Coming into this assignment, I really wanted to play with what transformations and variations I could do to one shape. I started with a circle. I used clamp() to animate the circle appearing to my desired size. I also utilized the length() and smoothstep() functions to create a nicely shaped circle. Next, I used the sin() and fma() functions to add a pulse to the circle and I used min() to help me stop the circle at my desired position along the y axis. Once I was happy with that, I played around with tan() and cos() to move the circle around the screen on multiple axes. By using feedback, I was able to play around with color. I tried decreasing the blue value through the saturate() function. I also tried slowly increasing red by combining the fract() and asin() functions. The end of my animation utilized the techniques I used at the beginning just in reverse.
List of Functions Used: sin(), length(), smoothstep(), tan(), cos(), distance(), step(), min(), saturate(), fract(), asin(), fma(), clamp()
My aesthetic goal for this project was to try and visualize what it feels like to panic or overthink things. It starts with the shape appearing and slowly starting to pulse faster and faster which is to mimic hyperventilation or the idea of thoughts starting to race. Then it moves to a brief moment of calm when the circle moves up which mirrors this idea of a brief calm before the storm. Next, the circle starts to move more sporadically and begins to drag a trail of color behind it. The color starts more mild but slowly becomes redder and redder. This is meant to symbolize this idea of racing thoughts that get darker or more dreadful (think of what people describe as spiraling). Lastly, the racing white circles are replaced by a pulsing black circle on the red background. This demonstrates the idea of the final through that then truly consumes all else just how the animation ends with the black circle growing and taking over.
The feedback I got did not match my intended aesthetic goals, but I think that some of the more general ideas persisted. I was told that the animation gave a very natural vibe with the even pulses. I was also told that the section of color presented flower imagery. It felt like the flower was growing from a seed, going up into the world, and then consuming you. The end feeling of being consumed does match my initial intention and I suppose the feeling of growth does too match some of what I was going for. It just has a more positive spin to it. I think that because the color red can symbolize so many things, people are bound to get different feelings from it overall. I am really happy with how it came out and was super happy to hear that the video overall was very much liked!
For some reason, my computer can barely handle running WebGL in TheSchwartz. When I tried to do a screen recording of the program, it was super slow and lagged a ton. Additionally, the video clipped and was not a smooth animation at all. I decided to record what was displayed on my screen using my phone and a mirrored monitor to try and give the most authentic experience of the animation.