11 December 2007

Strings! Balls!


Still hard at work with the processing bits, got a lot of work done today. The latest sketch fires small, white balls from the strings. The harder you pick the string, the faster the ball is shot out from it. Crazy motion going on! I set it up to trigger sounds whenever a ball hits the boundaries of the screen, as well as when the string is picked. Makes for an interesting soundscape too! (Almost like: "Sprooo-plink-plinkety-plink-pli-SPROOO-plicka-plick-plink".)

The program is starting to get game-like qualities, and is certainly engaging to play with. The way I see it working is that each ball will be connected to the string that "gave birth" to it. When its "mother string" is picked, the ball grows a little. When it has grown enough, it becomes light enough to lift off from the ground. The inflated balls (now balloons) rise to form a cloud of sorts. One of these balloons eventually grows into the kaleidoscope, but beware of inflating it too much, or it will explode. If you don't keep picking the strings, it will shrink away. This way, it becomes a balancing game to keep your kaleidoscope "alive".

Now, before you start bombarding me with critique or new ideas, let me try this out (I'm nearly there, guys) and we'll see how it works.



Sorry there's no sound in the video, I had no means to record that with. Oh, and it seems the framerate's a bit messed up, it runs twice as fast as in the video.

For the sound gang - We will need the following types of sounds:
  • String picks: Short attack, medium sustain
  • Ball collisions: Very short, brittle
  • Kaleidoscope growth: Long drone (Solaris?)
  • Kaleidoscope explosion: Destruction!

3 comments:

Christer said...

Note to self: If you ever start a groovy psychedelic rock band, be sure to name it "Kaleidoscope Explosion".

bareknut said...

Tjihi!
This looks super-mega-exiting. I'm looking forward to try this tomorrow. We also have to decide for the screen format as soon as possible.

PS. I really like the physics. Hopes it runs as smooth as this on the PC.

gcbb said...

my man! looks really great Chris! will the kaleidoscope be realtime video? Looking forward to try it out tomorrow!