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I adjusted a Brownian (botanist Robert Brown) motion *.fla that I found here . I added a couple of more “snakes” and added an input for a “nice” 4 letter word. Using the BitmapData class the movie grows a flower (thanks to MAYA’s paint effects) when ever one of the pink snakes intersects the text… sweet!!! Check out the source.

Source:pinky.fla

Check out the *.swf >>>

Here is a another model using the TileToSurface script. Rather than using static geometry as the primitive, I used a primitive that was keyed to a distance node (similar to a couple of posts ago). Adding some of these tools together produces interesting results. It definitely has more sea urchin quality than “architectural” quality… well maybe it is an underwater poisonous puffer museum building. It is also probably getting a little difficult to understand what is going on. You can read more of the post for the full tutorial or download the tutorial+ source files below

Tutorial files: tutorial_tileDist

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A script I have been working on and off for a little while… decided to finish it up.

Before running the script select a polygon surface and any number of objects. The script will then query the distance of those objects to each face of the surface, then extrude and scale it based on the distance to the nearest object in the list. As a warning I would start with a low distance threshold. Maya also seems to time out after around 700 extrusions(at least on my computer)… don’t know why.

Source: distancequeryextrude.mel

This isn’t really revolutionary, but it is nice trick/treat. Maya’s distance tool has an attribute: “distance.” The problem is that it can’t be accessed in the attribute editor to drive an attribute of another object. If you add an attribute to an object you can connect the distance node to that attribute through the hyper-graph. Take that Dr. Maya!!!! This can be very useful to key a field of objects. There is no real MEL here, but you can download a script that duplicates a grid (thats what I used in the video). Not to fancy, but I added a window to control the number of x and z elements and the spacing along those two axis so you don’t have to enter it in manually… sometimes you have to work a little bit in the beginning so you can be lazy later on. I think that’s what scripting is all about in the end anyway, being lazy in a smart/creative way.

Source:duplicate.mel

I adjusted the scale of the tiled _mc based on the luminosity of the pixel it samples.

Source: bitmap+luma.fla

I finally got around to learning how to use the BitmapData Class. It is pretty easy, just haven’t been able to take the time to sit down and check it out. You can easily build some of the same functionality that Scriptographer produces with illustrator. Of course, with flash you can add animation(a little bit of animation makes everything taste better). I was inspired to figure this out after downloading Joshua Davis’s 2007 presentation. He is amazing for making every thing accessible. It would be great to see him speak, but the presentation works on its own and it shows his technical approach as well as his attitude. There are some great animations that use an image of Chuck Close’s face to produce vector graphics.

Image is from American Apparel… love their ads, sexy/cute/normal/real girls… until someone like me geekifies it.

Source: Bitmap.fla

Check out the *.swf >>>