5 ms·

List of Generative Art and Live Coding Tools

144 points by vegadw 6y ago

tlarkworthy 6y ago
Also https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/generative-art https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/generative...
- vegadw 6y ago
  Hmm, I actually thought I already had that. Thanks for the catch! To be honest I'm not quite sure what category to put it under though?
- vchak1 6y ago
  Also missing shadertoy. https://www.shadertoy.com/ https://www.shadertoy.com/
  - vegadw 6y ago
    It's there, just at the VERY bottom as I deemed it more of a site of examples than a site to make shaders directly. I think you're right though that maybe that was a bad call.
emmanueloga_ 6y ago
Generative art is an interesting niche. It has some points of contact with the demoscene of the olden days (the eyecandy part mostly) but the emphasis seems to be on easier to use tools (like Processing), maybe even aimed at people new to coding, as opposed to the technical depth and proficiency most appreciated on the demoscene. Also I think most generative art works I've seen consist of a single scene, as opposed to a demoscene production that has more of a music video clip vibe.
- vegadw 6y ago
  For sure. This list started as a collection of links for a bunch of my friends that are into both art and storytelling but none of them have the programming experience I have so I tried to link the more user-friendly stuff up top and get generally more esoteric going down, though I haven't gone though and really enforced that ideal into the list yet. I think there's an interesting balancing act going on here as some of the appeal of these tools is their inherit complexity and strangeness acting as a sort of creative propellant as it puts you into a different mindset. I think that tools that are on the surface approachable but still let the user get into the really deep aspects have a lot more potential to allow for artistic revolutions (for lack of a better way to put it). I also don't think it has to be just for newcomers as Processing and the like try to be, For example- the multiple Rust frameworks on the page. Honestly I'm not even super into the generative art scene much beyond being a general nerd and observer. I am really into generative music, with tools like Orca [1], the various modules in VCV Rack [2] being my go-tos but I still love looking into and toying with other generative and/or live coding music tools too. I think there's a certain nostalgia for the demoscene that while I completely understand, clouds the reality that it was at it's core about pushing hardware beyond it's limits for the sake of creative uses. If we have all the compute we could ever need now then I think it's great that people who may have been into the demo scene are instead able to spend their time on making cool, usable tools and art with those tools. Besides, for the people that crave the highly technical, it's not like esolangs or ioccc or making Quines etc. are going anywhere. Plus, the demo scene isn't even truly dead, if you look around there's definitely still plenty of the same old-school stuff going on. Some of it on the old hardware of the era, some of it pushing today's micros or even beefy x86 systems to their limits. [1] https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca [2] https://library.vcvrack.com/?query=&brand=&tag=Random&license= https://library.vcvrack.com/?query=&brand=&tag=Random&licens...
  - preommr 6y ago
    How long have you been collecting this list? There's a handful of projects like tooll.io that seem to have been dropped years ago. Also thanks a lot for sharing, this is actually really relevant to me professionally right now.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
petargyurov 6y ago
Love the list. Only bit of feedback would be to improve the UI a bit. Instead of a table, use a grid of cards? Or list of cards? Adding filters would also be useful.
- vaccinator 6y ago
  more importantly, don't use 1920x1080 images for thumbnails
Fnoord 6y ago
It misses the program Debris (or Visual Debris?). It'd use a search engine such as Google Images to download pictures and blend them with each other. The result was a unique, colorful experience which was unique every time, where you could look into and try to figure out what is included (it had a NSFW filter, and also allowed you to include search words). You could save the result to a lossy format, but you could also edit the canvas to remove pictures it found. IIRC it was made by a NullSoft employee who also worked on other visualization plugins in WinAmp (unfortunately I don't have a link!). I used it in the early '00s, though it was Windows only. I don't remember if I got it to work on Wine. Nowadays I have Bing Wallpaper on most of my machines. Every day I get a curated, unique wallpaper of the day (the Bing background of the day). Sometimes I like it, sometimes not. No matter which machine I'm on though, the wallpaper is the same for every machine. I'm not a Bing user other than that but I love this Bing feature! [EDIT]I found it! Debris Visual Art [1][/EDIT] [1] https://fileforum.com/detail/Debris-Visual-Art/1190339066/1 https://fileforum.com/detail/Debris-Visual-Art/1190339066/1

