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Making Bitmaps Using a Visual Programing Language

38 points by bsella 8y ago

buttslasher69 8y ago
This is great You must animate now!
quadcore 8y ago
In the same category, substance: https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-designer https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-designer
- bsella 8y ago
  nice!
- FraKtus 8y ago
  The link gives me a 502 on iOS.
pjc50 8y ago
This is simultaneously quite cool - a tweakable image generation pipeline, like shaders; and a good demonstration of why visual programming languages remain extremely niche (Scratch, Labview): the instant descent into sphagetti.
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  I disagree. A textual programming language has the exact same structure. But in text. Logically a graph of nodes represented in text is harder to read then a graph of nodes represented in pictures. Most people think text is easier because of habit and because creating visual languages is harder therefore a good one hasn't been made yet.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Actually, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Text excels at abstractice capability, relationships are less explicit via name and procedure bindings, they can be even be compressed via loops and functions. On the other hand, relationships are very much explicit and in your face in a patch/wire visual language. This is just a trade off, visual languages are better at being explicit but worse at being abstract. When you think about it, that makes sense: a picture requires the commitment of detail that an abstract textual description does not. Incidentally, simply designing a more abstract visual notation is no easy way out of this, because the notation will inevitably resemble text as it becomes more abstract. Also, most VPLs have some amount of textual language I them. A patch/wire VPL will go text on patch names and port labeling. Scratch, in contrast, is basically graphically edited text with some visual elements. This makes judging the entire visual paradigm even more tricky, because it isn’t homogenous at all.
    - crimsonalucard 8y ago
      What is text but a visual abstraction? The same abstractions can be made with different geometry that isn't restricted to lines and left to right reading order.
veli_joza 8y ago
Very interesting project! I'm also building something like this. I'm also using constructive geometry to build a scene, but I'm using tree hierarchy instead of graph of nodes, and primitive form of ray-tracing to produce output. Few days ago I managed to get recursion to work. Graphics programming is insanely fun!
- bsella 8y ago
  oh sounds good, can I take a look on the code?
  - veli_joza 8y ago
    The code is not yet presentable, but it's open: https://github.com/jmiskovic/arbo https://github.com/jmiskovic/arbo
SuperPaintMan 8y ago
Cool project! Looks very similar to generating images with Blenders compositor. What are the differences between this and that?
pzone 8y ago
This is a tried and true method for processing bitmaps. It is always useful to see intermediate composites as you work. Some other software implementing node-based compositing and generation: - Nuke - Fusion - Substance Designer - Houdini - Blender - Natron - Autodesk Smoke I am a fan of Houdini which gives you the ability to drop into a C-like DSL called Vex if you ever feel like tossing some traditional code instructions into the mix.
FraKtus 8y ago
The best for me is artmatic: http://www.artmatic.com http://www.artmatic.com There are presets of trees that makes it easy to generate fine visuals and the primitive themselves are finetuned to generate impressive results. This is catch with that type of generators, giving the right sets of primitives, if you are too detailed it can take lomg to implemente something. Eric Wenger, the author of artmatic, is both an artist and a coder, there are not many creative peoples like him.

38 points by bsella 8y ago

This is great You must animate now!

In the same category, substance: https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-designer https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-designer

bsella 8y ago
nice!
FraKtus 8y ago
The link gives me a 502 on iOS.

pjc50 8y ago

This is simultaneously quite cool - a tweakable image generation pipeline, like shaders; and a good demonstration of why visual programming languages remain extremely niche (Scratch, Labview): the instant descent into sphagetti.

crimsonalucard 8y ago
I disagree. A textual programming language has the exact same structure. But in text. Logically a graph of nodes represented in text is harder to read then a graph of nodes represented in pictures. Most people think text is easier because of habit and because creating visual languages is harder therefore a good one hasn't been made yet.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Actually, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Text excels at abstractice capability, relationships are less explicit via name and procedure bindings, they can be even be compressed via loops and functions. On the other hand, relationships are very much explicit and in your face in a patch/wire visual language. This is just a trade off, visual languages are better at being explicit but worse at being abstract. When you think about it, that makes sense: a picture requires the commitment of detail that an abstract textual description does not. Incidentally, simply designing a more abstract visual notation is no easy way out of this, because the notation will inevitably resemble text as it becomes more abstract. Also, most VPLs have some amount of textual language I them. A patch/wire VPL will go text on patch names and port labeling. Scratch, in contrast, is basically graphically edited text with some visual elements. This makes judging the entire visual paradigm even more tricky, because it isn’t homogenous at all.
  - crimsonalucard 8y ago
    What is text but a visual abstraction? The same abstractions can be made with different geometry that isn't restricted to lines and left to right reading order.

veli_joza 8y ago

Very interesting project! I'm also building something like this. I'm also using constructive geometry to build a scene, but I'm using tree hierarchy instead of graph of nodes, and primitive form of ray-tracing to produce output. Few days ago I managed to get recursion to work. Graphics programming is insanely fun!

bsella 8y ago
oh sounds good, can I take a look on the code?
- veli_joza 8y ago
  The code is not yet presentable, but it's open: https://github.com/jmiskovic/arbo https://github.com/jmiskovic/arbo

SuperPaintMan 8y ago

Cool project! Looks very similar to generating images with Blenders compositor. What are the differences between this and that?

pzone 8y ago

This is a tried and true method for processing bitmaps. It is always useful to see intermediate composites as you work. Some other software implementing node-based compositing and generation: - Nuke - Fusion - Substance Designer - Houdini - Blender - Natron - Autodesk Smoke I am a fan of Houdini which gives you the ability to drop into a C-like DSL called Vex if you ever feel like tossing some traditional code instructions into the mix.

FraKtus 8y ago

The best for me is artmatic: http://www.artmatic.com http://www.artmatic.com There are presets of trees that makes it easy to generate fine visuals and the primitive themselves are finetuned to generate impressive results. This is catch with that type of generators, giving the right sets of primitives, if you are too detailed it can take lomg to implemente something. Eric Wenger, the author of artmatic, is both an artist and a coder, there are not many creative peoples like him.