Concept
I was looking up examples of generative art to find something to be inspired by. However, I found that most generative artworks are too messy/noisy for my liking. Personally I like simpler, more calming structures than the ones seen in the picture below so I took another approach — to design something that’s relaxing to look at, instead of being chaotic.
I’ve been listening to a lot Umitaro Abe, a Japanese composer that mostly has instrumental pieces. They’re very relaxing to listen to, so I thought that I might try making a p5 work that can hold that atmosphere of peace while being entertaining enough to capture a viewer’s attention.
The sketch
The sketch is pretty much a koi pond, and the fishes will move around and leave behind temporary ripples in the water. The wave ripples remind us that most disturbances are temporary, and can sometimes even be pretty to look at. I think it’s very fun to look at while listening to some piano pieces, so the version on the p5 editor plays a song from Umitaro Abe to accompany this piece.
Proudest part
My proudest part for this project was not the code, but simply getting the sprites for the fishes to make the little animation. I couldn’t find sprites that I wanted online, but I managed to find static images of koi fishes that matches the style I wanted. I used Photoshop to edit the fishes tails to give each fish two frames of animation, but it surprisingly took more time than it should because I didn’t have much experience with creating animated sprites myself, only with using them.
Reflections
I’m proud of this one! Code could always be cleaner but I’m pretty satisfied with this piece. I might add more fish variations in the future, or maybe create a better motion path for the fishes like a curved zig-zag instead of a straight line as it is right now.