144 points by vegadw 6y ago

Also https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/generative-art https://observablehq.com/collection/@observablehq/generative...

vegadw 6y ago
Hmm, I actually thought I already had that. Thanks for the catch! To be honest I'm not quite sure what category to put it under though?
vchak1 6y ago
Also missing shadertoy. https://www.shadertoy.com/ https://www.shadertoy.com/
- vegadw 6y ago
  It's there, just at the VERY bottom as I deemed it more of a site of examples than a site to make shaders directly. I think you're right though that maybe that was a bad call.

emmanueloga_ 6y ago

Generative art is an interesting niche. It has some points of contact with the demoscene of the olden days (the eyecandy part mostly) but the emphasis seems to be on easier to use tools (like Processing), maybe even aimed at people new to coding, as opposed to the technical depth and proficiency most appreciated on the demoscene. Also I think most generative art works I've seen consist of a single scene, as opposed to a demoscene production that has more of a music video clip vibe.

vegadw 6y ago
For sure. This list started as a collection of links for a bunch of my friends that are into both art and storytelling but none of them have the programming experience I have so I tried to link the more user-friendly stuff up top and get generally more esoteric going down, though I haven't gone though and really enforced that ideal into the list yet. I think there's an interesting balancing act going on here as some of the appeal of these tools is their inherit complexity and strangeness acting as a sort of creative propellant as it puts you into a different mindset. I think that tools that are on the surface approachable but still let the user get into the really deep aspects have a lot more potential to allow for artistic revolutions (for lack of a better way to put it). I also don't think it has to be just for newcomers as Processing and the like try to be, For example- the multiple Rust frameworks on the page. Honestly I'm not even super into the generative art scene much beyond being a general nerd and observer. I am really into generative music, with tools like Orca [1], the various modules in VCV Rack [2] being my go-tos but I still love looking into and toying with other generative and/or live coding music tools too. I think there's a certain nostalgia for the demoscene that while I completely understand, clouds the reality that it was at it's core about pushing hardware beyond it's limits for the sake of creative uses. If we have all the compute we could ever need now then I think it's great that people who may have been into the demo scene are instead able to spend their time on making cool, usable tools and art with those tools. Besides, for the people that crave the highly technical, it's not like esolangs or ioccc or making Quines etc. are going anywhere. Plus, the demo scene isn't even truly dead, if you look around there's definitely still plenty of the same old-school stuff going on. Some of it on the old hardware of the era, some of it pushing today's micros or even beefy x86 systems to their limits. [1] https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca [2] https://library.vcvrack.com/?query=&brand=&tag=Random&license= https://library.vcvrack.com/?query=&brand=&tag=Random&licens...
- preommr 6y ago
  How long have you been collecting this list? There's a handful of projects like tooll.io that seem to have been dropped years ago. Also thanks a lot for sharing, this is actually really relevant to me professionally right now.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

petargyurov 6y ago

Love the list. Only bit of feedback would be to improve the UI a bit. Instead of a table, use a grid of cards? Or list of cards? Adding filters would also be useful.

vaccinator 6y ago
more importantly, don't use 1920x1080 images for thumbnails

Fnoord 6y ago

It misses the program Debris (or Visual Debris?). It'd use a search engine such as Google Images to download pictures and blend them with each other. The result was a unique, colorful experience which was unique every time, where you could look into and try to figure out what is included (it had a NSFW filter, and also allowed you to include search words). You could save the result to a lossy format, but you could also edit the canvas to remove pictures it found. IIRC it was made by a NullSoft employee who also worked on other visualization plugins in WinAmp (unfortunately I don't have a link!). I used it in the early '00s, though it was Windows only. I don't remember if I got it to work on Wine. Nowadays I have Bing Wallpaper on most of my machines. Every day I get a curated, unique wallpaper of the day (the Bing background of the day). Sometimes I like it, sometimes not. No matter which machine I'm on though, the wallpaper is the same for every machine. I'm not a Bing user other than that but I love this Bing feature! [EDIT]I found it! Debris Visual Art [1][/EDIT] [1] https://fileforum.com/detail/Debris-Visual-Art/1190339066/1 https://fileforum.com/detail/Debris-Visual-Art/1190339066/1