+ View large on Flickr.

+ View large on Flickr.

And tonight, got those vertex normals calculated. Much easier this time around — probably just because I understand it all conceptually now.

I’m really enjoying how this stuff is looking. Finally, I feel like this digital generative work feels as organic and alive as the source of the data itself. I can’t wait to add the UI controls for “sculpting” the composition and colors… and can’t wait to add more structural elements.

Now that I’m unpacked and settled in my new apartment — and since I have a 50 minute presentation coming up at FITC in just over a month — it was time to gain some momentum and get back on top of this stuff for Flow.

I’ll be the first to say that these definitely bear a strong resemblance to Evan Roth‘s latest Graffiti Analysis video called “Graffiti Analysis: 3D” — because they do. And because I was definitely inspired by it (just like I was inspired by the original project when I first saw it back in 2005 at FITC).

But this is just one layer of what I’ve finally settled on for my first real “pieces” to come out of this Flow project. I’m focusing on isolation of a few strokes, creating a strong composition, and building something structural — almost architectural — out of these energetic moments of frozen time.

The hurdle today was learning to draw a tube in space…this took the better part of the day. I would’ve used the GLE Tubing and Extrusion library, but unfortunately, that has dependencies on GLUT, which Cinder does not use. And I didn’t think that I’d be able to vary the thickness of the tube over its length, so I decided to try it from scratch. And we’ve got [decent] success. I do want to implement proper per-vertex normals to smooth the sucker out some more. I think I’ll be able to rip the per-vertex normals code from the old Noise Tube experiments, since it’s ultimately the same mesh structure.

And yeah, this is all OpenGL still. Once I get the other structural elements in place, I’ll be writing some sort of Cinder Block for creating a Sunflow scene / scene file and rendering this stuff out in Sunflow. The final aim is to create some prints from this thing. I’m giving myself till the end of the week to wrap up this visual direction, so I can focus on refactoring and documenting all the behind-the-scenes Flow applications for open source release around mid-August.

You can see the full set of this first bunch of renders in this Flickr set.

+ View large on Flickr.

+ View large on Flickr.

No, guys, seriously. This is pretty bad. So bad, I don’t even want your comments. But I really needed to do something that was not programming.

I think once a week, I might try to make an iPhone wallpaper. Here’s the first. Looks like crap on your iPhone. No, seriously. Download it and then delete it.

The font is MOD™ from Fontfabric™. It’s free. You should snag it.

I just want to say that I got lots of great feedback from friends and strangers regarding the redesign of my portfolio site. And thanks to all of you for it.

The two biggest issues (and I whole-heartedly agree):

1. The logo was weak and didn’t fit in.
2. The italic typeface didn’t read well in longer chunks.

So, instead of spending days on a logo treatment, I just put my name up in big, simple VAG Rounded Bold. And I used it for any type that was living on a white ground. I think things got balanced out with the change. Feeling better about it now, at least from the side of legibility.

Ta-da!

Well, that took long enough. Last night I launched the new version of mikecreighton.com. This morning, I polished up a couple things, so technically this post is a “YESTERDAY, CREATED.” update.

There’s still some work to do, like hooking the content up to ExpressionEngine, implementing this “Faust” technique, and sticking some Google Analytics events in there.

But for now, I’ve got something fresh online representing some of my work.

Still moving along on this. Here’s a little effect for transitioning between a project’s images. Feels a little too random right now…probably because it is, in fact, just random. I think I’ll move to something a little more organic that “sweeps” the grid mask across the image.

Now to figure out how to do that…

I needed to get this prototype out ASAP since some of the strength of the design direction I’ve chosen has to do with this uber-zoomed image pixel grid thingy. When I was designing it, I wanted to take advantage of Flash’s ability to smooth a scaled Bitmap. So, that’s what you’re seeing in this prototype.

I still have to figure out what to do with the motion, but the overall effect is achieved in the prototype. In the end, I’ll be sampling a 35×35 pixel rect of a loaded image and blowing it up to fill the stage. This is a little smaller than that, but the performance remains fast at either size.

I’ve started the redesign of my portfolio site. I created a lot of crappy looking stuff in the last two days, and I’ve finally reached a design direction I’m happy with.

I’m trying to get something up by the end of the weekend, so we’ll see how that goes.

Did I mention that designing is f’ing hard? Here’s another screen:

Yesterday, I was trying to unload the charge of my (now old) MacBook Pro, in an effort to calibrate it. I thought, what better way to kill the battery than to open up Netflix Watch Instantly, pump up the volume (or the jam), and jack the display brightness as high as it would go. Movie of choice: Helvetica.

I was drawn into the interview at the beginning with Wim Crouwel and his description of his use of the grid. The man is absolutely masterful using the grid as a constraint and rule system — and exploiting the hell out of it.

Inspired, I decided to continue playing with that word pair “Hyper Violent“.

Also, my first time using the new Illustrator CS4…

On my new 15″ MacBook Pro…

Today at 2AM I started getting a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon — well, a lot of traffic by my standards. I realized that for new visitors, there’s nothing that really indicates just how much content is actually on this site. I also tinker with a bunch of mediums, and that’s not apparent either.

So it hit me: I need some sort of “discovery” mechanism. I finally have a lot of content, and even I want to be able to see it all at-a-glance. So today, the Grid Browser was born.

On that page, there’s an all-up view of the visually-oriented content on the site. Also, in the header area of each page, you’ll find a little “grid strip” that pulls up 7 random pieces. I’m hoping these things encourage a little more exploration for people.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll put in a little tool tip that calls out the post’s name for each image. I might even go so far as to make the big grid sortable.