Author: Caleb Brent

Final Project- The Dark Mansion

The goal for my project was to create an interactive narrative inspired by the video game “Until Dawn”, where the player makes choices that effect the outcome of the character. I wanted to utilize p5.scenemanager to take the user on a journey through different scenes, and to sound effects to certain scenes to enhance the experience. Initially, I wasn’t able to get p5.scenemanager to work, but I ended up figuring out what the problem was. The syntax for scenemanager is a little tricky, but once I was able to understand it, creating the narrative became a little easier. I was able to find images that help the user to visualize the story that I wanted to tell, and I also found background music and sound effects that fit the aesthetic of the images and the story.

“The Dark Mansion” is a fun narrative that takes the user on a journey throughout the interior of a mysterious mansion. The user has to avoid being killed by a dangerous man with an ax, while having to make a few important decisions so make it out alive.

I set out to make an interactive narrative with a variety of endings to the game, and that’s exactly what I ended up with. The narrative might not be as long as I had planned, but I was able to get p5.scenemanger to work and I was also able to add music and other sound effects to specific scenes. I also changed the narrative a bit from when I first wrote it. I made the narrative less wordy, so that the visuals can tell the story. There are 4 different endings that you could potentially get, and if you win, you are able to start the game over again to get a different ending. Overall I am satisfied with what I created. If I had more time, I would make the narrative longer, and I would add more visual/sound effects to make it more interesting. I might even add puzzles that the user has to complete to get a certain ending. My code is on OpenPrecessing:

Final Project- Part 1

So for this week I spent the time coming up with the story line for the interactive game I want to create. I wrote a narrative, and drew a map of the different decisions the user will be able to make. I decided on creating four different endings that the player will be able to get. I haven’t started the code yet, but depending on how quickly I finish the p5.scenemanager aspect of the code, I might be able to add more endings to the story. For the the next week I want to focus on the basic map of the code. I want to add buttons and to incorporate p5.scenemanager to switch scenes depending on what the user presses. During the final week I will work more on the visual aspect of the game/story…adding color, fancy text, and maybe even images of the characters, or even sound effects.

I’ll bring the sketchbook with the map of my story line to class tomorrow!

Final Project Inspiration

For my project, I’d like to create a game using p5.scenemanager. I don’t want it to be linear with only one path you can take… I want the choices you make to determine how you progress through the game. This is inspired by a video game called “Until Dawn”. It’s a horror game where the player is given choices throughout the game and each choice has some sort of butterfly effect. There are many different endings you can get in the game.

 

I love the concept of this game, although making all of the visuals could be a pain. I want the visuals to be minimal so that I can focus on the different choices and outcomes that the player can make. I want a style similar to the mobile game called “A Dark Room”. This game is really fun because of the mysterious story line, even though the visuals are very minimal.

I’m not sure exactly how much I could do with p5.scenemanager, but I’m excited to try it out.

Library

When searching through the P5.js libraries, one stood out to me: p5.scenemanager. Scenemanager is amazing, because it allows you to have multiple setup and draw functions, as long as they’re put into different scene classes. This could be used in many different ways. I could create an animation with multiple scenes, or even a game with multiple different levels. I also like this library because it seems like it could be easily combined with other libraries, and I could get creative…especially with the use of multiple draw functions. I’m able to essentially have multiple canvases, with different sketches.

Research Project- Rob Clouth

Rob Clouth is an electronic musician, sound designer, and new media artist based in Barcelona. Clouth makes a mix between techno music and IDM (intelligent dance music).

He uses various forms of programming to create his music. He uses sound painting, which means he sculpts sounds by painting their spectrums using a digitizer. I think this is cool, because it’s almost like reverse sound-making, because usually a sound is represented by a sound spectrum, rather than the spectrum being created first.

Clouth also carries around different microphones, just in case he hears a sound he wants to use in his music. He uses deep-ear binaural mics, waterproofed contact mics (I guess for recording sounds underwater), and a coil mic that picks up electromagnetic fields of electronic devices. I think it’s cool how he carries microphones around, similar to how a photographer carries a camera and lenses.

