Finally we’ve arrived at the final image to be used for the album art of Mode7‘s upcoming EP “Dusk Drops” (see above). There were a lot of contenders, but in the end, this image satisfied a certain visual balance and the general feeling of ominousness that we were looking to convey.

For these final renders, 2850×2850 images were generated by Sunflow, using the special Thinlens camera which allowed me to simulate a shallow depth of field. Each image took about 12 hours to render on a quad-core Intel i5 Windows 7 box.

Further post-processing was done in Photoshop to simulate things that we’d see in traditional photography: vignetting, chromatic abberation, and a subtle level of visual noise. Some color tweaking and other manipulations were done as well just to make the images a bit richer.

For the CD label itself, we’re going to use the following image:

+ View the piece on Flickr.

And then there were a few more images that I decided to render and treat, just because they were compelling to me and I wanted to see what they’d look like if I took them through the entire process.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

I’ll be following this post up with a video demoing the Processing app that I created for generating these compositions once they EP has been officially released in a few days.

After the last post, I went in and tweaked a couple of parameter ranges and how the noisy terrain was rendered and generated another 3,500 compositions, which you can see here:

+ See it super large on Flickr.

After the computer churned these out, I spent a few hours looking through them and managed to cull the set down to an even 350. But as I mentioned before, the next step was to render these using Sunflow, which I did right before I left for Minneapolis. Rendering the 350 images at 1280×1280 with no anti-aliasing and a very low sample setting took about 29 or so hours on a quad-core Intel PC. I had it dumping the output into a Dropbox folder so I could check on the progress on my phone during my trip.

Tonight, I took the next step and chose a final set of 29 images that are contenders for the final render. In that render, the visual noise will fall away considerably, and I’ll be generating a 2850×2850 image suitable for a 300dpi CD cover print.

You can see the 29 images I picked in this Flickr set. As of right now, these are my five favorite renders:

+ View the piece on Flickr.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

+ View the piece on Flickr.

That is, they’re amazing at working tirelessly and generating variations, given the proper constraints.

I’m in the process of creating some album art for a friend of mine, Mode7, for an upcoming EP release. I wanted to create something that was simultaneously intentional (i.e. I had ideas for an image) and generative (i.e. I’d let the computer make stuff up too). For the last couple weeks, I’ve been slowly building a Processing app that helps me generate compositions given a curated range of possible random values.

Last night, I asked my app to show me 10,000 variations on a theme. Here’s what it came up with:

+ See it hi-res on Flickr.

And here’s a zoom of a 6×6 grid from that output:

And here are some random selects that I never would have come up with on my own:

These images are rendered in an OpenGL context, so the lighting is basic and even throughout. But this is only the first step in the process of creating the final image. The Processing app is a tool for creating compositions and color schemes. In the end, my selects are saved out as Sunflow scene files and rendered in Sunflow with global illumination at a super-high resolution. Here are a couple test renders to give you an idea of the end possibilities:

There are a couple things I want to note about this whole process.

Symbiosis

What has happened in this process of creation is the emergence of a symbiotic relationship between me and the computer. I started with clear intention for the type of image I wanted to create. As I began programmatically building the structures of the elements I wanted to use in the composition, it wasn’t until I saw the way the computer rendered my forms that I would continue moving forward. These renders influenced my direction and provided a sort of course correction.

The same happens when I ask the computer to provide me with a series of choices. I become the curator and the computer becomes the creator. It seemingly influences me as much as I influence its output. This is especially true when you introduce Math.random() into the relationship. That singular function is the computer’s very powerful voice.

This whole process is like a dance or a dialogue. And I’m beginning to learn how powerful this can be in discovering possibilities for creative output that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve on my own.

Discovery

When I tell the computer to give me 10,000 choices, the process of reviewing those choices makes me feel like I’m a scientist or an archaeologist exploring unseen worlds or newly revealed information. I’m seeing something wholly new. A world that had the possibility of existing, but only up until last night, never actually existed. And here I get to discover that new world.

There’s something so utterly enchanting and delightful about this. Flipping through these images brings me closer to some level of innocence and awe that I simply don’t encounter very often in my life. And now I’m hooked.

+ 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.