week six – thursday 22nd august
three.js: final
This final output for three.js is a combination of two outputs made in week three, ‘dragon knots‘ and ‘purple circle‘. I combined my favourite parts of both of these outputs to create this new one, the colour scheme of ‘dragon knots‘ and the rhythmic rotation of ‘purple circle’.
Initially I was using the ‘normal (backside)‘ shading on the knot however when I applied the rotation to this mesh it showed the purple-pink frontside rather than the green-red hues of the backside that had inspired ‘dragon knots‘. In order to still have the same colour scheme and combine the rotation/opacity variables I had to create a unique lighting setup. I did this using the ‘phong’ material for the knot, changing the x and y positions of each light as well as the hue to achieve the desired result.
Unlike in dragon knots or in purple circle in this output the background was chosen as black to offer the best contrast for the bright lighting in the scene.
Choosing the opacity for the knot as it rotated was difficult as I still wanted to see the knot shape (0.7, 0.3, 0.1 opacity’s achieved this), but the lower opacity (0.01, 0.03) created a more ‘slithering’ effects which I liked also. In the final I decided on an opacity of 0.1 as you can see the definition of the curves of the knot, but it still looks as if it is curving towards you from this dark background like a snake rather than a simple rotating mesh as it would with a higher opacity.
Coding for Creative Practice 