August 25, 2008
FLAM3 2.7.15 released
Get it here. Should appear in the launchpad soon. Changelog:Added new interpolation types 'old' and 'older', for use in recreating old animations. 'linear' mode now does not rotate padded xforms (results in prettier symmetric singularities). switched to using a 'padding' flag instead of a 'just initialized' flag; padding flag used for implementation of 'old' and 'older' types. interpolation_space now deprecated, instead use interpolation_type. flam3_align is now idempotent (multiple applications do not change the control points.) Default number of temporal samples bumped to 1000. Removed CVS headers from source code (now using SVN). Default interpolation mode now log. Removed 'move' and 'split' vars. changes to flam3-genome: sequence mode now returns linear interpolation mode for all control points except first/last of edges - these cps will use the original interpolation mode; inter and rotate modes will now return padded genomes for all control points, all with linear interpolation specified. instead of centering sometimes reframe by golden mean plus noise.
August 23, 2008
The Drop (Not Going)
Last night at 3am I left home on foot and walked South of Houston into the Lower East Side. I found the address, and stuffed an envelope with four freshly burned DVDs under the door. It barely fit. I made sure it was too far in to retrieve, then double-checked the number over the door, and assuring myself the building looked familiar (whew). My friend was sound asleep, upstairs, and would grab the goods at 7am, then board a plane for Burning Man, to deliver them to the Robot Heart bus. As I walked home I realized how precarious the whole plan was...The plan is not to go myself, but once again to send some sheep as proxy. This year Robot Heart Camp, an offshoot of Disorient, is taking a bus with a sound system, an LED-illuminated heart sculpture, and a Jumbotron video wall. Look for the sheep on the wall, and please send me any pictures you get :)
Thanks to Mike "Crack" for taking the goods at the last minute, and Lewis, Geo and the rest of the group. I will miss you and all my friends.
Burn Bright! Safety Third!
August 18, 2008
SXSW Panels
I've always wanted to attend SXSW and this is shaping up to be the year I finally make it. Now I just need the final push: if I get on a panel to speak about the Electric Sheep then I can't miss it :) The panels are partly chosen by public vote, so please take a minute to vote for both of ours: one and two. Thanks!Siggraph Pix
Last year it was the kiosk. This year it was the giant screens!
August 17, 2008
Biophilic Fractals and the Visual Journey of Organic Screen-savers
Taylor and Sprott, two of the luminaries of chaos theory have written a paper titled "Biophilic Fractals and the Visual Journey of Organic Screen-savers" where-in they ask:does exposure to fractals have a positive impact on our mental and physical condition?...It may eventually be possible, nonetheless, to produce fractals images that are even more effective at stress-reduction than natural scenes....Using images to manipulate the public's emotions (even if in a positive manner) might set off alarms for some. Certainly, an Orwellian future where we all assemble to stare at a communal fractal for a strictly allotted period does not seem very appealing. ... Meanwhile, visually-creative screen-savers such as Electric Sheep are an obvious strategy for increasing people’s exposure to these beautiful and potentially stress-reducing fractals.I am really interested in the psycho-physiological effects of the Electric Sheep and especially of the vastly improved version Dreams in High Fidelity. Can these effects be measured? I would love to know and I am looking for collaborators who can help answer these questions. Please contact me if you know someone who might fit the bill.
The paper appears in Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences 12, 117-129 (2008), and includes a collection of Sheep to be voted on my the readership, the winners of which will then appear on the covers of next year's journal. Thanks guys!
August 05, 2008
3LD video
Quicktime video documentation of the show at 3LD, shot by Iz.
July 21, 2008
FLAM3 2.7.14 released
Download it here, src or windows binaries. Or better yet get binary packages for Ubuntu in our PPA.The big news is we are using SVN now instead of CVS, so anyone who previously checked out source should start over. This is especially important because there was a rendering bug checked into the tip of CVS over the weekend that causes the frames to come out a little dark.
Changelog:
Add configuration option for atomic-ops. bug fix: do not truncate floating point palettes. new motion blur features: add temporal_filter_type, can be "box" (default) or "gaussian" or "exp". Temporal_filter_width and temporal_filter_exp are parms to it. 'blur' env var no longer used. Small bug fix: iteration count depends only on the size of the output image, not the padded image (the gutter). When interpolating, only do -pi/pi adjustment for non-asymmetric cases. Julian/juliascope variations use the alternate inverted identity for interpolation (reduces wedge effect). Add python script for regression and consistency checking.
Comment below or on the forum.
July 19, 2008
Auto-Update Results
It hasn't even been 24 hours yet, but adoption is going quickly: so far today there are 68 unique users of the new beta, and 41 holdouts.Update: the good news is after three days, the count stands at 84/24, which I would call a success. The remainder are probably running from SVN instead of the binary package. Eventually I'll send them a message reminding them to update.
The bad news is that we simultaneously had a regression in CVS of FLAM3, which has caused a bit of a flicker in the beta sheep. This should clear up after the fix gets out there enough. I am updating the PPA as I write this...
July 18, 2008
Linux Sheep Client 2.7b8 published
I just published a new release of the Electric Sheep client for Ubuntu (and Linux in general) with our PPA (Personal Package Archive). This is the first time I've made a release where I'll be able to measure it's adoption rate among the installed base of 134 Linux users (vs 100 Windows users). I believe the default for the autoupdate manager is to check daily. We're about to find out how that works out...With the fix, the client now plays a more changing variety of sheep from day to day. It also should work better with multiple monitors.
July 13, 2008
Blogged by Make Magazine
The opening at 3LD in downtown Manhattan was covered by Make Magazine and is now on the front page of their blog. Thanks Phil!
