processing

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Processing is a computer programming language and development tool. Its aim is to teach computer programming fundamentals within a visual context by getting the user to write lines of code that create 'sketches'.

Above are two examples of videos of what can be done at a professional level using Processing.

Our first experience with Processing was by just creating basic shapes such as rectangles or ellipses.

This is the code of one of my first sketches. The section, void setup gives information for that canvas, such as its background colour and size whereas the next section void draw deals with the drawing up the code. In this case it's creating a rectangle when the mouse is clicked thats 20px by 20px big and has a white edge as shown below.

After getting to grips with the basics of Processing we were allowed to experiment and pursue any ideas we had or wanted to make using Processing.

The first step in this process was thinking of an idea and then writing down the logical steps and actions that the code would have to follow to work. This would usually be in the form of a wireframe or a flow diagram. However, I approached the problem slightly differently as this was my first time coding properly I didn't have the knowledge of coding to be able to transfer the my ideas into lines of code.

My method was to take a number of different examples on Processing and online and combine sections of the applications together, such as taking different function like motion or input controls to make a hybrid sketch. Once I had combined them and tried to run the application, there would nearly always be a problem or error in the code which Processing wouldn't allow which meant having to go through and reverse engineer my hybrid sketch. This I felt gave me a much better understand of what each function of code did by playing with its parameters and the order in which they came.

Above is the end result. By using my original sketch of a square, I added the ability to change colour by clicking the mouse, change shape by hitting the 's' key as well as a scale effect you see as you move the mouse up and down the screen. This combined elements from 4 different ideas together.

There was also a blur effect as its drew newer squares older ones would be blurred out, however for some reason I couldn't get to work on this computer or hotglue.

Overall I was quite happy with the method I had used to build my sketch but it lacks purpose and after playing with it for 5 seconds because boring.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ben Molyneux Hotglue Portfolio