For a while now, I have wanted to revisit the Ink Trails project. I loved the idea of creating a system that would engage the eye with its dynamic movement but also create a piece of art as a side effect of its existance. Though I loved the original Ink Trails, I couldn’t come up with a good way to mask the perlin noise influence acting on all the painting objects. All of the final pieces looked like glorified marbleized paper. There was no getting around it.
Then it hit me: Use the magnetosphere project as the engine and see what kind of paintings it would create. The first few examples were a bit bland. Using the same technique as Ink Trails, I had the magnetic particles rain ink down onto the ‘paper’ and if any of the particles actually touched the paper, they would scrape away at the ink that had already landed. Sadly, it looked dull. No surprises. Just a random spattering of circles.
As I continued to play with the code, I realized the part I did not like was how it looked to have the ribbon trails draw onto the paper every frame. The effect was not unlike old (really old) screensavers where lines bounced around the screen leaving echoes where it travelled. So I changed the process a bit.
Now there is a three step process. For the first step, over a period of 100 frames, the gravity orbs paint their cross-section onto the paper where it intersects it. The second step, also cumulative over 100 frames, has the particle orbs raining down a mist of ink. The third step is where it gets fun. Every 100 frames, all of the geometry collapses onto the paper. Voila! Instant chaotic hair balls.
To give the piece a little extra depth, every 300 frames (every 3 geometry collapses) the paper slightly blurs the image painted on it. Over time, the old content fades and blurs as new content is placed atop it.
Check the flickr image to see it full size. I will continue playing and at some point soon, I will post a video of the painting process.
Very Nice, I am looking forward to the video.
I was able to understand the development of Ink Trails up until now, but no longer!
Are these images above really just the “paper” after the ink has rained down on them? They look so 3dimensional to me, maybe it is just due to the blurring.
Either way, you have certainly captured my curiosity.
So beautiful every frame is a potential print! Love it!
Amazing work, this is completely awesome!
very nice work!
beautiful! i can’t wait to see the video.
Andy: Yep, that is just the ‘paper’. The 3D effect is due to the blurring of the older layers. Its actually a lot easier to understand than my description might have led on. Close your eyes and go on a journey with me. You are tiny and you are standing on a sheet of paper. Solid white. All around you are floating objects which react to audio and respond to each other. They dance around in this space. They also happen to be made of ink. Crazy! So the ink slowly rains down onto the paper. At the proper time, every object in the space clones a double of itself. This double has one goal… react to gravity. The double falls to the paper while the originals continue their dance. Before the next cloning happens, the paper gets blurred. Make sense?
Rob: Prints are the end game. Trying to make the engine well enough that I can let it run for a while and make 50 or so unique prints all based on the same math. Fingers crossed!
ukuku and Lea*: Thanks! Im pretty happy with where these are going.
Dr. Woohoo!: Working on it. I need to make the old blurred layers also fade a bit because after a while, all that blurring turns the paper grey and things start to get muddy really quick. I let a render run overnight last night and when I woke up, only the first 10 frames look decent, the rest are just messy.
Hi Robert ! Really beautiful work. I still don’t understand how you manage to “flatten” the 3d shapes into a single image (the paper). Do you take a “screenshot” from a top camera into a PImage ?