It’s always interesting to learn about new software each term, especially as a Software Engineer and Computer Science Major.  I have a fascination with software, especially open source, since a software’s creator is usually a person who is similar to me.  I like to think about what the engineer was thinking when he or she added a certain feature, or organised an interface a certain way.  Would I have found the same solutions to their engineering problems?  How would I have gone about solving the puzzle that is creating new software?  I am always happy when I am introduced to a novel piece of software in a course, because it allows me to think deeply about all these types of questions.

This B Term at WPI I have been introduced to a software that is alien from any other that I had used before.  It is a tool that we are using in IMGD 300X, Inter-Media Electronic Arts.  This software is called PureData.  In PureData (or “pd”) you create applications by using visual “blocks” that you drag around the screen and connect with lines to create relations.  These complex visual webs you build up to create programs that will generate different works of art.

In pd you can add almost any form of media (audio, picture, video) and use it in some way to form a creation.  The first week of the course we used pd to create geometric shapes with the GEM library.  In pd we used different types of blocks to create triangles, squares, and circles of all different colors.  Pd allowed us to rotate and scale these shapes on screen to create interesting illusions.

Last week we were able to use pd to load-in our own images (and thus, animations) and track cursor movement and mouse clicks to create responses based on the user’s input.  If you would like to checkout the result of one of these projects, checkout my blog post on my interactive animation, on go to my youtube channel here to see a working demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kfljIzhphs

There will be more to come in my subsequent posts on PureData, file I/O, and animations, but for now, so long!

Madalyn

Hi All;

Here is my interactive animation:

I’m sorry that the clicking sound is so annoying. I had a difficult time getting a screen-capture software that actually worked, since my computer didn’t come with one installed.

My image has three animations. You can click:
1.) The fountain

2.) The pokeball

3.) The Campus Center building

Each will play a corresponding animation when clicked. I used photoshop to create the animations. I used PureData (pd) to put it all together and create the interactive environment. The main image I took myself over the summer (2013). I drew the animations for the fountain and the building, and the images for the pokeball and pokemon I got off DeviantArt.

I explain all this in my video. Enjoy!

~Madalyn

So here is a video of one of my assignments.

For this assignment, I created a bunch of still images that will change based on where your mouse cursor is, and where you click.  The images all started the same but I made changes to simulate an animation. The ball bounce is an actual animation made in Photoshop.

Hello people! I am Stefan Alexander and this will be my first post. I will be sharing to you guys what I have done so far in Pure Data.

For the Geometric Abstraction assignment I just tried out different manipulations of simple objects such as scaling, translating, and changing the opacity.

Here is what my final project looks like along with the Pd code (it is highly recommended to watch the video at 1080P full screen if you want to see what the code is actually doing):

And for the Interactive Animation assignment since I am not really an artistic person, I decided I would just create a simple face and animate each part.

In Photoshop I first made a plain head with no eyes, nose, or mouth. This is what it looks like:

Head image used for my interactive animation assignment.

Then, I made three video layers: one for the eyes, one for the nose, and one for the mouth. After that, in Pd I loaded each of the layers separately.

To be able to trigger them with mouse actions I used the mouse_g and over_g patches that were provided by the professor. At this point I noticed that I need to make sure that the animations will only be triggered when the mouse is overlapping the corresponding area. Hence, I basically made “dummy objects” for each part to record the dimensions and coordinates I need to set the over_g and then deleted those dummy objects.

To make things more interesting, I made the nose animation only be triggered when the mouse is overlapping and it is clicked. So here is the video:

It is an interesting class so far, I am looking forward to Project 1! 😀