6 ms·

Silk – Interactive Generative Art

74 points by mvikramaditya 14y ago

thiderman 14y ago
That probably gave me the most instant "wow" feeling any web page has ever given me. That's _really_ impressive!
joe5150 14y ago
That's incredible. I used to do a lot of work with Apophysis and I think I've been reinspired to start up again. What's more incredible is that it runs on my rather outdated machine. I'm so used to these Javascript-HTML5 canvas projects to cause my computer to eat dirt, but this was as smooth as I could possibly have expected.
- yurivish 14y ago
  Thanks!
olalonde 14y ago
Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797236 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797236
- spyder 14y ago
  Yea, and it seems the old URLs of the drawings aren't working anymore :(.
bromagosa 14y ago
It's great, but it'd be even greater if it had a gallery where you could browse through people's drawings!
- mjn 14y ago
  A variation on that I've run across, which imo works better on mobile, is to keep a gallery, but instead of displaying it directly as a gallery, have a button in the app where you can load a random creation from the gallery "live" into the app, and then use it as a starting point to edit. An app some friends of mine made, Sketch-a-Bit, uses that in a way that I think works pretty well: http://sketchabit.adamsmith.as/ http://sketchabit.adamsmith.as/
  - yurivish 14y ago
    The idea's very much to the lines I've been thinking, and something like this will likely make its way into a future update. And thank you for the link! Very cool.
Torn 14y ago
Dies on chrome for me, ouch!
- dreen 14y ago
  same here, last time it was posted it worked well :(
- yurivish 14y ago
  Silk creator here – what version of Chrome? I haven't had a single browser crash for me during testing and development (with testing in the latest Chrome/Safari/Firefox), but I'd like to look into it. (Edit: Also, a tip for Hacker Newsians – you can double-click the ? in the corner to hide the big app advertisement in the corner.)
camus 14y ago
crashed on chrome (latest) but cool!
atjonasnielsen 14y ago
Drawing the most artistic vaginas on the web
spot 14y ago
nice drawing effect but the copyright claims are pretty dangerous: they claim any art created with it must have a creative commons attribution license. this is total BS.
- olalonde 14y ago
  They should probably make this more obvious but other than that, I fail to see how it is total BS. If you don't like their licensing terms, don't use the product...
  - yarrel 14y ago
    Their licensing terms are dubious. You're using their tools to make original art.
  - GhotiFish 14y ago
    It's not like stuff made with the GCC has to be GPL. I'm not even sure they can enforce this.
itafroma 14y ago
The output leaves something to be desired: only 1375x918. I imagine it could be a popular tool to generate custom desktop/device backgrounds, but the low resolution combined with incorrect aspect ratio (not 16:9, 16:10, or even 4:3) makes it unappealing for that use. (Edit: actually based entirely off how big your window is, see child comments)
- yurivish 14y ago
  Hi itafroma, If you go fullscreen (there's an icon for it right under New), you can export a background that's exactly the right size for your browser. Right now the output is exactly the same size as the input, but it's a good idea to let people download cropped or scaled versions. ~ the silk creator
  - itafroma 14y ago
    Ah, yeah, I just figured that out after trying to piece together why it was such a weird dimension. Standard sizes would definitely be helpful, especially since doesn't seem to take into account retina/HiDPI displays. MacBook Pro set to "Best for retina" produces a 1440x900 image.
    - yurivish 14y ago
      Hmm... What browser are you using? I'm on a Retina Macbook, and just successfully saved a Retina-quality image using Chrome.
      - itafroma 14y ago
        Safari 6.0.3.
Semaphor 14y ago
Pretty awesome:) Can't save the Thumbnail in Chrome 27.0.1448.0 dev-m though. It only allows me to copy the image and paste it somewhere (which is enough) but I thought I'd mention it in case it's a bug in Silk and not in Chrome Dev.
icoder 14y ago
I'm thinking an API where you supply random seed nr, image size and optionally color and are returned an image. Useful for avatar creation :)
kyrias 14y ago
No Google+ '+1'? :(
borisvish 14y ago
Cool app!
lefinita 14y ago
The music just beautiful, boost my productivity :)
- yurivish 14y ago
  Thanks! It was composed for the app by Mat Jarvis, of http://microscopics.co.uk http://microscopics.co.uk. :)
swamp40 14y ago
I wonder if perhaps the universe was designed using an app such as this?
mnicole 14y ago
Loved the site when I first came across it a few months ago, but I'm really into the new interface and color mixer. Nice job!
jello4pres 14y ago
As someone who is just fascinated by symmetry, I could play with this forever.
- gruseom 14y ago
  As someone who is just fascinated by symmetry Do you know Jane Siberry's charming song about it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkpg0tlcAZw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkpg0tlcAZw
saidajigumi 14y ago
I really like this trend of mobile apps with a fully functional experience on the web. Adrift for iOS is nice example of using this approach for a trial/teaser experience. It's worth checking out the fully playable demo on the game's site at http://www.playadrift.com/ http://www.playadrift.com/, and the base app is free if you want to compare/contrast that to the mobile device experience. Beautifully done, IMO.

