toast haiku » Design http://toasthaiku.net here's what i'm geeking out on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:00:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Make Fractal Art http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/27/make-fractal-art/ http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/27/make-fractal-art/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2007 20:28:12 +0000 drtoast http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/27/make-fractal-art/ Flam3 is a fractal art generator written by Scott Draves. It’s also the heart of a collaborative screen saver called Electric Sheep (named after the Philip K. Dick novel). While a beautiful fractal animation plays on the user’s screen, their computer is simultaneously rendering a few new frames for a future animation. Each computer uploads its new frames to a server, and in return downloads new animations that were created by the distributed network. These “electric sheep” are the “dreams” of the sleeping machines.

A program called Oxidizer (Mac) lets you edit those animations and create your own – or render single frames as high-resolution artwork. (You could also use Apophysis for Windows, or Qosmic for Linux). To get started, browse the current flock of sheep. Click on one you like, download its “genome”, load it up in Oxidizer and start playing around with its genes (here’s a nice tutorial). You can even cross-breed multiple sheep to create a hybrid. When you come up with something you like, you can render it as an animation or still frame. There are infinite variations to be made, so have at it!  Oh, and did I mention that all of this software is free?

Update: Scott Draves just pointed me to a preview of the next version of Electric Sheep, featuring even higher quality animations.  Thanks, Spot!

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]]> http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/27/make-fractal-art/feed/ 0 Art Nouveau http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/23/art-nouveau/ http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/23/art-nouveau/#comments Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:12:40 +0000 drtoast http://toasthaiku.net/2007/12/23/art-nouveau/ I just bought this book on Art Nouveau.  This turn-of-the-century style is marked by its bold, organic, flowing lines and intricate ornamentation, and has had a strong influence on modern graphic design.  The stems of flowers and vines are prominent – in fact, Art Nouveau has even been called “stem style.” The work of Alfons Mucha, with its radiant, neoclassical women with flowing robes and hair that almost resembles celtic knotwork, is quintessential Art Nouveau.

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