7 ms·

Genuary 2022: Generative Code Art Prompts for a Month

ubavic 5y ago
I always wanted to start with generative art and this seems like a perfect starting place. Question for people that already do generative art: what library (framework) do you recommend? I know a little bit about GLSL but I know it is limiting in some cases
- hrnnnnnn 5y ago
  If you'd rather do visual programming than code, blender is a great choice. You can do generative 2D using the shader node editor, or 3D with the new geometry nodes. For a code-based approach, I spent the weekend trying different permutations of Processing and settled on writing p5.js in VSCode. It's easy to set up, you can use vim bindings, and you can copy+paste your code into openprocessing.org if you want to share it (if it's interactive, for example).
- scyclow 5y ago
  p5 is great! Very easy to learn and has an amazing online editor to get you started immediately. Such a good tool for prototyping ideas quickly. https://editor.p5js.org/ https://editor.p5js.org/
  - twox2 5y ago
    I second p5js. Try Dan Shifman's "The Coding Train" videos on youtube.
    - iszomer 5y ago
      I third recommend p5js. If you're looking for more different flavors, try the Awesome Creative Coding page on github to get your bearings. - https://github.com/terkelg/awesome-creative-coding https://github.com/terkelg/awesome-creative-coding
- logicalshift 5y ago
  If Rust's your language, I wrote a library that should be pretty good at 2D things: https://github.com/logicalshift/flo_draw https://github.com/logicalshift/flo_draw - I wrote it while working on another project (FlowBetween) where I found debugging would be easier if I could just render something on-screen but rendering stuff on screen always required a ridiculous amount of setup. It has some nice options for feeding its own output back into itself as it uses streams rather than callbacks so it's quite good for procedural rendering type tasks (the 'Wibble' example is a good place to start with that)
MWil 5y ago
I was not aware of Genuary, but I have been a fan of Jamuary [0] so I took to using their prompts for some generative art the past few days. Rather than sticking to one or two of the prompts, I have been mixing together 3 at a time like "sequenced melody of a major+minor connected with white noise." I really enjoy the results.[1] [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/rssia1/jamuary_2022_prompt_list/ https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/rssia1/jamuar... [1]https://imgur.com/a/gVlzlUG https://imgur.com/a/gVlzlUG
- bambax 5y ago
  Wasn't aware of either! But very excited by both.
- 2mol 5y ago
  Those images are really great! Can you share some details on your process and tools?
djrockstar1 5y ago
Gonna use this opportunity to show off my day 1 prompt (10,000 things) creation. I'm not quite satisfied with it, but also don't really know where to go from here. https://i.imgur.com/8LN0q6V.png https://i.imgur.com/8LN0q6V.png
andybak 5y ago
How refreshing to see a mention of generative art that isn't followed by the mention of "NFTs". It's really spoiled one of my passions and I've had to mute a bunch of people i used to follow on Twitter. I'm not especially zealous against NFTs (more bored than I am repulsed) but it's just unspeakable boring for an entire field to turn into a sales pitch.
- refsab 5y ago
  I know. It's a nightmare. Several people I used to admire in the space have succumbed to the NFT virus. All they do now is shill for their latest 'drops'. The demo scene this is not anymore. It used to be about fun, experimentation and showing off mad coding (and lately ml) skills. Now it's a pyramid scheme. I'm unsubscribing. Or maybe I'm just getting old
  - miracle2k 5y ago
    Note that a number of the artists providing the prompts here are doing NFTs (and great ones too).
    - andybak 5y ago
      I've got no objection to artists doing NFTs. I just want places I can engage with their work and not have a constant reminder that it's a commercial transaction. It's just off putting when every single tweet about generative art is accompanyed by a loud sales pitch. It's like turning a gallery into a street market.
- bambax 5y ago
  It's really amazing that if you search for generative music on Twitter you find mostly NFT projects/people: https://twitter.com/search?q=generative+music&src=typed_query&f=user https://twitter.com/search?q=generative+music&src=typed_quer... (But if you search for stochastic music you find almost nothing).
- andreyk 5y ago
  I generally am not fond of NFTs myself, but want to give a counter point - while it's no fun to see artists you like posting a lot about NFTs, it's also great they can now get paid to do art. For established artists this means high purchase prices that (in the thousands, not something crazy) that make being a full time artist viable and acts as pay off for doing it for many years without much of a financial incentive. For smaller artists, it makes focusing on art as a source of income more viable. Personally i've bought some NFTs on hitenunc and was glad to support artists whose work I liked. Sure, buying some prints or something would be nicer, but that's not easy to set up, and the margins on that are presumably low.
hrnnnnnn 5y ago
I intend to use the prompts to learn python scripting in blender. Geometry nodes are great and I love the instant feedback, but for anything requiring iteration or recursion it can be quite cumbersome as there is no loop node yet. Alex Martinelli does some really cool stuff with cellular automata and I'd love to be able to get similar results in blender. https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1476121617415745536 https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1476121617415745536
- andybak 5y ago
  Can you write geometry nodes in Python? I've found that "nodes plus an escape hatch to real code" is a nice balance.
  - hrnnnnnn 5y ago
    Do you mean can you add your own nodes? You can but you have to do it in the core code which is C++. An addon that existed before geo nodes and did similar things, animation nodes, does actually let you write free-form python in the node tree since it was written as an addon. It is very slow compared to geometry nodes though, especially when dealing with lots of objects.
    - andybak 5y ago
      > Do you mean can you add your own nodes? You can but you have to do it in the core code which is C++. Ouch. I really hope that changes. > An addon that existed before geo nodes and did similar things, animation nodes, does actually let you write free-form python in the node tree since it was written as an addon. It is very slow compared to geometry nodes though, especially when dealing with lots of objects. I would like a situation where I can choose to trade speed for easy customization without switching to an entirely different system. I really hope they add scriptable geometry nodes. I just know for a fact that a node system without an escape hatch will be too limiting (and writing C++ is less than ideal and not viable at all if it requires a full recompilation of the app)
Wherecombinator 5y ago
Does anyone know any good resources to learn generative art? Would love to learn some algorithms and try mashing them together
- hrnnnnnn 5y ago
  This book and YouTube channel, both by Daniel Shiffman, are really excellent resources. https://natureofcode.com/book/ https://natureofcode.com/book/ https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCodingTrain https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCodingTrain
- scyclow 5y ago
  In my opinion the best starter book is Generative Design, hands down. If there was a generative art 101 textbook, this would be it. https://www.amazon.com/Generative-Design-Visualize-Program-JavaScript/dp/1616897589 https://www.amazon.com/Generative-Design-Visualize-Program-J...
  - qr666 5y ago
    Did you know that Satoshi is not who he was purported to be? An answer is coming... Oh and be careful with these books. They're using barcodes to track us.

