#starfield base.

[chaiexe18-a]

STARFIELD 02 — VERSION 4 (pastebin code)

I altered the color of the star trails as well as the trail length to complement the background image and create a more immersive experience. I also added a background image, and I tried looking up tutorials to blur/change the opacity with mouseX, but decided it was probably something I could save for later if I had the time.

[chaiexe18-a]

STARFIELD 02 — VERSION 2 & 3 

Retrying the second tutorial from scratch, I managed to get a successful outcome while understanding most of the coding. My next iteration of this starfield was a little more personalized to what I wanted the experience to be like: I changed the colour of the star trails as well as the star size + number. 

I tried fiddling around with the star trails (”float px = map(x / pz, 0, 1, 0, width);” / “float py = map(y / pz, 0, 1, 0, height);”), but in the end, the result wasn’t desirable, as it made the light trails permanently long (rather than go from non-existent to long), or detached from the ellipse/star itself.

[chaiexe18-a]

STARFIELD 02 — VERSION 01 (pastebin code)

With a different tutorial, I tried to aim for the look of my initial idea which had the stars ‘bursting’ outwards from the center of the window. I learnt here that you’re able to create your own functions that can execute within the draw() and setup() functions themselves. Some of the maths in the tutorial was confusing but at this point I don’t think its crucial for me to understand every single detail.

I must’ve stepped wrong somewhere during the tutorial because the array of dots refreshed again and again instead of being static like the tutorial instructed. When I continued the dots all filtered into a line (right picture). Overall, this version was a failure, but it was a refreshing outcome from error messages that I didn’t understand + unresponsive windows (no output). I’ll try again in my next iteration.

[chaiexe18-a]

STARFIELD 01 — VERSION 01 (pastebin code)

Before I started with the interactivity aspect of my experience, I wanted to start with making the starfield first. It would be a more cohesive workflow if I left the interactivity for later (as it required learning about Kinect and how to navigate a whole new minefield) and I just started in Processing first.

The first version of my starfield was unsuccessful but still helpful. Overall, it was unsuccessful because the effect of the right-to-left starfield wasn’t what I was aiming for. My initial idea was for the stars to come from the center and burst ‘outwards’, leaving light trails. 

However, the tutorial I followed for this starfield taught me a few interesting lines of codes that I could use in a later iteration. One of these aspects is the having the ‘closer’ stars brighter (true white), and the ‘further’ stars less bright (a lesser white). It also facilitated a higher probability for generating stars that were closer to create a more realistic effect.