Well, it's been fun, but it's time to wrap up the Flash-a-thon. We hope that you enjoyed it, and that you will play with the source code.
I want to give a great big thanks to all the fabulous coders who contributed their projects to the Flash-a-thon. In appreciation, they'll all be receiving special edition t-shirts and books from friends of ED!
So, until next time...have fun!
Introduction:
Here's another piece that I developed for my talk at FOTB. This one introduces using atomic numbers to assign properties to elements. ~Kristin
Author: Kristin Henry
Author's comments:
In this piece, cells are created and positioned on a grid. A cell's position is determined by it's order of creation. But on creation, a cell is randomly assigned an "atomic number". This number then determines additional properties for that cell, such as color and speed.
User interaction is very simple: click on the stage to set up a grid, set elements in motion, and starting over with a new grid.
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Introduction:
Last year, even though I wasn't speaking, I made the journey to Toronto for FITC. It was one of my best Flash conference experiences ever, partly because I wasn't under the pressure to perform and could just relax and enjoy the show and the company. This was also one of the first times at a Flash conference where I met people who already knew who I was, and that I specialize in science visualizations. This is great, because I got to meet coders who also have an interest in science, like Ben. I'm very happy that he's contributed this piece to the Flash-a-thon. ~Kristin
Author: Ben Stucki
Author's comments:
In this experiment prey are seeded at random and live a maximum life span of one second, during which they may reproduce with other prey. When two prey reproduce, each parent's hereditary information is passed to the child using a simple logic system which mimics Mendelian Inheritance. However if prey are not camouflaged appropriately they may be killed, thereby eliminating their opportunity to reproduce. Control the prey's environment and watch them adapt through generations of natural selection.
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What a wet and windy storm! There's a tree down across the street. The lights keep dimming. Closing up shop for the day. We'll resume the Flash-a-thon tomorrow.
Introduction:
When I'm preparing a visualization for presentation, I'll often set up the iterations so that they will only proceed after I've clicked somewhere on the stage. This gives me more control over the playback, and also helps me when I'm testing...sort of a visual breakpoint. This particular piece was part of my presentation at FOTB, and has a bit of a twist on the last click/iteration. ~Kristin
Author:Kristin Henry
Author's comments:
While working on my presentation for FOTB, I had atoms on the brain. For a while I was researching quantum mechanics (only on the surface) and looking for a way to incorporate it into my talk.
Along the way, I was reminded of the ancient Greeks, and their concept of the “atom”. They proposed that 1) if you divided a substance into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually you’d get to a piece that could not be divided (an atom), and 2) all material was composed of these atoms.
I started thinking about how I could visualize this. First, I did a quick prototype in the Flash authoring environment, using the line tool, keyframes, and tweens. A nice little sketch took me a few minutes, and captured the idea, but it wasn’t very precise.
So then I developed an algorithm for cutting into smaller and smaller pieces. In the last iteration, I took some inspiration from an early Keith Peters experiment, and replaced the single object (with lines drawn on it), with a grid of cell/objects positioned in the spaces between the lines. Visually, you shouldn’t see any difference, but inside the code is another story.
Fair warning: I’m playing around with events and integrating as3 practices with more traditional Flash programming. The structure of this code is not nearly as elegant as it could be.
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Introduction:
This works the same as before, where our automata have custom rulesets randomly assigned. The difference is this time we place two of them on the stage with random starting points. This can either just create some interesting visuals, or can cause the automata to branch off into new behaviors they would not normally have exhibited if they were alone thanks to the interference of the other.
Author: Mike Johnson
Author's comments:
There are some new scenarios to watch for here. If you know a ruleset from watching the singular version, watch for that same ruleset to pop up in a scenario where they will interfere with each other and you will sometimes get new emergent behaviors.
Again, this is a lot of fun to watch. You can force a reset of the simulation by pressing "r", otherwise it will reset automatically after a while with new rules.
The code was generated using FlashDevelop, and includes the project file. All the files are the same as before, except the entry point for the project is set to be MainMultiple.as instead of Main.as - otherwise the same classes are used.
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Continue reading "Cellular Automata - Custom Ruleset Interference" »
Woohoo! It's time to resume the Flash-a-thon!
Let's kick off with another piece by Mike Johnson. Enjoy!
