Tech Art
Fractal Research
Development of Research:
Fractals have always been something that fascinate me, especially when it comes to recreating them in a visual shader format. I have made a fractal before, and the last one that I tried my hand at was the koch snowflake. When I tackle these fractals I used houdini, so that gives me a lot of tools at my disposal (and lots of different ways to do the same thing). When it came to this fractal, the Dragon Fractal, I wanted to follow the actual equation, from a mathematical sense. I ended up using some trigonometry to define where my next points would need to be defined. Also, properly creating a iteration pattern that would look through an array of different values that equations would append too it. It was a good challenge to tackle this, and furthered my understanding of coding (it also made me not fear reading and deciphering more complex math notation).
Code on Github
Random Curve Projectile
Brief:
This asset was created within Unreal using blueprints. It was not defined in a text-based language, but uses visual coding tools.
Logic behind the tool:
The curve asset is created first by defining a actor within a blueprint and drawing a line based on the characters crosshair. What the asset does is define a random float clamped between user defined values - this will act as the angle of exit for the actor from spawn location. Then we give the actor velocity and a hit attribute that kills the actor on collision. According to a lines hit position, created by the location of the crosshair, and the balls position at first creation, we lerp the value of the vector over the length of the first defined positions. We also define the midpoint of the line and add it into the lerp to create the arc of the curve. Then to give the jagged movement, I created a modulo true or false taking in values from a floored time attribute that randomly redefines the middle point of the line (but is really redefining the first exit angle). In short, this gives a randomly oriented homing projectile with detail control.
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Vertex to curve tool
How to use this tool:
Select any mesh and go into vertex mode. Select points in any order and hit create curve. This will create a curve based on the order that you selected the points. Then select a piece of geometry and then the curve to create a motion path. By inputting a mesh you can have the objects rotation oriented to the normals of a specific mesh.
Development of the tool:
The vertex to curve tool was planned originally to solve a problem with a bug rig in Maya. The bug rig relies on a motion path from curves, but the curves were always hard to make accurate. And attaching the bug to the world up object ran into many orientation problems. The original scene was supposed to be a bug crawling on a shirt and around a persons head. Creating a curve that sticks to the geometry can be done using a live object, but I thought it might be cool to select the objects vertices instead. Just another easier way to deal with a problem.
I can see the tool being used in lots of different ways for mainly animation purposes; but, it also has building application with sweep mesh etc.
Code and Breakdown on Github