This is very hypnotic. I can’t seem to tear myself away.

I did a film called “emerge” which made the Channel Frederator podcast a big ago. The simulations were written in the MIT Media Lab’s StarLogo program. After defining some initial rules for the creatures, I sat back for a number of hours, watched them play and made characterizations of their behaviour.

Hope you enjoy.

http://meridiandream.com/films/emerge/

by the way the song used “Music is Math” is by Boards of Canada from their album “Geogaddi,” they’re just about the best band ever.

WOW, really captivating…like some ethereal sperm-dance!!!

That’s really quite gorgeous.

That’s one of the more visually exciting things posted on the BREW for a while. It’s great. I could watch that kind of stuff all day. No distracting characters or story. Good music, too.

I have no math or programming skills, so I try to fake generated animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5SIWy0pwf0#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44Yu1wmLuxQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVkUAQEgr0

“In most digital animation (CG, Flash), allowing a computer to generate movement is a rote affair that comes in the form of tweening or other types of automation which are designed to make the movement easier to create, not more interesting to watch.”

While I understand the general point you’re making, and I’m not trying to undercut the awesomeness of Processing, there are actually many examples of generative animation in Flash that predate Processing. Jared Tarbell and Joshua Davis have both done extensive work in this area. You can see examples at http://www.levitated.net and http://www.joshuadavis.com.

There are indeed many examples of ‘generative animation’ that can be found, most of which however focus little on the actual process of animation and focus more on the graphical and compositional result - This is definitely the case for artists like Joshua Davis & Jared Tarbell. There are then a number of artists who are using this technique within an interactive piece - this is the case for people like Golan Levin or Marius Watz where the animation is controlled to a certain extent by an input factor : movement of the mouse, keyboard, voice or music.

Some months back, I came across this particular talk by Torsten Rei of Natural Motion who describes an increasingly important use of ‘generative animation’ for future games and, as he says, for animated features. I believe this is an important watch for all your readers.
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http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/torsten_reil_studies_biology_to_make_animation.html

Who needs drugs? All you need is big screen TV and surround sound. Pretty cool. Can these be purchased somewhere-legally?