is an example of the sort of direction I am interested in. I also wrote a comment on it explaining my ideas a bit.

1 well, yes, no one is obligated to me, and yes, I am disapointed.

2 however, if I have to change my ways to get people interested, then no, that is not something I am willing to do. it is cheaper to me to scrap this project instead.

3 your city thing is good, though I'm not exactly see any specific "direction" in it. p.s.: I find my very 1st flash thing (it's incredible that it is still online... copy/paste link, it checks referrer) somewhat similar, but that's just me.

4 other more interesting projects - maybe. post one. I and everybody else will take a look, and you will see how it goes.

The city thing is not something I made (it was made by IvoryDrive). What I meant to say is that I am interested in using procedural techniques to create standalone artistic pieces, possibly interactive, that convey an idea or mood. And the example you linked to does seem similar (though it uses a time-based progression like a demo or animation, whereas I imagine ambient pieces that show an active system in equilibrium, without a beginning or end). Doing that is taking procedural Flash art in a different direction than making collaborative, abstract demo pieces. That's what I meant to say.

Since you still want to do your collaborative demo project, how about you help us newcomers by posting examples of similar projects you admire, explain techniques you think would be cool to use, or other ideas? That could help spark interest and imagination.

as for demoscene, really admirable things are done in C/TASM, check debris everybody is crazy about, for example.

but the point is how math can be transformed into something that pleases the eye. what you seem to be talking about is creating a piece of art loaded with some idea, art that means something, have a message of some sort, etc. what I am talking about, is making the beauty of math visible. it is all about the math to me, in the 1st place. if I wanned something with a message, I would post "lets paint a picture about X" thread in fk arena.

take, for example, flame effect mentioned above. the idea is known since forever, is simple and brilliant at the same time. all you have to do is average neighbours of every pixel, fade a bit and shift into desired direction every step. the rest is matter of technology. one can take into account the way data is stored in video memory and what cpu instructions are available to take advantage of, and squeeze required code to under 100 bytes with assembler. in flash, you don't have much space around getPixel/setPixel, instead you have bitmap filters and color transforms that can do the job in different manner (source here). But the math behind it is the same no matter how different implementation is. what I hope for doing stuff like this is to learn to come up with underlying math on my own.

btw, I just read your comment again and I am under impression that you have missed A LOT of things done with flash, in your "direction". click here to get yourself started :)

Thanks for the links. I'll investigate them more thoroughly once I have time.

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say I "have missed A LOT of things done with flash." I'm sure there is a lot of interesting stuff out there that I don't know about yet, and I don't mean to dismiss it. I hope I didn't give that impression. I just meant to explain one little subset of all possible and worthy Flash things, which I am most interested in making myself. It's just what I'm interested in. I don't mean to suggest that it's the only thing worth making, or that other people should be doing it.

I thought that was a very interesting and insightful remark, that what you care about (and also what the demoscene is about?) is "making the beauty of math visible." I would certainly say that is a worthy goal and motivation. And it clarifies my own position. I think my goal is similar, and maybe the same in some places, but I'd say for me it is "making the beauty of nature accessible." :)

I am inspired by the natural world. I like minimalism, and distilling something to its essence, but I think that maybe I am less inspired by math in its theoretical purity. Though maybe it's just a matter of what I've been exposed to so far. I really started appreciating the beauty of plants only after reading about L-systems, and I am fascinated by cellular automata. CAs are abstract, but I imagine a deep and fundamental connection between the principles of these toy systems and the basic dynamics of the universe, which makes them very compelling to me. And also they make pretty designs and they're fun to play with. :rolleyes:

I haven't spent much time playing around with mathematical systems though, so I'm not very familiar with what is possible. And overall, I tend to be inspired by concrete applications more than by theoretical beauty (where "concrete applications" refers to games or artistic pieces, basically things that normal people can form emotional connections to). I guess I appreciate mathematical beauty less in itself than in its potential, the potential to be part of an experience that encourages people to associate emotion and personal meaning with it. It's about making the concepts, or feel, or whatever, personally relevant to people. So hmm, I guess our goals are not too far apart. :p

Anyway, what were we doing again?

Oh yeah, we're trying to make a procedural Flash demo. I'll try thinking of ideas. And I'll start recruiting. Have you seen this guy's work? There's a whole network of Flash tinkerers on deviantART. I'll post a comment to see if he's interested in contributing. I can also make a thread about it on Kongregate, since I know there are a couple people who might be interested.

[EDIT]
Kongregate thread posted.

what I mean is in your comment to city movie, you wrote that you couldn't find anything alike. from some PoV, blur filter is CA, too. what's possible, you say, do I dare to say, everything? applications, well I'm pretty much fed up with writing applications at the moment, since I'm doing it for money and it became boring experience.

Yes, I hadn't exactly been looking very hard, and the link you posted is nice, it's pretty similar. I could point out differences but really, there's a lot of stuff out there, and I need to just start making my own instead of looking at other people's.

