Final Transformation Project: What, Me?

This is my final transformation project. It is based on the concept of how a crowd forms from one person to many. I used the code from my previous transformation sketches (and a lot of it from Bitcraft's Spot the Dot sketch as I have mentioned in my other posts), but modified it so that instead of random rectangles of color, I not have 4 images to the program can choose from. I have come back to the literal interpretation of my concept in this sketch, but I feel it convey's my concept int a much more interesting and fun way than simply colors ever could.

Unfortunately, the memory involved with loading 4 images (I also have a 5th image included but that slowed down the program even more so I took it out) and a sound that loops is a lot more than Open Processing can handle, so I am going to continue to try to upload it to that site, but for now I will just have to explain it here.

The program starts by opening with a single image of a person. The code is set so that the program will choose this picture randomly each time it starts:

Then, when the mouse moves over the center of the image, it will split into 4 separate images. In addition, a sound of someone saying, "What, Me?" will play 4 time simultaneously so as to convey the idea that each one of these people on the screen is asking the same question.

Then, as the mouse continues to move over each individual image, the screen begins to fill with a crowd of people because each image is then split into 4 images just like the first image, and this continues until the screen is full of people and the sound is also amplified and continued as the process plays out. This creats an atmosphere and transformation from one singular person to a crowd of people.

I feel that this final product conveys the idea of transformation very well, and I am really happy with the way this project turned out. Although it was very hard for me to try to understand this code, and get it to work properly, I feel like I learned a lot in the process. I am really proud that at the end of this project I am now able to understand how to think in order to tell this program to a get random image, or to set up variables so that they could then later be defined and used, or where to tell it to play the sound so that it would be played every time an image appeared rather than just once when the program started is a great accomplishment for me.

Ideally, if I am able to for the final hand-in, I would like to do with the sound what I did with the images and have a random sound out of 4 or 5 play when a random image is generated. Then, instead of always saying, "What, Me?" The people in the pictures would be able to have more of a conversation with each other. The sounds I would like to incorporate would be along the lines of other people saying phrases like "Hello" and "How are you?" The effect would then be even more close to the atmosphere of a crowd because the sounds would not be as planned and would flow together better transforming the sound along with the images even more. However, if this memory problem continues this idea would only cause more problems so I am not sure it is possible to achieve at this time, but I am willing to try!

Depth Transformation

This is the same sketch as the Angry Transformation, but instead of the rectangles being in Center mode, they are in Corner mode. I can't decide which sketch I like better, but from a design aspect I feel as though this sketch represents transformation even more because you actually see the transformation of depth and the movement from the bottom right corner of the screen in the whole screen.

Angry Transformation

My original idea for this transformation project was to create a transformation from angry to calm. I was thinking too literally, however, because I started by trying to change the background color, and use images to actually make a calm crowd into an angry mob. This sketch was my move away from such a literal interpretation of transformation. There is sound in the code, but I stopped it from playing for now because it doesn't actually add anything to the concept. I do, however, really like the visual this sketch creates as the mouse moves around the screen and the colors change from black to red.

I really learned a lot about processing and code while creating this sketch. Although I did base the sketch off of Bitcraft's Spot the Dot sketch, it took me a really long time to learn exactly how the sketch works so that I could then modify it and change it to make it do exactly what I wanted it to do. If the "r" key is pressed then the sketch will reset!

Inspiration for my Transformation Project

For this project, I plan to transform one large square into many smaller ones in order to convey a feeling of anger (similar to the transformation of a happy crowd to an angry mob). The sketch below was originally created by bitcraft, but I modified the image to make it more appropriate to display here. This sketch, however, is a really great example of the direction I would like to go.