Faux-3D Wire Sculptures

Large version.

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Okay, I'm revisiting the curves again. Through a bit of an accident, I managed to create a faux-3D effect using some trig. What's going on is similar to the last curves expriment, only this time we're not randomizing the movement. Also, we're only moving points on the X-axis. Those points are moved by a sin of a steadily increasing number (.01 - interestingly, .1 created jittering line segments and .001 caused the figure to warp on the X-axis).


So WHY does it look 3D? I believe it has something to do with the sine wave having a pretty up close and personal relationship with the circle. Check this out for a graphic that illustrates this in 3D.

I also slapped on a minimal drop shadow to give the lines some depth.

Overall, I'm happy with this little mistake!

Saxomophoooooone....saxomophooooone...

Large version.

I've been playing with the microphone. This is the "rough" version of what I want to do, and I expect the final to be quite different. So, enjoy! Make sure you have your microphone on - Otherwise, this would be rather boring...

What we're doing here is having Flash interface with a microphone connected to the computer - it listens at the framerate (in this case, 31 frames per second) for external sounds. If it detects anything, it reads back a value greater than 0. By the way, -1 seems to be an inactive microphone, 0 is detecting no sound, and 1-100 is the sound level detected.

Every frame, if we DO hear a sound, a circle is added to the stage which fades at a rapid rate, leaving a glowing impression on a BitmapData field. Adding a little more to it, louder sounds (which return larger activityLevel values) will generate larger circles. If the sound is over 1, we also swap out the color of the glows.

So enjoy! Remember - turn your mic on!

can't let that glow go

I am absolutely falling in love with the BitmapData glow!

If the above is running a little slow, check out the large version in its own window here.

OR

Download the .swf itself here.

If interactivity is more your thing, check out the clickable version here. The standalone .swf is here.

The reason I'm offering so many options is that yes, these ARE a little intensive on your computer. But when they flow smoothly, boy are they fun to watch...at least, I think so! Enjoy!