A combination of crystalline popsicles and impossible geometry.
All pieces are interactive and rendered in Real-Time via Raymarching in GLSL.
Click and Download for Higher Resolution Examples.
Popsicles are delicious, but Impopsicles are impossibly delicious. Inspired by amazing artists like M.C. Escher and Andy Warhol, Impopsicles is a long-form generative series that blends light, math, and dessert to shape gorgeous Interactive Popsicles. Each 'cicle' is a just another lick of creation.
Impopsicles are born in Javascript where each piece starts as randomized seed values. These values are used to create a custom GLSL fragment shader which is compiled in realtime. Raymarching is used to render the scene. Each piece, at its core, is a uniquely generated signed distance field ( SDF ) that is then modified in unique and unexpected ways.
Impopsicles are interactive giving the collector the ability to spin the popsicle around and view it 360 degress around an axis. While moving, the raymarcher runs in low-detail mode allowing for very quick rendering. When static the piece defaults to a high-detail mode. The default resolution option is 2, but can lowered or raised via 0-9 on keyboard input. 0 being the lowest detail and 9 being the highest.
The spacebar can also be used to allow for an ambient rotation action.
Impopsicles are currently created with two combined action sequences. The first sequence is defines an 'overall' popsicle style. The second action sequence mutates this style.
Styles
- Rectangle ( capped,dual capped, or uncapped )
- Square ( capped,dual capped, or uncapped )
- Cylinder ( capped or dual capped )
- Astropop ( capped or dual capped )
- Wedge
- Trapezoid ( capped or dual capped )
- Twist
Style Option
- Inset
- Dual Inset
- Bite
Style Type
- Single
- Double
- Triple
Style Join Type
- None
- Blend
A style is created by picking an initial style ( a style option may be applied ) combined with a type and join type. Once a style is applied, each piece recieves a random complexity index. This index represents how many recursive 'Operation Sets' a piece can make. Operations Sets are a combined group of mutations that are used recursively in order to manifest extremely interesting results. An operation set can have 1-3 mutations. A duplicative operation is weighted as the highest to go first in a sequence.
Positional Mutations
- Rotate ( Single or Multi Axis )
- Translate ( Single or Multi Axis )
Geometric Mutations
- Elongate
- Twist
- Bend
- Wrap
Duplicative Mutations
- Reflect
- Repeat
- Duplicate ( Single or Multi Axis )
Example Operation Sets:
- Reflect + Rotate
- Repeat + Twist
- Reflect + Elongate
- Reflect + Rotate+Elongate
- Reflect + Translate
Example of a Seeded Impopsicle:
- Twist
- Double + Blend
- Reflect + Rotate + Elongate
- Repeat + Twist
- Duplicate + Translate
- Double + Blend
Currently, a piece has the capability of 2-5 recursive operation sets.
Impopsicles already works and renders beautifully in realtime. That said, development is still very active. The rendering engine is currently being extended to support more styles and rendering techniques. The base algorithm is also being assessed and modified for scale, originality, and beauty; daily. Additional colors and materials are also being tested and developed.
The final implementation will not just have blue cicles.
Will has been making generative art since before the ye ol' days of flash; 20ish+ years of silly creation. Now he's a designer/developer/engineer/something working in GLSL making realtime shaders.
He's a big fan of community and has run a coworking space, an award-winning game studio, a black-tie award show for creatives, and an event called dev-night that brought together brilliant people on a weekly basis to create nothing more than scenarios of fun.
He's also been known to laugh, make up words, roller skate, and tell people they're lovely wayyyyy too many times.
Some call him creative, others call him Will