Digital design at it’s best…The Mayfly TV ad was supplemented with an interactive site in which visitors can create themselves as a mayfly that lives for 24 hours. Visitors connect their mayfly with their name and a message that explains how they make the most of each day. Directors: Peter Thwaites, Darren Walsh
OMG, I am soooo excited by this… 
If you don’t know about this already, check out Lego Factory
In a nutshell, its software that you can download that lets you “play lego” with infinite bricks, BUT (and this is the completely awesome part) you can actually BUY the thing that you created in the 3D software- they will mail you all the bricks you used. It auto-calculates the price of the creation you are designing in real time as you build.
If that wasn’t cool enough, it lets you upload your finished design so that other people can buy the set you created too! Drool…
Alright, I think I’ve outted myself as a nerd enough for one post… Time to play!
(an example of a design by someone online- $399 CDN to buy all the bricks used in this one)
This video is rather awesome, partially for his creativity and partially for the great range of possibilities that this sort of technology opens up. I was rather impressed, myself, with the Wii Remote’s capabilities as a techie tool. Seems that Wii Remote hacks have gone down in popularity on the internet, so seeing this piece out of the blue is rather shiny.
Ultimately, I feel that for small, handheld devices such as touchscreen laptops or items such as the iPhone, this sort of technology won’t make much of a difference. I know for myself, actually touching the screen on those objects makes a big difference for feeling that one actually has an influence and interaction with the device. However, for a future, large-scale, display-based computers that could emerge in the future, this sort of interaction would be rather essential. If one could develop a methodology for determining positioning and movement across a large space, it would be a giant leap forward.
All in all, I think this is rather awesome and I look forward to seeing where things go from here.
I’m not normally a huge fan of lists, but I thought this one was interesting in that it reinforced a lot of the advice that we find ourselves giving all the time…
…except the one about taking a shower. Though that’s good advice too.
Speaking of Javasript controlling browsers.
Im guessing thats what they used here.
hello everyone. Last term one of my big focuses was on a flash project called “Visual Sound”. This was a exploratory project for me which introduced a few new technologies and jammed them together. The first challenge I faced with this project was the migration from Action Script 2 to Action Script 3. Before I could do anything I had to start all over with the basics and teach my self the new (and better) language, which was extremely enjoyable.
The second phase of this was an exploration into a technology called Papervision3D. I won’t get into specifics, (check it out here) but it allows us to put 3D into flash.
The third thing was into a physics engine called Ape Physics. (see it here)
And thirdly I had to combine them all together and and attach them to audio information at flash player run time. The results are interesting. So what is happening in the program is that flash loads the audio files in and reads the data in it, like its wave form. From there I take that information and use it to create a visual representation of it. The final result is pretty neat. Overall this was a very satisfying project for me, and forced me to learn a lot.
Make sure to move the mouse around, in most of the examples you can interact with the visualization. Pushing the mode button will switch between two different modes, one reads the audio’s frequency data, and the other reads its amplitude. The first visualizer does a good job of showing this difference.
This e-store created a really cool intro. Anyone know how flash tells the browser to scroll?
After a couple days rest to not think about my project, I thought I would post it up here for everyone to take a look at if you’re so inclined!
To use the application, you will need a computer microphone and Flash Player 9 installed. Be sure to read the instructions if you get confused.
This project had a great deal of development behind it. In just coding alone, I exceeded 190 hours of work. In total, I got up to around 330 hours. At the same time, it was an awesome experience and it really gave me the opportunity to explore generative media and push myself to produce the very best project. I really look forward to further developing this project into the future with new options and concepts that I just didn’t have time to explore in the limited time frame.
Here is some sample pieces that have come out of my engine:
If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line.