74 points by mvikramaditya 14y ago

That probably gave me the most instant "wow" feeling any web page has ever given me. That's _really_ impressive!

That's incredible. I used to do a lot of work with Apophysis and I think I've been reinspired to start up again. What's more incredible is that it runs on my rather outdated machine. I'm so used to these Javascript-HTML5 canvas projects to cause my computer to eat dirt, but this was as smooth as I could possibly have expected.

yurivish 14y ago
Thanks!

olalonde 14y ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797236 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797236

spyder 14y ago
Yea, and it seems the old URLs of the drawings aren't working anymore :(.

bromagosa 14y ago

It's great, but it'd be even greater if it had a gallery where you could browse through people's drawings!

mjn 14y ago
A variation on that I've run across, which imo works better on mobile, is to keep a gallery, but instead of displaying it directly as a gallery, have a button in the app where you can load a random creation from the gallery "live" into the app, and then use it as a starting point to edit. An app some friends of mine made, Sketch-a-Bit, uses that in a way that I think works pretty well: http://sketchabit.adamsmith.as/ http://sketchabit.adamsmith.as/
- yurivish 14y ago
  The idea's very much to the lines I've been thinking, and something like this will likely make its way into a future update. And thank you for the link! Very cool.

Torn 14y ago

Dies on chrome for me, ouch!

dreen 14y ago
same here, last time it was posted it worked well :(
yurivish 14y ago
Silk creator here – what version of Chrome? I haven't had a single browser crash for me during testing and development (with testing in the latest Chrome/Safari/Firefox), but I'd like to look into it. (Edit: Also, a tip for Hacker Newsians – you can double-click the ? in the corner to hide the big app advertisement in the corner.)

camus 14y ago

crashed on chrome (latest) but cool!

atjonasnielsen 14y ago

Drawing the most artistic vaginas on the web

spot 14y ago

nice drawing effect but the copyright claims are pretty dangerous: they claim any art created with it must have a creative commons attribution license. this is total BS.

olalonde 14y ago
They should probably make this more obvious but other than that, I fail to see how it is total BS. If you don't like their licensing terms, don't use the product...
- yarrel 14y ago
  Their licensing terms are dubious. You're using their tools to make original art.
- GhotiFish 14y ago
  It's not like stuff made with the GCC has to be GPL. I'm not even sure they can enforce this.

itafroma 14y ago

The output leaves something to be desired: only 1375x918. I imagine it could be a popular tool to generate custom desktop/device backgrounds, but the low resolution combined with incorrect aspect ratio (not 16:9, 16:10, or even 4:3) makes it unappealing for that use. (Edit: actually based entirely off how big your window is, see child comments)

yurivish 14y ago
Hi itafroma, If you go fullscreen (there's an icon for it right under New), you can export a background that's exactly the right size for your browser. Right now the output is exactly the same size as the input, but it's a good idea to let people download cropped or scaled versions. ~ the silk creator
- itafroma 14y ago
  Ah, yeah, I just figured that out after trying to piece together why it was such a weird dimension. Standard sizes would definitely be helpful, especially since doesn't seem to take into account retina/HiDPI displays. MacBook Pro set to "Best for retina" produces a 1440x900 image.
  - yurivish 14y ago
    Hmm... What browser are you using? I'm on a Retina Macbook, and just successfully saved a Retina-quality image using Chrome.
    - itafroma 14y ago
      Safari 6.0.3.

Semaphor 14y ago

Pretty awesome:) Can't save the Thumbnail in Chrome 27.0.1448.0 dev-m though. It only allows me to copy the image and paste it somewhere (which is enough) but I thought I'd mention it in case it's a bug in Silk and not in Chrome Dev.

icoder 14y ago

I'm thinking an API where you supply random seed nr, image size and optionally color and are returned an image. Useful for avatar creation :)

kyrias 14y ago

No Google+ '+1'? :(

borisvish 14y ago

Cool app!

lefinita 14y ago

The music just beautiful, boost my productivity :)

yurivish 14y ago
Thanks! It was composed for the app by Mat Jarvis, of http://microscopics.co.uk http://microscopics.co.uk. :)

swamp40 14y ago

I wonder if perhaps the universe was designed using an app such as this?

mnicole 14y ago

Loved the site when I first came across it a few months ago, but I'm really into the new interface and color mixer. Nice job!

jello4pres 14y ago

As someone who is just fascinated by symmetry, I could play with this forever.

gruseom 14y ago
As someone who is just fascinated by symmetry Do you know Jane Siberry's charming song about it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkpg0tlcAZw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkpg0tlcAZw

saidajigumi 14y ago

I really like this trend of mobile apps with a fully functional experience on the web. Adrift for iOS is nice example of using this approach for a trial/teaser experience. It's worth checking out the fully playable demo on the game's site at http://www.playadrift.com/ http://www.playadrift.com/, and the base app is free if you want to compare/contrast that to the mobile device experience. Beautifully done, IMO.