EliRosen – Project3 – Excitable Creatures
Not a Prayer
I started this project with the idea of generating a group of creatures that would worship the mouse as their creator. The sound I knew was going to be critical. I discovered a pack of phoneme-like sounds from batchku at the free sound project. I used the Ess library for processing to string these together into an excited murmur. It didn’t sound much like praying but I liked the aesthetic. In order to create the visuals I took a cue from Karsten Schmidt’s wonderful project “Nokia Friends.” I put the creatures together as a series of springs using the toxiclibs physics library.
Here are some of my early character tests:
Getting the characters together took a lot of tweaking. I wanted as much variation in the forms as possible but I also wanted the bodies to be structurally sound. I found that the shapes had a tendency to invert, sending the springs into a wild twirling motion. This was sort of a fun accident but I wanted to minimize it as much as possible.
Here is the structural design of my creature along with some finished characters:
At this point I focused on the behavior of the creatures. I used attraction forces from toxiclibs to keep the creatures moving nervously around the screen. I also added some interactivity. If the user places the mouse over the eye of a creature it leaps into the air and lets out an excited gasp. Clicking the mouse applies an upward force to all of the creatures so that you can see them leap or float around the screen.
Here is a screen capture of me playing with the project:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMfVkc9OhU0&w=480&h=360]
Programs worshiping users? TRON! This makes me wonder what would happen if the angry birds had to share a space with the pigs. Nir was working on a program that described different personalities
being forced to interact in a small space. I think you can make that leap pretty quickly. He was asking questions about how people of different temperaments interact when forced to. Your simulation
is the basis for that kind of interaction.
maybe the pitch of the sound could be varied depending on the size of the character’s body.The larger the body the lower the pitch and visa versa. I think it could give them a bit more personality.
cute creatures are really cute, especially with the sound you paired with it.
^ absolutely
so cuuute.You should vary the size of the eyes too +1
^agree! reminds me of despicable me aliens! +1
Cool, engaging! +1
More blinking! maybe some ear wiggles… mouse-following eye…
The sounds are very percussive–kind of like a deep marimba tone… did you string phonemes together into longer sequences or cause more variation? Maybe take a phoneme and stretch it out over time so it’s less percussive and more mantra-like…
Overall, really interesting and fun to watch! Funny when one falls over and moves along
That turned out very well, I thought. Amusing and whimsical.
I like your characters! Especially the ears. This is a really fun project, something I can imagine being at the childrens museum as some kind of interactive display. it has a lot of character…s!
Way to make Mickey Mouse on your prototypes, Eli.
The character design is great! I actually like them quite a bit more than the real Nokia Friends.
“They would invert, and guts would fly EVERYWHERE, OH GOSH THE CARNAGE”
Great incorporation of audio, graphics and physics code.
This looks DOPE.
You need more experience dealing with simulated spring :)
This is really cute! Eye variation would be a simple thing to introduce that would give it more variety.
very cute, i wonder what they would look like with slightly bigger eyes
i love the bouncing
they look really funny when they lay on their side, also that they are all standing on the same plane even though the ears hang lower on the ones that are lying down
^^ its fun to watch them struggle
^ Sadistic! +1
vv Definitely, sounds are dope. Did you tru changing the pitch to get a greater diversity?
The sounds are awesome.
I wish you could have done more with the worship idea. I think there’s a lot of promise in that system.
Did you try any versions with fewer characters on the screen? It might be nice to give them a bit more separation and let the character design shine through.
Eyes to follow mouse? << I agree - it's a missed opportunity. To create a more rigid body, you can create a center 'spinal cord' for each creature with a negative attraction value in toxiclibs ... attaching all the vertices to the spine with springs will hold it all together without exploding/jittering, and will still repel neighboring creatures if the repulsion radius is wide enough. Great characters!! I see these guys conducting their worship like the aliens in Toy Story. "Ooooooh. The Claaaaaaaw!" +2 cute! the visuals and interaction is really great. also you've put in good sound also. i think you and joe need to pair up to come up with cuter characters.