Today, I messed around with something called “oscillated coral.” It was a bit of a wild ride, so I figured I’d share the whole process, start to finish.
First off, I got this idea to try and make some digital coral. Not just any coral, but the kind that sways and moves like it’s underwater. So I started by sketching out some basic shapes. I was thinking about those soft corals that look like they’re dancing. I used some design software, the usual stuff, to get the basic shapes down.
Next, I needed to figure out how to make these shapes move. That’s where the “oscillation” part came in. I remembered some old physics lessons about waves and figured I could use some of that math to make the coral move back and forth. I wrote a bunch of code, mostly trial and error, to apply these wave-like movements to the different parts of the coral.
Getting the Movement Right
- I started with a simple sine wave. That made the coral move, but it was too uniform, too robotic. Real coral doesn’t move like that.
- So, I added more layers of movement, different wave patterns on top of each other. This made things more interesting, but it still wasn’t quite there.
- Then I played with the timing. I made some parts of the coral move faster, others slower. I even added some random delays to make it look more natural.
After that, it was all about tweaking the colors and textures. I wanted it to look alive, vibrant. I experimented with different shades of pink, purple, and blue, and added some subtle gradients to make it look like light was hitting it from above. I also added a bit of a translucent effect, you know, to give it that underwater feel.
Finally, I added a background. A simple, dark blue gradient did the trick. It made the coral stand out and gave the whole thing a sense of depth. Then I rendered the whole thing out as an animation. And you know what? It actually looked pretty good! It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely something I was proud of. It took me a whole weekend of messing around with the code and the visuals.
It’s always fun to just play around with these things and see what happens. I might try adding some fish next time. Or maybe some other types of coral. We’ll see. Anyway, that’s the story of my “oscillated coral” experiment.