The video above is a piece form Clouth called ‘Islands of Glass’. I personally love how the visuals interact with what is going on in his music. I’m not sure how the visuals were made for this video, but Clouth has recently created another piece called ‘Transition’, which is shown in the video below. In this piece, Couth generates the audio with an algorithm that he wrote to scan through his music collection in date-order. The algorithm takes little slices of audio from each track and stitches them together to form one continuous mix. I like this piece, because the visuals were inspired by the growth rings on trees. Clouth loves how trees encode their own history with these rings, as well as the history of its surroundings.

I love how Rob Clouth combines audio and visuals so well. All of his videos are mesmerizing, and the audio is very unique. You can check out some of his other pieces on his website:

http://www.robclouth.com/#home

 

 

 

Data

This assignment gave me a lot of trouble, and caused me a lot of confusion. Searching for different APIs that I wanted to use was fun, but trying to get the API keys were a pain. I kept having to throw out ideas simply because I couldn’t get an API key. I’ve signed up for countless websites, but for some reason I haven’t been getting any data.

I found a really cool API that has data of random facts for every number. My idea was that the user could type in a number and a random fact about that number would pop up. I would have it refresh whenever the user presses a button. I still can’t seem to get the API to work, which is frustrating. I’ve watched all of the videos on using API’s, but this is still confusing to me.

Chapters 10 and 11

After reading chapters 10 and 11 I have realized how complicated I have made my coding thus far. Whenever I have an idea, I’ve never really organized it in any way. Breaking my idea into parts is a good way to simplify my idea so that it seems less overwhelming. Going from idea to parts would probably be the most difficult part for me, just because I wouldn’t know how to separate my big idea into little parts. I guess it will take some practice. Overall, I think creating some sort of algorithms with parts will make my code more organized and less overwhelming. It will also help in the debugging process.

In chapter 11 I loved reading about how everyone who does coding always has some sort of problem with bugs in their code. I honestly thought it was just me. It’s super frustrating when my code doesn’t work as intended, and then how I have to search my (unorganized) code for a bug. I guess I should probably make my code simpler and more organized. Also making comments throughout my code could be helpful as well. The troubleshooting process that they talked about in chapter 11 was really helpful.

Midterm Part 2

My final midterm project looks a lot different from part 1 of my midterm project. It is also very different from what I wanted a that time. After looking at different types of unique clocks, I decided I would try something a little different. I still had the same basic idea of “Time and Space”, but I wanted to change the design of the clock. I didn’t put traditional “hands” on the clock, but I had 3 rotating arcs instead. This brings something more unique to the piece.

With the stars, I decided to have them be more like shooting stars instead of traditional stars floating through space. I didn’t want the “stardust” to get onto the clock at all, so I made the stars remove the trails of color once they pass over the clock.

The shooting stars make the background more interesting, and once you click the mouse, it changes the color theme. If you press any key then it erases the trails of color. If you hod down a key, then it does this cool “time glitch” effect.

Overall I think my project turned out well, even though it differs a lot form what my original vision was. To make it better I could’ve made the objects interact more with each other, and the user.

Midterm Part 1

For my midterm project, I would like to create an interactive “Time and Space” art piece. I want to have an analog clock in the middle of the piece, with an interactive background with stars that slowly chase after the mouse. I want some stars to be moving randomly across the screen. I also want to have a larger star rotating around the clock in the opposite direction as the hands are rotating. I want this star to interact with the other stars (maybe have the smaller stars bounce off of the bigger star.

In order to have two object interact with each other, I have to learn how to show if the objects are overlapping. There will be a lot of moving parts, and many of the same type of objects, so I will be using multiple classes. One for the hands of the clock, one for the little stars that move randomly, one for the little stars the follow the mouse, and one for the bigger star. I will also need to use my knowledge of loops and statements to create these classes correctly.

For part one, I have created the frame of the pocket watch, and the moving second hand. I can use a “hand” class to create the minute and hour hands. I will have to create a star class to finish the project.

I’ve drawn inspiration from the following pictures:

Week 3- Animation

For my animation, I tried to make a spinning object move on a sine curve while speeding up and slowing down depending on where it was on the curve. I also wanted to have the shape of the spinning object deform as it sped up, and go back to normal as it slowed down. I was having a tough time trying to get the spinning object to change its shape once it hit a certain y coordinate. I just couldn’t figure out how to have the shape gradually deform, or o have the speed gradually fluctuate. I’m still having a hard time putting everything we learned into practice.

https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/509976