Two new videos I helped produce with The Occidental Saloon

9:54 am  •  28 October 2010

This is a visualization that I built with Processing to illustrate some of the processes of evolution that come from natural selection.

You can download it for Mac or PC here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/symbiosisvizual/

Here’s a full description of how it works:

The visualization starts with a “field” of food and two randomly generated “creatures”. 

Each creature has the following attributes:

Age

Life Expectancy

Gestation Period

Mutation Rate

Health

Maximum Velocity

Agility (how often it changes direction)

In order for the creatures to survive they need to “eat” the food available. A faster moving creature loses health faster. A creature will die from not eating enough, not being healthy enough, or by reaching it’s life expectancy.

A creature gives birth to two children at the end of their gestation period. Based on the mutation rate of the creature it’s children will be slightly different from the parent. Approximately 1 out of 100 children will have a “major mutation”.

The appearance of the creature reflects it’s attributes:

Size = Life Expectancy

Color Hue = Mutation Rate

Color Brightness = Health

Border Hue = Age (black to white)

Border Thickness = Gestation

If the creature mutates past certain extremes it’s children will die.

If too many creatures are present (>2000) then there is a massive extinction

If all creatures die a new creature is spontaneously generated

Food will grow out from where it already exists. New food can also be added to the field with the mouse. 

12:38 am  •  9 August 2010

Video shot with the Occidental Saloon at the old Child’s Barn in Mapleton Utah.

9:26 pm  •  15 June 2010

There are few topics I find more important than education and there are few people who I think are trying to do the right things for it. Ken Robinson is one of those few people. 

3:24 pm  •  26 May 2010  •  1 note

New Playlist. It’s a shortie. Click the pic above or the link below. Whichever.

                                      Spring Needs to Sprung

5:18 pm  •  6 May 2010

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

— Proust

2:19 pm  •  7 April 2010

Another video I worked on with The Occidental Saloon.

The Occidental Saloon Presents
Joshua James
“Green Grass”

Shot in Provo Utah at the home of Corey Fox

Directed by:
Aaron Hymes
Matt Eastin

Produced by:
Dean Cheesman
Cory Fox

1:02 pm  •  23 March 2010  •  1 note

3:51 pm  •  17 March 2010  •  1 note

We’ve changed the name of Provo Acoustic Sessions to The Occidental Saloon. Here is our newest video with the Neon Trees. Shot at Velour in Provo Utah. See all our videos at theoccidentalsaloon.com.

9:54 pm  •  16 March 2010  •  3 notes

This was an experiment with flow fields. Each ball pushes out the pixels with a clockwise or counter-clockwise force. Programmed in Processing. 

5:17 pm  •  15 March 2010