2008
Got the graphics finished for our next product today. Not so finished to where I can put up a complete UI, but finished enough to where the glamor shot can be teased. So there's something to froth over. And some buzzwords: cellular automata plus buffer effects = complete and total chaos. This effect is definitely as far left field as we're likely to go, I'll say that much. But it is a fucking gas to play with.
Sound samples, screenshots, and all the other usual shit will be forthcoming as soon as we're comfortable that what we're releasing is the final version, and no time frame or price at this juncture.
Except now that I think of it, you might have to insert an instance of digital fish phones "normalizer" just before this in the chain in case someone decides to show off and construct a 10-cell infinite block-laying switch engine which the hyperthreading attempts to calculate to the very end and ends up becoming self aware or some shit.
Oh you didn't make the walls wrap-around, did you? Damn it.
I cannot even begin to imagine what this is going to sound like, but it sure looks purdy.
posted July 16, 2008 by thesimulacre
In our plugin, the point is not to play Life, but to use the Life environment as a sequencer. The walls don't wrap, and the lifecycle can be reset at musically useful intervals. This results in a fairly sophisticated sequencing engine that can be either very controllable or as close to utterly random as makes no difference.
Now, slap that sequencing engine in front of Replicant in place of its control ring, and you'll begin to see what we're driving at. So things like Glider Gun and other moving or egg-laying starting points are fairly useful in this context. We'll also probably provide rulesets that are useful to music but not so useful to making pretty pictures with the Life context, like a step sequencer ruleset, etc.
And yes, the iPhone icons were intentional, and when you see the real screenshot, they're essentially exactly the same. I could easily adapt them to be proper iPhone icons, in case someone wanted to use them as such; they're the correct size and format, and even have the correct corner rounding.
-CR
posted July 16, 2008 by Chris Randall
posted July 16, 2008 by MachinePop
-CR
posted July 16, 2008 by Chris Randall
posted July 16, 2008 by gashoagie
- Jeff
posted July 16, 2008 by Jeff C