Final Sketch

This is my final sketch entitled Sound Orbs. I wanted to create a relaxing aesthetic and sound sketch. I have chosen these orbs that are create when pressing the mouse down, as many or few can be created and the sound I felt matched well was a tibetan sound bowl, its long, low warbling tone was perfect to match with my ellipses. The more you make and move the mouse the nicer the over lapping effect becomes.

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=41661

black or white

I quite like both of these however for some reason I have always imagined a white background from the beginning and the black with brighter colours is looking a little bit disco to me at times. I think I am going to go with the blue and green orbs rather than the bright or darker purple.

colours

I just wanted to experiment with some different colours and see what they look like.

I quite like the purples that fade into like a yellowish colour.

rect

I decided to see what it would look like when changing my main ellipse to a rectangle, although I liked the movement and look of it  felt as though it didnt tie in very well with my sound. I also tried with a black background which im not too sure about, I still have to experiment to get my colours right.

movement?

I tried to experiment a bit with movement of the circles however it was not very successful and I prefer them still, these are some of the shapes you could make with the mouse with the new code.

...

Just playing around with different fills and strokes. I like the look of it better with no background and I think I like the look of the HSB colours more that the brighter ones. I also experimented with the circles not fully fading out but I think it looks better when they do.

sound orbs

sticking to my original idea of the sound orbs I have been experimenting with ellipses and Steven has helped me to understand arrays more. I wanted the circles to grow in and out when the mouse is over them and a new one to be created when the mouse is clicked. I experimented with a few different colours and strokes. I am using transparency to give it that extra look and have taken away the background so that the residue from the growing balls is no longer there.

I think they look better with no stroke.

Sound

I was wondering what sort if sound I should be using and I have been looking at a lot of different chimes and bells etc. I talked to Ben after my presentation and he suggested to me that I look at tibetan singing bowls. Because I want a sort of low long soft sound I think these would be perfect for what I have been thinking about.

image sourced from:http://www.thebuddhagarden.com/images/bowls/tibetan-singing-bowl-mn.jpg

shapes

I was just trying out different shapes and seeing if they would be better than ellipses.

more key movement

i did some more experiments with the key changing movemnt but im really not liking the movement or the look, its just not very natural.

I was going to start making the circles react to the moving circle but because I don't like the movement theres no point continuing on with it.

keys

I started to experiment with movement in the sketch but using the keys instead of mouse X Y like I normally do. So I just made a circle that you can move around the screen and I was thinking it could interact with the other circles. However I decided that the movement isn't very smooth and I prefer the mouse interaction.

circles

I made this which I really like the visual effects however I don't think it would work very well with sound. As the mouse is moved continuously growing circles are formed.

experimenting

I have just started experimenting with ellipses and different shades and workings.

bubbles

This is one of my experiments with bubbles or orbs which just randomly generates different size and colour ellipses with a bubbling sound, when the mouse is pressed.

sound

In class today we had a tutorial to teach us how to put sound into our sketches. This was one of my first attempts. Its pretty horrible and basic with awful sounds but at least now I know how add sound.

The circle moves across the screen and when pressed makes a bubble sound and when not pressed it makes a laser sound.

orbs

I think I want to go with the sound orb idea and see how much I can develop it. I always steer away from the more intense visuals and I just want to create something that has a really beautiful visual and a nice matching sound. maybe something like a charm or a bell.

Storyboard

For this project I have a few sound ideas. My first idea is to do something with weather. I was thinking it would start with rain and then turn into hail and then into snow the more you clicked.

I also thought i could do something with ellipses, which i know sounds boring but i had a vision of suspended orbs that expanded outwards on contact in different colours that just had a really nice sound to them.

Precedent images

These are 2 images I found that I really like and think could make cool interactions.

images sourced from http://i1-win.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Pulsing-orb_1.png

http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?q=rain+drops&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=680&tbm=isch&tbnid=cQhQLkAphZXlmM:&imgrefurl=http://etacar.put.poznan.pl/piotr.pieranski/Physics%2520Around%2520Us/Physics%2520around%2520us.html&docid=LQX1eIX9T6ATIM&w=1024&h=773&ei=4kCSTt7iMMqeiAfGjuntDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=807&vpy=200&dur=329&hovh=153&hovw=208&tx=103&ty=62&page=1&tbnh=139&tbnw=192&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

more sounds examples

uploaded by Leo M

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=26387

This one has quite simple noises and the when hovered over a ray the music note and colour changes.

uploaded by Guy Yitzhaki

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=23260

This one is more of a music visualizer which we have been asked not to do. We are to focus more on sound shapes.

uploaded by Mike Zellers

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=11949 

This makes random sounds when you click it creates a big ellipse which then makes smaller ellipses with different notes.

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=5309

This one has a cool visual effect however the sound doesnt really correspond to the look of the sketch

sound examples

This is a cool example I found of a sound interaction. It is really fun to play with and the sound quality and tone is really beautiful.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2GPzRu/sneakytime.com/sound/

NEW PROJECT: SOUND SHAPES

Final Post

Final Sketch.

This is my final sketch for the project ‘Mouse Toy’. I wanted to create an interaction that has a subtle beauty to it in its movement and a fluidity and elegance. The more I added to this sketch the more it took away from what I was trying to achieve and made it overly complicated. I refined it down to what I believe is a relaxing interaction, when the user slowly moves the mouse around the screen the images of fluidity and fading of the lines creates a soothing aesthetic. Overall I believe I have created the effect that I sought out to make at the beginning adding new changes and interactions along the way. I like how the stroke weight changes at different points around the screen and how I have kept it simple with the black background and white stroke. I added colour here and there however I kept moving back to my original colour scheme, I finally decided to add subtle pinks and have a slight colour effect to add a little bit more, but keep it overly low key.

thoughts...

I am still unsure if colour hindering the effect I am after...

..

This incorporates more than one colour and they change as the lines move.

colour me pretty

varying shades of purple.

varying shades of green.

Just playing around with some colour options.

thoughts...

I feel as though I am near my final look that I have been wanting to achieve. I need to play around with my values and do some more colour experimentation but overall I am happy with the soothing effect that I feel my sketch creates with a subtle fluid sort of movement. I've still been having ideas to add to the sketch like bouncing lines and particle rain but everytime I try something new I revert back to the older ones!

colour

I've added a varying blue to this sketch that changes as the mouseX position changes. I quite like the effect but i will have to try and work it out to have a fade back to black aswell.

(this sketch+variations are not uploading to openprocessing for some reason, I will upload once I figure it out).

White and black

This is the original colour scheme that I kept reverting back to!

Thoughts...

At the moment I am a little confused as to where to go from here. I want an x-factor that will push my sketch forward however at the same time I am content in the smooth and subtle movement that I set out to pursue, I don't want anythig to explode of the screen or shower in rainbow colours. I feel like everything that I have tried so far has detracted from what I wanted to be the main focus and movement of the sketch. I am going to continue to experiment with line weights and colours and see if I can get a good balance between all aspects of my sketch, we'll see how I go!!

!!!

Instead of over complicating it on this sketch I have just repeated my line() in my code and reversed the values so that each line has another line that moves the oppisite way to itself. This gives me the crossover effect!!! I will continue to experiment with this and see where I can go from here.