Pressure Project 1
Posted: September 10, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Kenny Olson
This video was what I used as inspiration for this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkdfJ9PkRQ
I wanted to create a looping and evolving “vaporwave aesthetic” visualization in Isadora. I found a video (linked above) of different length pendulums swinging and I wanted to try and recreate it. Once the Math was figured out the overall pattern was very simple. I added A black frame and a grid for aesthetic purposes (the ‘Nodes’ pictured above). The main chunk of the magic lives inside of the ‘User Actors’.
Inside each ‘User Actor’ Is a ‘Wave Generator’ feeding into the ‘Hue’ of a ‘Colorize Node’ (the min and max of the ‘Colorize Hue’ are min:80 max:95) and the ‘horizontal position’ of the ‘Shapes Node’. The ‘Shape Node’ ‘scale value’ is 10. Then the ‘Shapes Node’ ‘video out’ feeds into the ‘Colorize Node’ ‘texture in’. Next the ‘Colorize Node’ goes into the ‘texture in’ of a ‘shift Glitch Node’ (this is for looks and adds a fun glitching effect). I should also note the values of: ‘frequency’, ‘vertical’, ‘horizontal’, and ‘size’ on the ‘Shift Glitch Node’ are all set at 1. Then the ‘texture out’ of the ‘Shift Glitch’ goes into the ‘video in’ of a ‘Motion Blur Node’ with ‘accumulation amount’ set to 100 and ‘decay amount’ set to 70. Next the ‘video out’ of the Motion Blur Node’ goes into the ‘video’ of a ‘Projector Node’. Finally I added a ‘User Input Node’ into the ‘vertical position’ of the ‘Shapes Node’ and another ‘User Input’ into the ‘frequency’ of the ‘Wave Generator Node’. When completed the result should look like something similar to the above image. (you can now ‘save and update all’ and leave the ‘User Actor Window’ )
Now this is when the Fun starts. Back in the main composition window of Isadora you should have a newly created ‘User Actor’ with 2 adjustable values (‘frequency’ and ‘vertical position’). To get started adjust the ‘frequency’ to 0.28 Hz and the ‘vertical position’ to 45. You can then duplicate the ‘User Actor’ as many times as you please. The trick is to subtract 0.01Hz from the ‘frequency’ and subtract 5 from the ‘vertical position’ in a descending pattern with every additional ‘User Actor’ (My 1st ‘User Actor’ starts with a ‘frequency’ of 0.28 Hz and a ‘vertical position’ of 45 ending with my 19th ‘User Actor’ with a ‘frequency’ of 0.1 Hz and a ‘vertical position’ of -45)
To reset the program simply reenter the current scene from a previous scene (with a “Keyboard Watcher Node” and a “Jump++ Node” or by using the ‘space bar’)
I should also note: as long as all the ‘User Actors’ are separated by a constant ‘frequency’ and ‘vertical position’ (or ‘horizontal position’) value from each other (in either a positive or negative direction) the pattern will continue on forever in said direction.
A fun thing about creating this mathematical visualization digitally is there is no friction involved (as shown in the video example, eventually the balls will stop swinging) meaning this pattern will repeat and never stop until Isadora is closed.
