Rendering these animations is more or less a pot shot in the dark. Its very hard to tell what sort of motion an animation will have until after the last frame is finished rendering. This one looked great as a still but I was expecting a little more from it as animation (You’ve failed me ani.. im so disappointed in you) I may revisit this one in the future as I see some great potential here. - Let me know what you think. This one is a transparent Z plane twirling in on itself. Want the XEP files for this animation? here ya go.

Download the movie file here

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This mean you can use, remix and create derivative works of this as long as its not for commercial purposes (this includes as elements of designs in which you are charging a design fee).

You must link back to this page any place your use of it appears, this is part of the license and if you fail to do so that is violation of the license agreement.

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I’ve been spending some time exploring the animation feature of Xenodream so I decided I would create seamless video loops at the same time and offer them with a Creative Commons License for my VJ and video friends.

This loop is a Z Plane constructor with a Vortices metamorph on top of that. This is the second render I did of this because the first moved a little too fast for my tastes. I plan on exploring the Vortices Metamorph more in the future. To be kept up to date sign up for my rss feed or join the newsletter.

Download the movie file here This version was a little too intense for my tastes. This video file ends where it starts and loops seamlessly. Ive also looped it in the player below. Enjoy and leave comments below.

Download the movie file here

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This mean you can use, remix and create derivative works of this as long as its not for commercial purposes (this includes as elements of designs in which you are charging a design fee).

You must link back to this page any place your use of it appears, this is part of the license and if you fail to do so that is violation of the license agreement.

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I’ve been spending some time exploring the animation feature of Xenodream so I decided I would create seamless video loops at the same time and offer these up with a Creative Commons License for my VJ and video friends.

This loop is a .balled constructor with a Holes-Z metamorph stacked on top and rendered with a 4% transparency. It’s my second attempt at rendering an animation with transparency which is trickier than it sounds. I haven’t seen any other transparent animations from the XD yahoo group so this might constitute the first Transparent 3D Fractal animation in the wilds of the internet. Three cheers for grasping at straws! The video below is looped. Enjoy and leave comments!

Download the movie file here

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This mean you can use, remix and create derivative works of this as long as its not for commercial purposes (this includes as elements of designs in which you are charging a design fee).

You must link back to this page any place your use of it appears, this is part of the license and if you fail to do so that is violation of the license agreement.

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This animation represents a labor of love and of enduring patience which pushed my two computers to the limits of their computational abilities for six months (they haven’t forgiven me quite yet). We were going to sell it on Native State Digital as a music video and in a fit of altruistic goodness usually reserved for folks on NPR we decided to give it away as a gift and ask for donations. So if this video touches something in you, if you think the effort is a step in the right direction away from the standard “pay to play” model consider making a donation of any amount. - Video & downloads below as well as some information on how the video came to be.

Download Compressed MP4

(353×240, 48 mb, zipped)

download full resolution

(280mb, .mov, 600×400, zipped)

Some words about the creation of this

I believe this to be the first of its kind (animated 3d IFS fractal) as the animation functionality was a feature request of mine made to Garth Thornton of Xenodream who was so kind as to implement it and make some incredible improvements upon the idea.

Through the course of the video you will see a wide variety of intentionally organic shapes which I wanted to set it to appropriate music. Rena Jones’ album Driftwood is a collection of sonic snapshots into the energy cycle of a tree from seed to driftwood washing up on a beach and everything in between, before and after. I took the concept a step further at the end and integrated my best attempt at minerals which is plant food! below are some raw uncolored stills before I colored and added them to the video.

The wide variety of organic forms resulting from relatively simple configuration of iterative functions illustrates the concept that complex results can arise from simple conditions. It is my belief that nature expresses itself on every level through fractals, limits, feedback loops, and iterative functions.

Video Stats:

Each frame took on average 15 minutes to render. The total frame count is over 15,000 (this includes sequences that were scrapped) It is estimated this animation took 2,750 hours of render time (114 days). Thank god I have several computers. However the overall scope of the project took over 6 months to complete.

From Rena Jones regarding her album:

“Driftwood is an album designed to tell the story of a tree’s life cycle. Each movement or song represents a stage in a tree’s life cycle.
I wanted the listener to be able to be taken into that world and be able to feel moments of life budding and growing and dieing and traveling across the sea only to be washed up and spring forth new life.”

