DSDN142 - Storyboard + Idea/Paragraph(ish)

DSDN142 - My Idea + Inspirations  and Directions.

For project three, I want to achieve a application that utilizes all possible functions a mouse can give a user for the sole purpose of annihilation,  by destroying planets and fun.

For inspiration I've decided to take three old classic doss games Asteroids, Space Invaders and Lunar Lander  and try see what Ideas I could steal and combine into a somewhat unique  experience and then take those general game ideas and turn the user into somewhat of an anti-hero.

What makes my application "fun" I would have to be the challenging controls, since everything is time based and gets harder for the "user" to control as random gravity changes depending on effect or active class.

As for user interaction, the use of three mouse buttons will be required, as well as dragging  the mouse to "swing" certain elements along the axis, thus granting full use over the mouse to control the application. The user will be using left and right click functions to manage their "play time" while trying to capture meteors and smash them into the surface of shown planet.

DSDN142 - P3 - Code Snippet

Lengthy code, half the functions are currently not working or are commented out, this is what I currently have in relating to my idea.

DSDN142 - Progress, Sweet, Sweet, Progress.

After doing my head in, taking reference after reference and learning how Processing Tutorials I had used here. certain things work and the endless possibilities I have with arrays and calling class functions I was able to get the ship moving with gravity and on x-y axies around the screen whilst reacting to left/right click funtion which essentially "thrusted" the ship in the direction it faced.

Background now animates properly.

Air-stationed ship.

Change color scheme.

Gravity finally working, ship now falls.

Mouse Left + Right function activating properly and controlling ship though "space"

DSDN142 - Starting Over, Better idea, new envisionments.

So, after not being happy with my not going to lie, rushed "spore_cloud" idea which only really had one to two real interactions that were pure clicking and watching "Blur" filters kick in, I decided to look back into something game inspired again.

So, essentially, as you do... I took my two pass time classics that I'm addicted too, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Lunar Lander, shown in correct order below.

So, playing around with these two ideas, gave me a mixture of thoughts with different combinations of how I could essentially merge these two games together, but have everything react to mouse function. In the current screen shot above, the applet only changed the ships position on the y-axies up and down. So, I've began processing tutorials on arrays + got a book out from wellington library.

DSDN142 - Basic Code, as follows.

Basic/simple.

DSDN142 - Basic Code. Thoughts + Ideas.

So firstly just seeing what effects could be achieved by a simple shape continuously placed over would look like, with out a blur or build-in filter effect from the processing application.

Below are various configurations of the built-in blur filter so I could see what levels of blur have different effect and such.

I'm two-sided at the moment about the out-come, part of me likes the effects that are currently being created, another part of me is in disarray. Currently without any animation or "spores" animated and living around the so called "Eco-System", I look forward to seeing the result of animation added as I feel its visual appeal would increase more than it already as, although as stated, two-sided about the current outcome, but its still a process.

Thoughts + Additional Ideas + Possibilities.

• After a certain ammount of layers, background gains animated layer? Maybe even stick animated clouds behind each newly placed ellipse, so an animated "dust" effect starts appearing present.

• Lights/Dynamics.

• What would this look like in a 3D Atmosphere?

• Possibilities to give the illusion of a 3D Atmosphere?

• Hmm...

DSDN142 - Spore Cloud, create the universe.

A rough sketched down idea I had while in class, below I have done a simple digitized version in Photoshop using auto-shapes for easy readability.

The jest of it.

Originally, I wanted to create some sort of  destructible solar-system out of the built-in particle engine that existed within processing, however I let this idea slide, although the destruction of a solar system at your cursor-tips would be great, I feared the code would throw me too far into the deep-end of the particle coding pool. Therefor, I adapted and am trying to settle for this more basic idea.

This idea is the general use of particles, but in a smaller scale, left-mouse creates such and such at mouse-x, mouse-y, etc. I want to create a "living-system" in sense, I guess, an atom, an electron, a civilization for spores? Or other things that would live inside a cloud that's beauty is invisible to the human eye.

Planning, in the most basic of forms: I plan to on-click an ellipse is created, orbiting on the edges of this ellipse would be two other shapes, possibly created from lines or an imported image(still deciding) from here the left-mouse action would keep creating these mini-Eco systems, with these two living spores, once other ellipses are chained or near one another, the spores will wonder along on their own as you user, "you" are creating their environment. A right-click function, would attract these beings, various configurations of grouping  different numbers, different colors or spores would shine different colors and essentially light up background layers, etc.

