posted by Matthew Lloyd on 18.Oct.2008 3 Comments
Purrdy…
Purrdy too!
But this is the purrdiest: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/139549/square.jpg
But my favourite so far is: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/139549/SlashFlash/Composite.jpg
EDIT: added some post effects: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/139549/SlashFlash/Composite2.jpg
So how are these generated? They are all generated in Flash (technically AIR, makes saving the images out easier) and are all using the same algorithm for the Cornu spiral. But slightly modified with a different integral function so that I have more control over the dynamics of the spiral. After I draw one spiral i reset the position on the spiral (but keep the current angle and position, and then set it off drawing again. At random points I change the parameters as to send it off on a tangent. I am constantly decreasing the size and complexity of the spiral with each iteration to give a more layered and better depth effect. The ones that draw the image of the pink plant (origonal image by http://jjuuhhaa.deviantart.com/art/a-Broken-Heart-34816089 go give him lots of hugs and kisses) use the image as a colour map for every line drawn, the square one uses a random set of colours for each spiral drawn. I have control over where the spirals are generated or I can let it roam free and generate how it feels fit. It renders to a composite canvas so I can draw images much larger than then 2880 x 2880 restrition in flash, so printable work is possible (I’m looking at trying a 16″ x 24″ at 2400 DPI image). I think I’m going to keep playing around with this generator. I’ve got lots of different ideas to expand on which could look cool or very shit. My only worry is that it looks very flat, I need someway of giving it some depth… Now only if I had a 3d vector engine handy ;)
-Matt
Published in Flash
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posted by Matthew Lloyd on 16.Aug.2008 No Comments
Created on August 16th and filed under Python.
I got an iPhone recently, cool little device but thats not what this post is about. On the iPhone you can download applications direct to your phone, one of these applications I downloaded was the towers of hanoi. If your not familiar with this game then you might want to look it up. Now as any good programmer would do, after 30 seconds of playing the game you think “I wonder how I’d get a computer to solve this game…” So thats what I set out to do.
Continue reading ‘Towers of Hanoi Solved.’
posted by Matthew Lloyd on 06.Jul.2008 No Comments
Created on July 6th and filed under Flash.
So today was an unusually rainy day in Manchester, so I was pretty much grounded to the house for the afternoon. So since I was bored I decided to play around with doing a proper A* implementation (none of that hacky Dijkstra crap this time) for another project of mine.
While I was testing it I got it to draw on to a bitmap the Open List and Closed List (for all of you are thinking “the what what a what what?” have a look here) so I could better see how it was working and if I could optimize it a little better. After playing around with it for a couple of hours I got it to a point I was fairly happy. However I also noticed that there was a clever little side effect of what I did. The drawing of the Open and Closed lists seem to grow and follow along the main path, it seemed to resemble a bush or a tree or a lightening spike or frost covering a window; All very organic shapes which are quite hard to replicate in their static state let alone animated.
So I changed the map I was working with to be just random noise of 50% probability of wall or not, randomly placed start and end points and let it run. It was pretty cool! So I played with it a little more to add some colour variation and to fade out as it went on and here is the final output
Update
Today I wanted to test it on more of an obvious map. I’ve upped the speed a little too. I’m using the map from GTA1 thats been made twice as complex (scaled down and copied 4x) to test the system properly. The longest path was 5 seconds, the shortest 12 milliseconds, you can see it here.
posted by Matthew Lloyd on 29.Jun.2008 1 Comment
Created on June 29th and filed under Personal Life.
If you have read any of this blog, you’ll know I like fractals and music. I was at the Big Fish practise place at BeeHive Mill in Manchester this afternoon, and after practise I was waiting outside with my guitar and amp for my taxi. I turned round to see this image on the wall. Its a Mandelbrot that was spraypainted on the wall. I think it takes a special sort of person to spraypaint a mathematical anomoly on a wall.
posted by Matthew Lloyd on 25.Apr.2008 1 Comment
Created on April 25th and filed under Flash.
If your attempting the Exercises in Foundation Flash CS3 Video and you get a compile error along the lines of: “1172: Definition com.deviant:HueColorMatrixFilter could not be found.” Then you have come to the right place! You can download a full copy of the correct file here (Hue ColorMatrixFilter), all you need to do then is place it in the /com/deviant folder in your Exercise folder.
The authors seemed to have bungled that but never mind!
Download!
