An ambitious project

for my final project that involves the combination of 3 of our past projects...ive decided to re-create a desktop in flash...that when the user clicks on the icons...they do random things that arent funtional and dont really serve a purpose....so i will be tinkering with icons on the desktop and how they work and what they do for the viewer visually. One other project that kind of incorporates what i might be going after is this video called animator vs. animation.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=X8orofVRIlU

the animation tinkers with the desktop icons and i would really like to do the same type of thing. It will look like one is navigating through a real desktop...but once the icons are clicked on it will be obvious that this desktop doesnt do what is expected of it.

Finished project 3 "the randomator"

This is my finished project of the random still life generator...i learned a lot through this project that i hope to use later on down the road. Fun project over

http://www.cfa.ilstu.edu/classes/at350/mtmalon/random.swf

I wouldve liked to do more with it, but due to scripting abilities and a time deadline this is what ive come up with and i am still happy with the results.

Scripting

Over the past week ive been developing and refining my project. I had finally decided to create a random still life generator. I have 7 or 8 objects on the screen that will randomly change position based on a random integer assigned to a variable. The objects are only randomly changing their x-coordinate on the plane; they do not change their y-coordinate at all because that type of project would include many many lines of advanced scripting that i dont think i am ready for yet. The scripting involved in this project could be considered minimal to scripting in some other projects ive seen so far, but one has to start somewhere. I have gathered an enormous amount of information with will be valuable for future projects. One of these skills is the knowing how to assign random numbers to a place holder then using the number in that place holder later on in the project. I am pretty satisfied with the progress ive made on this project and i believe it looks pretty good. If i knew more about scripting i might have been able to do a little more with it, but i think for the first project that really involves more than 20 lines of scripting, it's not bad at all.

Random this Random that

I have had a little bit of trouble finding artwork that is random, but did find this example of computer generated artwork.

http://www.random-art.org/

I believe this is also a gallery of art that has been made randomly through a computer somehow

http://lasr.cs.ucla.edu/awang/random.html


I am not sure what i want to do with this project because i understand that there are so many possibilities when it comes to having random elements in a computer. I do know kind of how the random programming works, but im not sure how i want to express that artistically or how much of my project I want to be random, i'll just have to develop some concepts and see how things go.

2nd Project Finished

Here is the link to my final project, let me know what you think

http://www.cfa.ilstu.edu/classes/at350/mtmalon/commentaryonsociety.swf

Progression is the key

So i have finally come up with my final idea for my project after days of deliberation and mental strain. I started off using a lightbulb and decided to present a pretty straight forward but power message through my interactive project. My idea is that the screen will start with about 8 or 9 lightbulbs on it. The viewer will be able to click on any of the light bulbs to turn it on. After doing so they will notice that part of a message or background will be lit up only revealing part of it's full idea. The more light bulbs that are clicked on the more of the message the viewer will be able to see. Each light bulb will represent a certain group of people, although im not sure what groups i want represented through each light bulb. The idea is that each group of people sheds light on pieces of the puzzle or problem and that even though they are all trying to achieve the same goal, their light wont be enough to view the entire piece. After all the light bulbs are clicked on a light switch will appear that will be labeled either "Everyone" or "A Collective Effort" and after it is switched on by the user the entire message will be lit up, which means that if the people work as a whole, they will be able to solve more problems than if they work individually and for themselves rather than for the common good.

ideas.......?

So i havent really come up with any concrete ideas for this project yet. Im really not surprised at this at all though, seeing as I usually come up with my ideas in class or whenever im not even thinking about the project. Im sure I will think of something today in class. I do know that im not planning on making a game or anything, even though the examples i posted were more or less games that could be played. Interactivity doesnt mean that the project has to be a game; so i suppose i'll just have to think of some other way for the viewer to interact with my project.