DSDN142 - Particle Test

 Left-Click - Push-away   |   Right-Click - Pull-towards.

Started to play around with particles+trails to see what type of interesting effects I could achieve with this. I would like to move towards "magnetizing" the cursor in some sense, so that the particles only orbit around the cursor when "positive" charged that of a magnet. Not entirely sure yet.

DSDN142 - Inspiration Code(s).

Falling Water:
http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/41648


3-Dimentional Pyrimid
http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/67232


Particle Emitter - Spiral Formation
http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/56653


p0ur
http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/10949


Essentially, I began looking into particle effects, and code examples that involved the idea or at least sense of physics. The idea I want to go ahead with for project three is a simple mouse toy that allows the user to draw different click functions break the drawing for example, If i were to draw a straight line and then used left click, it would break into particles.

 If possible and if I had the time, I wish to make this "breaking" effect feel almost like liquid, the idea of drawing an image and it slowly washing away or, dripping off a canvas seems appealing to me for some reason.

DSDN142 - P3 - Rough Concept, Three.

<need to upload image>



Stepping away from the idea and inspiration of games and trying to go on something based by nature, of how certain liquids or solids act and attempting to emulate them in processing as a mouse toy.

I want to combine the idea of flow or something falling in empty space, with a sense of gravity. Essentially the way the "curtain" on processing works, but with something more fluid or particle based based. 

The idea of crumbling, falling to pieces or "snow falling" I want to allow the user to be able to draw images with mouse pointer as you would in any painting application you used when you were a kid, such as msPaint, but only to have these images crumble or explode in a flurry of randomized particle effects. The user would have control not only over drawing these elements or the base image, but also how fast/slow or even  if the bouncy of not when they fall, when the user tried to interact with them after falling it acts like nothing else but a fluid, such as water.


What does the person learn?
How their images fall apart pixel by pixel, particle by particle. The different visual-effects that can be gained from certain shapes, gravity configurations and color.

How long does it take to learn? 
The basic control, not long. But "hopefully" and endless configuration of shapes and random effects, in sense of learning the same thing for a different out come could prove to become boring and uninteresting after awhile.


Will it stay interesting after interaction? 
With different effects and random outcomes based on users action or "drawing" in this instance, for a reasonable amount of time, yes. Nothing wrong with random physics and your creations slowly falling into pieces, stress relieve?...

DSDN142 - P3 - Rough Concept, Two.

Based off another iOS game / classic named "Tower Blocks" where the user was to stack blocks up as high as possible that drop from a swinging crane, higher the tower that was stacked, faster the blocks swung.

I had a similar idea where the user has to stack "suishi" blocks with a mouse cursor that has turned into a pair of chop-sticks. Instead of the blacks swining, I was thining of adding a verible of "stress/grip" on the object that the user has tried to pick up that will slowly/rapidly decrease over time. The goal is to keep this verible balanced with mouse-click as you drag it to stack on top of the other "Suishi-Blocks". Combos will be additional, what stacks correctly with what, etc.


What does the person learn?
Number of clicks required to balance each individual piece depending on meter deprese speed,
Combos that keep the suishi stack balanced correctly over time.

How long does it take to learn? 
Questionable, may take sometime to completely learn. As the grip / meter will drop faster depending on block, so number of clicks required to keep balance / click speed will differ, or even completely become random.


Will it stay interesting after interaction?
Little to learn, possibly won't stay interesting too long as the user only learns two interactions.

DSDN142 - P3 - Rough Concept, One.

Rough idea, taking the concept of a popular iOS game "Fruit Ninja"with mixing elements of something similar to a tower defense where the user has to protect a point, or in this case an object, being the "Ellipse King" (Gray Ellipse) from the opposing Red ellipses.

Overtime difficulty will increase by attributes such as speed + density of red ellipses jumping toward the Grey ellipse.

What does the person learn?
----

How long does it take to learn? 
 The game should be learn rather quickly, as it should be fimilar interaction although instead of using finger or hand gester from the iOS device, rather mouse swipes + speed of swipes.

Will it stay interesting after interaction?
Questionable, game should have replay ability by trying to beat a given score from previous attempts, maybe introduce random events to keep the interaction feeling new? As difficulty increases could prove to be challenging for those who lable themselves as cusual "games" in sense.

Questioned to be Answered + Storyboards

Create 3 Storyboards/ideas for Friday. Answer questions; What does the person learn? How long does it take to learn? Will it stay interesting after interaction?