If you’ve ever used Processing you’ve probably used the ‘map’ function. From the Processing Reference section it reads: “Re-maps a number from one range to another. In the example above, the number ‘25′ is converted from a value in the range 0..100 into a value that ranges from the left edge (0) to the right edge (width) of the screen.”

I think this should go without saying, but not everyone knows how to do this. First I randomly downloaded a font from dafont.com to make sure that I would be using a font that 99% of people didn’t have. If you check out the Flash below you can see that the top text field is using some crazy bitmap-esque font. The text field on the bottom is actually using the same font but since I created it on the stage by hand (rather than dynamically with my code) it is probably displaying Times New Roman. Or some other default serif typeface. The the source code for a commented explanation.

After seeing a post on the Puny Blog about displacement maps I became interested in how they did it. Unfortunately there wasn’t any source code so I’ve replicated the effect from scratch.
Turns out displacement maps are really hard to wrap your head around, so I’ll try to explain it very carefully and slowly.

I had been doing an interactive chess table using the ReacTable software, but that whole project was nothing but problems. It ended up needing more time and money than I had available. One day I’ll finish it…

This video is a test run of my new senior project. This goes back to my projects last semester when I was using little to no computers. I know, scary.

This project consists of solar powered creatures who collect light energy and then use the energy to make a movement. There are only two in this video as I’m in the process of making more so they can live in a small and bright colony of happy moving guys.