Cortex #2
Animating
Cortex #1 required a re-think about resolution and strand structure.
The original high resolution Cortex #1 was 14k x 10k, this took about 12 minutes to render and would not be a resolution suitable
for animating.
Once the resolution was reduced to 4k the frames took around 120 second to render, however the branching rate had to be reduced
quite dramatically along with the segment length (which unfortunatey means the strands look a bit more ridgid).
There are three parts to the animation:
- Certain segments (assigned at random) are 'synapses'. They start white and slow decay into black. When a change is
made to a segment direction the next synapse along is activated, this resets its clock and triggers it back to white
with a new decay starting. Once any segment decays to black it triggers the next synapse along.
- Every strand is iterated through and each segment has a probability of directional change proportional to it;s
distance from the core. So very few changes are made close to the core whilst the tips of the strands move about quite
freely
- The strands grow out from the core with segments on the tip of the strand being popped off
This project will continue with the following areas being explored:
- The strand movement feels ridgid and un-organic, the segments need to push into one another and bunch up if not also being pulled
- The synapse activation needs reworking so it's more stylistic