I always wanted to start with generative art and this seems like a perfect starting place. Question for people that already do generative art: what library (framework) do you recommend? I know a little bit about GLSL but I know it is limiting in some cases

hrnnnnnn 5y ago
If you'd rather do visual programming than code, blender is a great choice. You can do generative 2D using the shader node editor, or 3D with the new geometry nodes. For a code-based approach, I spent the weekend trying different permutations of Processing and settled on writing p5.js in VSCode. It's easy to set up, you can use vim bindings, and you can copy+paste your code into openprocessing.org if you want to share it (if it's interactive, for example).
scyclow 5y ago
p5 is great! Very easy to learn and has an amazing online editor to get you started immediately. Such a good tool for prototyping ideas quickly. https://editor.p5js.org/ https://editor.p5js.org/
- twox2 5y ago
  I second p5js. Try Dan Shifman's "The Coding Train" videos on youtube.
  - iszomer 5y ago
    I third recommend p5js. If you're looking for more different flavors, try the Awesome Creative Coding page on github to get your bearings. - https://github.com/terkelg/awesome-creative-coding https://github.com/terkelg/awesome-creative-coding
logicalshift 5y ago
If Rust's your language, I wrote a library that should be pretty good at 2D things: https://github.com/logicalshift/flo_draw https://github.com/logicalshift/flo_draw - I wrote it while working on another project (FlowBetween) where I found debugging would be easier if I could just render something on-screen but rendering stuff on screen always required a ridiculous amount of setup. It has some nice options for feeding its own output back into itself as it uses streams rather than callbacks so it's quite good for procedural rendering type tasks (the 'Wibble' example is a good place to start with that)

MWil 5y ago

I was not aware of Genuary, but I have been a fan of Jamuary [0] so I took to using their prompts for some generative art the past few days. Rather than sticking to one or two of the prompts, I have been mixing together 3 at a time like "sequenced melody of a major+minor connected with white noise." I really enjoy the results.[1] [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/rssia1/jamuary_2022_prompt_list/ https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/rssia1/jamuar... [1]https://imgur.com/a/gVlzlUG https://imgur.com/a/gVlzlUG

bambax 5y ago
Wasn't aware of either! But very excited by both.
2mol 5y ago
Those images are really great! Can you share some details on your process and tools?

