I decided to start off with a halo generator to create a similar effect to a lens flare which I then built on with audio input from the MacBook Pro’s built-in microphone to make it a more interesting effect. Adding in a replicate in space which chances direction over 8 replications gives it the appearance of movement amongst itself, again making it a bit more interesting, but what I really like about this is that it turns it into a colourful iris, which I really quite like.

When the audio is fairly quiet, the iris is small and fades in and out. As the audio volume increases, the iris grows and changes colour.

It can be downloaded here, you are welcome to have a look and play around with it as you like! Just remember, like everything else on this website, it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License. So anything you do with it must attribute me as the original artist, me, be shared under a share alike license and cannot be used commercially.

This has been done in Quartz Composer for OS X 10.5 Leopard, so it may not work correctly on Tiger. I don’t think I’ve used anything that was new in Leopard, but I’m not sure. So if you are using Tiger, good luck!

I’ve rendered a video which is now up on YouTube to give you an idea of how it looks.

The screen recording here has taken the mic input and used it for the animation. The song used in this recording is “Deflated & Alone (GE Abondoned mix)” by George_Ellinas from http://ccmixter.org/files/George_Ellinas/19174 under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

At the moment, it is great for a little while, but unless the music is constantly changing, the interest is lost as it begins to show similar patterns repeating themselves. If you have a look at the Quartz Composition, it’s a pretty simple one really, so I’m sure there is plenty more I can do with it yet to make it that bit more interesting for a bit longer!

The design itself is now finished. Unfortunately though, since I’ve widened the main content section a fair bit, it’s put some of the individual posts out, such as images behind code sections. Actually, mainly images behind code sections. I’ve gone through and cleaned up all of the ones I’ve found so far. If you happen across any that are still out, it would be greatly appreciated if you could leave a comment on the post to let me know.

Something new I have incorporated with this theme is my Twitter stream, running down the bottom right of the page. I’ve had it running on my other blog, Still as Life, for a while now, figured it’s about time to put it it on here too. My tweets are more web design oriented than computational arts, and even more so just what I’m up to in general. So when I am working on something, I’ll usually be tweeting about it, be it web design, computational arts or something else. Follow me if you are on Twitter and want to keep up to date on what I’m doing and my latest projects.

The background image I have used is a still from the output of one of my recent Quartz Composer audio visualisations. I’ll be putting it up here when I get a chance, along with a couple of variations on it.

Have a great one!

I’ve been pretty quiet on here the past few months unfortunately as I have been pretty busy, though if you follow me on Twitter, I am relatively alive. Hopefully you’ll be seeing a few more blog posts from me soon as I’ve got a number of things on the go, and a few things finished that just need to be written up.

I’ve been playing with Quartz Composer a fair bit and have a few new audio visualisers for you coming fairly soon, along with a new design for this blog based on one of these visualisations, so keep an eye out for it soon! The graphic design is almost finished, so hopefully I’ll get it all done up and live in the next week or two.

For a bit of a look at what I’ve been up to for Christmas and new years, have a look at my other blog, Still As Life and leave your comments about what you’ve been doing too.

Have a fun and safe holiday everyone, and enjoy 2009!

This isn’t a fractal, but I think it does re-create the appearance quite well.

The video quality isn’t even close to the live render quality, but it gives you a good idea of it.

The screen recording here has taken the mic input and used it for the animation. The song used in this recording is “August (Reggae Rework)” by el-B from http://ccmixter.org/files/elB/16075 under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 License.

You can download the Quartz file here, note though that while this will open in Tiger, it will not render correctly, OS X 10.5 Leopard is required for it to run correctly.

It should also be noted that the video above was rendered on a Macbook Pro with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz with 2gb of RAM and an 8600m GT and it averages 5 frames per second, so to really experience the full potential of this, it needs to run on a Mac with a fairly powerful video card like a Mac Pro, the iMac’s and new Macbook Pro’s should also render it quite nicely.

The reason it is so intensive is because there are a number of iterator and replicate in space patches along with LFO’s and interpolator’s that are affected by both the audio volume peak and the audio spectrum, so depending on the volume and the type of music, the visualisation develops more variation.

What I have created here is floating plasma that slowly floats from the bottom to the top of the screen and accumulates at the top. Audio input is taken from the microphone and combined with an LFO so that it is constantly varying between the base colours that the LFO covers and then other colours dependent on audio spikes. The audio input is also used to make the plasma “shy”, that is, as the input volume increases, the plasma starts to get smaller and disappear until the volume starts to subside again, then it comes back.

The basis of this is created with a Quartz Flame Image patch, ideally, I would have liked to redo this with a more controllable particle system, but that is for another time.

Download the Quartz Composer file here. Note that this requires OS X 10.5 Leopard. It will not work in Tiger as I have used patches that were not available in Tiger.

Check out the video below which shows the visualisation running with the song “Wired but Disconnected” by duckett.

• Audio Responsive Particles.

Portfolio Item 2 -

• Audio Responsive Lines.
  

Portfolio Item 3 -

• Kaleidoscope.

The file, dancing_balls.qtz is online here.

I have mostly fixed this now, it does still occasionally happen but not too often and in general it responds to all audio better than it did before. It is more sensitive overall.

There are some changes to the rotations as well so now there is more variation in how the lines appear, including the illusion of a horizon, so there is a lot more randomness to it.

I have also gone through and added in notes to make it easier to figure out what does what later on, also so anyone looking at it can figure it out relatively easily.

The Quartz Composer file, responsive_lines_2.qtz is available here.

It requires input via the built in mic in Macbook’s or iMac’s. It can of course be changed to accept audio input from the microphone-in, or line-in on Mac Pro’s or Mac Mini’s. With the right plug-in, it can also accept input from iTunes.

The most ideal is via line-in or microphone in as this gives the most control over what exactly the graphics are being synchronised with. However, using the built-in microphone means that no extra accessories are required.

Note that this was done using  Quartz Composer in Leopard.

The lines turned out to be a bit harder to work with than the particles since there are quite a few more things to control, but they did produce an interesting result.

The Quartz Composer file, responsive_lines.qtz is available online here.

Note that this one involves a lot more flashing than the other’s, so if you are epileptic or just don’t handle rapid flashing colours very well, you are looking at it at your own risk.

One of these changes is the way that the colours are generated. Now there is much more colour variation and a lot more of the smaller particles are coloured as well instead of just being grey. For the best colour variation, music with a large audio spectrum is much more rewarding than music with a small spectrum.

I have also changed the math for the size controls for the particles. The changes allow them to be bigger than they could be previously. The audio volume is multiplied by 2 and then divided by 4. Previously it was divided by 8.

This time around I have also named most of the patches so that they are more easily recognised as well as grouping the related patches and encompassing them with a note about what the group does, so as to make it easier to figure out what relates to what.

The responsive_particles_3.qtz file is available here.

It requires input via the built in mic in Macbook’s or iMac’s. It can of course be changed to accept audio input from the microphone-in, or line-in on Mac Pro’s or Mac Mini’s. With the right plug-in, it can also accept input from iTunes.

The most ideal is via line-in or microphone in as this gives the most control over what exactly the graphics are being synchronised with. However, using the built-in microphone means that no extra accessories are required.

Note that this was done using  Quartz Composer in Leopard.