We'll be pausing our posts for the Flash-a-thon, until after the holidays. See you on January 2nd, 2008!
Happy Holidays! May your days be filled, with peace, love, and fun!
Introduction:
I've done work with Cellular Automata in the past, including some different versions of Langtons Ants. Langtons Ant is a simple 2-dimensional automata with a very simple ruleset, and it could produce some very interesting behaviors. However it was very limited on it's own, even with it's long life cycle. ~Mike
Author: Mike Johnson
Author's comments:
Here we have a 2-dimensional automata ( an ant or termite is a common term ) that has a custom ruleset that is generated randomly. This ruleset could just be 2 rules long ( like Langtons Ant is ) or it could be up to 7 rules long. These rulesets can produce some very interesting emergent behavior. Some of them may produce purely chaos for their entire lifecycle, some may start out producing patterns that are bilaterally symmetrical, some may fluctuate between behaviors, and more - the possibilities are almost endless.
To keep things interesting, there is a limitation of how many generations the automata will be allowed to run before the grid and automata are reset with a new random ruleset. In addition, you can force a reset of the system by hitting "r" on the keyboard at any time.
Included in the deploy directory of the source code is a text file with a few custom rulesets that represent some potential behavior styles you could exhibit, in case you'd like to force one of those into the system and compile to see for yourself.
The code was generated using FlashDevelop, and includes the project file.
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Continue reading "Cellular Automata - Custom Random Rulesets" »
Introduction:
If you're longing to break free of the design confines of the screen, then this is the post for you. Weyert's example sends signals through the serial port. ~Kristin
Author:Weyert de Boer
Author's comments:
In this example is shown how you can leverage the serial port of the computer, which then allows you to have some hardware blink LEDs or other cool stuff! The hardware used in this example is an Arduino NG board. All the required code is supplied.
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Introduction:
...and now for some sticky elemental snow! ~Kristin
Author:Kristin Henry
Author's comments:
In this version, when the elements get near their position in the periodic table, they stick. Eventually, if you let this run long enough, the whole table will form. But when the table completes, the elements fall and the table formation starts over.
One thing I found interesting, was how obvious this makes the weighting of lower numbers in the random function. In my code, when a cell is created it's assigned a random atomic number and a random starting position (x is random, y is set to a constant). If the random function were truly random, there wouldn't be so many more cells generated closer to the left side of the stage than the right.
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Introduction:
At FOTB, Seb's talk on particle systems was on my short list of sessions I wanted to see, and meeting him was a real treat. I was delighted when he joined the GalaxyGoo Flash-a-thon. His snow effect is great, and the fact that he wrote it so quickly is a testament to both his skill as a coder and his familiarity with particles. ~Kristin
Author: Seb Lee-Delisle, Technical Director, Plug-in Media
Author's comments:
At FlashBrighton's Big Day Out a couple of weeks ago, I set myself the somewhat crazy challenge of programming a dynamically generated snowstorm in fifteen minutes from scratch. No pre-written classes, no graphics, nothing!
Needless to say it was a somewhat frenetic, but exciting session, and I just about made it with a few seconds to spare. And, as I felt that producing 2D particle snow would be a little too easy, I decided halfway through that it'd look better in 3D. And then I added some wind. As I always say, it'd be boring if it were too easy. :-)
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How's this for a little experiment in social networking for a good cause? And the timing is great!
About the Causes Giving Challenge The Causes Giving Challenge launches on December 13, 2007 at 3pm EST and ends on February 1, 2008 at 3pm EST. Through the Challenge, all users of Causes on Facebook are invited to participate by creating a cause. A total of $250,000 will be awarded to the causes of those individuals who inspire the most donors to give to their charity.$50,000 to the Cause with the most donors
$25,000 to the next two Causes with the most donors
$10,000 to the next ten Causes with the most donors
AND $1,000 each day to the Cause with the most donors that dayWe believe that this campaign has the potential to show the extraordinary impact that new technologies and online communities are having on giving.
~ The Case Foundation
Note that it says the "most donors" not the most donated. So, if 200 people donate $40 each, we could be in very good shape.
Our goal is to raise money for The Cell Project, bringing us closer to getting it into classrooms as an integrated project based learning activity and lesson plan.
As of a few minutes ago, the Flash-a-thon for The Cell Project was doing pretty well. We're still in the top 4, but we need your help to stay there.