djrockstar1 5y ago

Gonna use this opportunity to show off my day 1 prompt (10,000 things) creation. I'm not quite satisfied with it, but also don't really know where to go from here. https://i.imgur.com/8LN0q6V.png https://i.imgur.com/8LN0q6V.png

andybak 5y ago

How refreshing to see a mention of generative art that isn't followed by the mention of "NFTs". It's really spoiled one of my passions and I've had to mute a bunch of people i used to follow on Twitter. I'm not especially zealous against NFTs (more bored than I am repulsed) but it's just unspeakable boring for an entire field to turn into a sales pitch.

refsab 5y ago
I know. It's a nightmare. Several people I used to admire in the space have succumbed to the NFT virus. All they do now is shill for their latest 'drops'. The demo scene this is not anymore. It used to be about fun, experimentation and showing off mad coding (and lately ml) skills. Now it's a pyramid scheme. I'm unsubscribing. Or maybe I'm just getting old
- miracle2k 5y ago
  Note that a number of the artists providing the prompts here are doing NFTs (and great ones too).
  - andybak 5y ago
    I've got no objection to artists doing NFTs. I just want places I can engage with their work and not have a constant reminder that it's a commercial transaction. It's just off putting when every single tweet about generative art is accompanyed by a loud sales pitch. It's like turning a gallery into a street market.
bambax 5y ago
It's really amazing that if you search for generative music on Twitter you find mostly NFT projects/people: https://twitter.com/search?q=generative+music&src=typed_query&f=user https://twitter.com/search?q=generative+music&src=typed_quer... (But if you search for stochastic music you find almost nothing).
andreyk 5y ago
I generally am not fond of NFTs myself, but want to give a counter point - while it's no fun to see artists you like posting a lot about NFTs, it's also great they can now get paid to do art. For established artists this means high purchase prices that (in the thousands, not something crazy) that make being a full time artist viable and acts as pay off for doing it for many years without much of a financial incentive. For smaller artists, it makes focusing on art as a source of income more viable. Personally i've bought some NFTs on hitenunc and was glad to support artists whose work I liked. Sure, buying some prints or something would be nicer, but that's not easy to set up, and the margins on that are presumably low.

hrnnnnnn 5y ago

I intend to use the prompts to learn python scripting in blender. Geometry nodes are great and I love the instant feedback, but for anything requiring iteration or recursion it can be quite cumbersome as there is no loop node yet. Alex Martinelli does some really cool stuff with cellular automata and I'd love to be able to get similar results in blender. https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1476121617415745536 https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1476121617415745536

andybak 5y ago
Can you write geometry nodes in Python? I've found that "nodes plus an escape hatch to real code" is a nice balance.
- hrnnnnnn 5y ago
  Do you mean can you add your own nodes? You can but you have to do it in the core code which is C++. An addon that existed before geo nodes and did similar things, animation nodes, does actually let you write free-form python in the node tree since it was written as an addon. It is very slow compared to geometry nodes though, especially when dealing with lots of objects.
  - andybak 5y ago
    > Do you mean can you add your own nodes? You can but you have to do it in the core code which is C++. Ouch. I really hope that changes. > An addon that existed before geo nodes and did similar things, animation nodes, does actually let you write free-form python in the node tree since it was written as an addon. It is very slow compared to geometry nodes though, especially when dealing with lots of objects. I would like a situation where I can choose to trade speed for easy customization without switching to an entirely different system. I really hope they add scriptable geometry nodes. I just know for a fact that a node system without an escape hatch will be too limiting (and writing C++ is less than ideal and not viable at all if it requires a full recompilation of the app)

Wherecombinator 5y ago

Does anyone know any good resources to learn generative art? Would love to learn some algorithms and try mashing them together

hrnnnnnn 5y ago
This book and YouTube channel, both by Daniel Shiffman, are really excellent resources. https://natureofcode.com/book/ https://natureofcode.com/book/ https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCodingTrain https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCodingTrain
scyclow 5y ago
In my opinion the best starter book is Generative Design, hands down. If there was a generative art 101 textbook, this would be it. https://www.amazon.com/Generative-Design-Visualize-Program-JavaScript/dp/1616897589 https://www.amazon.com/Generative-Design-Visualize-Program-J...
- qr666 5y ago
  Did you know that Satoshi is not who he was purported to be? An answer is coming... Oh and be careful with these books. They're using barcodes to track us.