Learn more about…

phidelity - the creator of this video

Rena Jones - the musician featured in this video

Garth Thornton - the creator of xenodream

Phidelity is the moniker of Kris Northern who peers deep into iterative structures, feedback loops and recursive structures to find new elements to add to his tool box for creating art and music that ex. There is plenty more on www.phidelity.com

Xenodream is a PC based 3d fractal object exploration software package. This animation represents the very groundfloor of what the software is capable of. It is simply put one object moving around two IFS (Iterative Function Set) vortices. Everything that happens in the video is still just that one object. Just think copies of copies.

They have just released version 2 of the software and I recommend checking out the website
http://xenodream.com/

I haven’t actually heard this yet, though I have no doubt its good. Evan gave me free creative control on this one and I just followed my folly and did some remixs of work I had done previously.

Krill Minima - Better known as Marsen Jules has created an auditory underwater adventure and I was put to the task to create artwork befitting. I started with old nautical maps from open source public domain websites and pulled elements and textures from there. The sea creatures come by way of Ernst Haeckel eminent 19th century German biologist, naturalist, and artist amongst many other trades. The images come from Haeckels’ book  Kunstformen der Natur, “Artforms of Nature” which are now in the public domain.

Below are the finished images.

Digipack outside

digipack inside

Cd Body

This cd is due for release in November 2008 and when it is released I will post back here with site where it can be purchased.

For now feel free to browse the high res versions or check out my other CD Designs

I like Tippers music in the same way that I like air. Air is good. When asked to do the design for this cd I was not only honored but a bit scared that if i dropped the ball on this one I might never let myself live it down.  Minor stage fright I suppose as I don’t consider myself a ball dropper

When it came time to create the cd I, for the first time, tried to set aside anything I wanted to express creatively and tried to do my best to design as the music dictated it. A little harder than I expected but in the end I’m satisified that the design looks very much like what I imagine in my head while listening to it.

With the cover I used Xenodream to create a transparent 3d fractal which is essentially a two dimensional plane with ridges wrapped into itself like an elegant crumpled ball of paper. I wanted to create something that had form, elegance, and movement but yet you couldn’t define it - I endearingly began to think of these shapes as “Unspeakable Somethings”.

While listening to Whomi, the first song on the album - the images that would dance in my head were morphing organic fluid yet technical structures and this is as close as I could get to capturing them. Whats lacking is the evolution and actual movement. There may be hope for conveying that aspect in the near future as word from the rumor mill is that there may be a 5.1 surround sound version of this album in the works with video. There will be updates when it moves out of the shadowy world of possibly maybes into the concrete realm of “its happening”.

The other images are variations on these shapes with different zooms crops and treatments.

 Listen to and purchase this album from our friends over at Additech

View the rest of the album artwork as well as drafts and rejected ideas

As a longtime fan of Kilowatts I am glad he’s joined the Native State family and decided to release his new LP with them. Ground State, according to our initial discussion, refers to both to the concept of an energetic equilibrium and “being grounded” - not in the you’ve been a naughty boy now go stay in your room where all your video games and toys are sense but in the two feet firmly planted on the ground sense.

Jamie supplied the feet on the ground image and I spend a while trying to figure out how to get Xenodream to express the image I had in my head of what energy would look like at an equilibrium. I imagined layers within layers of waves in harmonic concordance and the image definitely has a bunch of points the idea comes through strongly - which I made little detail screenshots just for you. This CD is currently Unreleased and is due out in November. When it is out I will post links here to where you can purchase it, and the digital mp3 sites.

This CD has been printed and released for a while now but I wanted to have an official post on the site to talk a bit about this.

After hearing Evans first tech-house track Cerulean Blue on Psybooty - Get the lead out Ive been itching to hear more of the bluetech sound set to chunky basslines and funk. I was stoked to hear that there was a full length coming our way and doubly stoked to be asked to do the design.

The cover design was inspired by the music; muted tones, abstract forms, and a mix of collage, juxtaposing organic elements with technical elements. The organic elements come by way of Albertus Seba and Ernst Haeckle anatomical sketches.

The booklet inside is a collaborative space with some metapoetics by Delvin and a transparent 3d fractal by way of xenodream technical collage. My favorite structures are those that invite you to imagine yourself suspended within them.

View the rest of the Album Artwork here

Purchase the album here