Adding to the excitement of the Flash-a-thon, the stats are updated real-time, so this could get exciting. How many donors will we need to win one of those $1,000 daily grants? Or one of the bigger grants?
Introduction:
I haven't done much with video yet, but this series by Edwin has inspired me to start playing around with it in AS3! ~Kristin
Author: Edwin Heijmen
Author's comments:
A simple example of how to do run-time effects on video using ActionScript3.0. Here the highest value of the red, blue & green channels of each pixel is determined and only for this specific channel(s) the color is shown.
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Introduction:
I haven't done much with video yet, but this series by Edwin has inspired me to start playing around with it in AS3! ~Kristin
Author: Edwin Heijmen
Author's comments:
A simple example of how to do run-time effects on video using ActionScript3.0. Here only pixels (colors) lying on a grid are taken from the video and shown as circles, creating an effect similar to a newspaper image.
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Introduction:
I haven't done much with video yet, but this series by Edwin has inspired me to start playing around with it in AS3! ~Kristin
Author: Edwin Heijmen
Author's comments:
A simple example of how to do run-time effects on video using ActionScript3.0. Here a color-video is converted to a greyscale-video using a very simple conversion; take the average of the red, green and blue channels and assign this value to all 3 channels.
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Introduction:
And now for some elemental snow ~Kristin
Author:Kristin Henry
Author's comments:
I keep coming back to this one, and updating it with the new versions of ActionScript...this time in AS3. In the first version, the movement was handled with a separate onEnterFrame for each movieclip. In this version, I use a single timer handler and cycle through an array holding references to the movieclips. In last year's version, I added color, but was still using a movieclip from the library. Now, the graphic is created at run-time.
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Introduction:
I showed the simple animated version of this during my talk at FOTB, as an afterthought really, and was surprised at the interest in it. Here it is in AS3. ~Kristin
Author:Kristin Henry
Author's comments:
I've revived my old periodic table of elements project, and updated it to AS3. I've included two versions, here. The first is just a simple table in a single color. The second one has two differences: the cells are colored according to which chemical group they belong to; and I've used a Timer to add the cells one by one. Building up the table over time, as atomic numbers increase. When watching it, you may notice that the animation "jumps" in the last few rows. This is because the two rows at the bottom are actually excerpted from the main table. By convention, they are shown below to allow the table to fit on a printed page....like the inside cover of a text book.
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Introduction:
Converting experiments from older versions of ActionScript to AS3 can muddle the brain, but I had a lot of fun with this piece, which is just an update on one of Edwin's. ~Kristin
Author:Kristin Henry and Edwin Heijmen
Author's comments:
Edwin's original piece was inspired by the art of Victor Vassarely. Computationally, it develops a color map and reflects it in the four quadrants of the stage. Edwin's code it beautiful. I've mangled it a bit, to convert it to AS3. As a learning exercise, it was very valuable to me. I've included Edwin's original code (commented out) on the first frame of the fla. I also played with using the circle shape, bitmapData object, and using mouse events on the stage with an external custom class.
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Introduction:
We're going to start with a fantastic piece by Keith Peters. What a great way to kick off the Flash-a-thon! ~Kristin
Author: Keith Peters
Author's comments:
The Chaos Game is a simple algorithm that can produce some surprising fractal forms. This one has been done in 3D. More info here: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ChaosGame.html
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Time goes by so fast! The GalaxyGoo Flash-a-thon starts on Monday! We've all been working hard to get our files ready, and excitement is building.
Alexandra Lukaschewitz has designed a really fun logo, which lends itself well to audience participation. We'll be releasing source files for you to play with, and the best interpretation will win prizes. Think construction toys and robots...fun!
More details are coming soon. In the mean time, here's a sneak peak:
The idea is that the pieces that make up the font can "pop out", like a toy, and assemble into robots. Really neat concept.
The GalaxyGoo Flash-a-thon is coming! Starting Dec 10th!
We've got a bunch of really talented folks contributing their projects, with source code!
+ Branden Hall
+ Edwin Heijmen
+ Kristin Henry
+ Mike Johnson
+ Seb Lee-Delisle
+ Stacey Mulcahy
+ Keith Peters
+ Ben Stucki
.
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+ and some great surprise guests!
This online event supports the educational projects at GalaxyGoo. Continue reading for more information...