Oolong’s Playground

Interactive animations need intuitive controls to make them easy to play with. Since they always have a bunch of parameters to control, dragging with the mouse always seems a bit clumsy.

I figured that what’s really wanted is a bank of sliders and buttons to play with, each controlling a parameter. That way people can walk up to the controls as if they were approaching the bridge of a starship, and just twiddle them however they feel.

Now, with the help of the Dorkbot Alba team, I finally have the controls I’ve long dreamed of, in the shape of a box with six sliders, five buttons and two glowing switches. It is a thing of beauty.

The obvious next step once you have a good interface for a set of generative animations is to start putting them in public places for people to experiment with, I think. (more…)