Yes, CAs cover a lot of territory. I'm most interested in the spontaneous generation of complexity though.

I suppose that yes, anything is possible with algorithmic generation, but there can still be a distinctive shape to a space, of what's more probable or feasible or common. What kinds of math tend to be used a lot, statistics, logic, calculus, what? That question shows how little I know about the conventions of this field. Answer it helpfully, if you please.

When I said "applications," I didn't mean computer applications necessarily, I meant it more in a general sense, as in "something that is applied rather than theoretical." I'm not sure if I communicated that clearly enough. This collab you're proposing could be an example of an application, in that sense.

Anyway.

So are you going to do anything - help recruit, or start organizing?

1 Trigonometry, definetly.

2 I could do coding. I mean, I put my message in 3 or 4 places with no luck, and I do not see what else could I do.

Okay, I can see how trigonometry would be useful. I guess it's easier to use spatial kinds of mathematics like trig or CA to make a visualization than it would be to use the kinds based around symbol manipulation. But it might be interesting to try visualizing the process of proving a theorem or something. :p

Have you checked the Kongregate thread lately? It looks like there are some people who would be interested. You could make an account and tell them what to do next if they want to participate. For example, maybe ask them to write a few ideas of what they might do for their part, and how long they think it will take to make. Or if they don't know what to do, offer suggestions or examples. It's not easy to get people to actively contribute to a project, and it takes a lot of encouragement. But you can do it.

And in terms of recruiting, it's more effective to seek out individual people and ask them. I know of some more people on deviantART who I could ask personally, but it's something that you need to do as well if you ever want to start a project like this on your own. It helps to have a network of contacts.

Anyway, I have some possible ideas. Let me know what you think of them. :) First of all, I really like this bump map effect (also here). Something like that with some procedural textures would be really cool. And did you see the ragdoll game prototype thing I made? It's all physically-modeled, no pre-made animation, but not especially math-based. I was thinking I could do something with that character dancing (based on recorded mouse movements by me). Would that fit in with your procedural, math-based theme or is it too designed for your taste?

I'll post more ideas when I think of them.

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Originally Posted by realMakc

from some PoV, blur filter is CA, too. what's possible, you say, do I dare to say, everything?

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Originally Posted by axcho

Yes, CAs cover a lot of territory. I'm most interested in the spontaneous generation of complexity though.

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Who said blur filter cannot generate complexity? Run this code:

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import flash.filters.*;
import flash.display.*;
import flash.geom.*;

var mc1:MovieClip = this.createEmptyMovieClip ("mc1", this.getNextHighestDepth ());

// make any simple picture (here: gradient)
var mat:Matrix = new Matrix (); mat.createGradientBox(300, 400);
mc1.beginGradientFill ("radial", [255*65536, 255*256], [100, 100], [100, 255], mat);
mc1.lineTo (0, 200); mc1.lineTo (200, 200); mc1.lineTo (200, 0); mc1.endFill ();

// make 2 copies of above
var b1:BitmapData = new BitmapData (200, 200); b1.draw (mc1);
var b2:BitmapData = new BitmapData (200, 200); b2.draw (mc1);

// blur one
var bf:BlurFilter = new BlurFilter (8, 4, 2); b2.applyFilter(b2, b2.rectangle, new Point (), bf);

// calculate difference
b1.draw (b2, new Matrix (), new ColorTransform (1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0), "difference");

// make it visible in green, for example
b2.draw (b1, new Matrix (), new ColorTransform (0, 50, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0));
mc1.attachBitmap (b2, mc1.getNextHighestDepth ());

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Oh, I didn't mean to imply that blur filters cannot generate complexity. That's a pretty cool example, thanks for posting it. I'll study the code.

Are you interested in answering my other questions?

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Are you interested in answering my other questions?

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I'm not sure what you mean by that, let's see:

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Have you checked the Kongregate thread lately? It looks like there are some people who would be interested.

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Yes I did back then when you posted it, and it looks pretty standard "cool but I'm busy" thing is going on there. That thread was drowned pretty fast, and noone came here by your link. I don't think if I register and post there, people will suddenly find time to do something. Like, here I just was in my moods to do something, and here I just was not... so do other people.

I mean, thank you for your attempt to get some people into it, but - let's face it - it's dead idea.

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Would that fit in with your procedural, math-based theme or is it too designed for your taste?

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Wait, who said I don't like good designs? It's just that I suck at design, so I prefer areas where I would have more luck apriori :)

I've been gone for a while, sorry for the delay.

You're probably right that it's a dead project. Oh well. Maybe some other time.

I didn't mean to say that you don't like good design - I just wasn't sure if you only wanted pure math-based contributions, or if other, more human-directed things would be appropriate too. But I guess it doesn't matter now.

I'll let you know if I do anything like this in the future. It was nice talking with you. :)