Since March 2010 I decided to get serious about learning C++, coming from a Flash Designer background learning this stuff has prove to be not the easiest, basically to do what I want I have to learn not only C++, but OpenGL, GLSL, memory management and the list goes on and on. But thankfully there are two very good frameworks for C++ creative coding, OpenFrameworks and Cinder, making the learning curve a bit more manageable.

Inspired from this web site http://letitbloom.com/#ralph, the following sketch is about using an image gradient to control particles motion. Now that I know how it works, I find it easy, but when I first saw it my jaw hit the floor, so I try asking the author how it works, and very kindly he replies the following:

The process is as following.
1->Generate Perlin in black and white
2->Generate text, place in center (here this was all pregenerated so I could use the flower etc).
3->Imagine the whiteness to be a height value. Darker == lower, ligher == higher.
4->Convert the bitmap into a slope / normal map. Follow this process :
4.1.Convolution with a 3×3 kernel, y-1 and y+1 as 1,div by 2 bias 127, copy to red channel
4.2.Convolution with a 3×3 kernel x-1 and x+1 as 1, div by 2, bias 127, copy to blue channel
Now red and blue are converted into slope values for every pixel. Use this slope value to accelerate or decelerate your particles.
Use a linked list with small datatypes for your particles. Read out from the slope map to move them, add some elastics…et voila.

I have read that email about 10 times to get it, and bomb some forums asking how it works.

Basically you need to convolve at pixel location using two 3×3 kernels (by the name Sobel Operator), so convolving 2 times, one for X values and a second time for Y values, give you a 2D vector that represents the direction and magnitude of the gradient at that specific location, then all you need to do is use that vector as acceleration value for the particles.

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3D jellyfish swimming simulation build with Processing and Toxi library.  This personal project had a long run, it started back in late-2009 when I was looking for a 3D sketch to work on so I can learn some 3D basics.

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Here is my first 3D programming attempt. Not sure what motivates me to do a jellyfish, but its been a very good learning project, I learn a lot of 3D texture mapping, some basic OpenGL concepts, basic lights and blend modes, organic motion simulation, and general programming stuff.

This is one of my favourite Processing projects, inspired by the Oasis installation by everyware.kr, the source code is a modification of different logics & algorithms by Daniel Shiffman, Fligth404, and Levitated.

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