[HN Gopher] Noise in Creative Coding
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       Noise in Creative Coding
        
       Author : winkerVSbecks
       Score  : 136 points
       Date   : 2021-04-22 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (varun.ca)
 (TXT) w3m dump (varun.ca)
        
       | waprin wrote:
       | Really nice article and demos, very informative.
       | 
       | Maybe unsurprisingly, noise is a really important aspect of audio
       | and music as well. A lot of synthesizers have a parameter for
       | adding white or pink noise to sounds. What's interesting is in a
       | lot of music, my ears would never pick out the noise without
       | actively listening very closely, but if you take the noise away
       | the music sounds way more plain and empty in a very subtle way.
        
       | prova1 wrote:
       | uytrertyuhygtrew
        
       | vb42 wrote:
       | This is really cool and super informative! I used Perlin noise in
       | a side project of mine a couple months ago to make cool textured
       | planets, which you might enjoy checking out
       | https://vinaybhaip.com/blog/2021/01/26/perlin-planets
        
         | prova1 wrote:
         | Nice thanks
        
       | baby wrote:
       | For some reason I thought this would randomly generate a test-
       | drive suite that you'll to pass by creatively implementing
       | whatever makes the random tests pass.
        
       | DIVx0 wrote:
       | As an aspiring plotter artist (is that a thing?) I find this to
       | be a very good resource, thanks for putting it together.
        
       | arthur2e5 wrote:
       | Note the algorithm is patented(!) per Wikipedia:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplex_noise#Legal_status
       | 
       | There are six patent claims that I have no interest in reading.
       | Apparently there is also an OpenSimplex noise for circumventing
       | the patent, but it only goes up to 4D [simplex usefully goes up
       | to 5D].
        
         | smcameron wrote:
         | There's OpenSimplex by Kurt Spencer. I made a port of his
         | original java implementation to C a few years ago.
         | 
         | https://github.com/smcameron/open-simplex-noise-in-c
         | 
         | Edit:
         | 
         | Here's the original: https://github.com/KdotJPG/OpenSimplex2
        
           | mooman219 wrote:
           | It's worth noting that OpenSimplex has different
           | characteristics to Simplex in higher dimensions. Specifically
           | some have noticed a stark tendency to form orbs in 4D, so
           | it's definitely worth comparing the output of all 3 (perlin,
           | simplex, and OpenSimplex) to see if they give you what you're
           | looking for.
           | 
           | Additionally, it may or may not be legally distinct (hasn't
           | been tested).
        
         | mooman219 wrote:
         | I was caught off guard by this! It just always felt like
         | simplex noise was just perlin v2 and I never thought twice
         | about the legal status of it. The 2022-01-08 Anticipated
         | expiration is definitely something to look forward to here,
         | especially since the current owner (an investment firm) appears
         | to have >100 ongoing patent litigation cases, with patents as
         | vague as network load balancing.
         | 
         | Reading the patent itself, there's definitely some weirdness to
         | it, like how specific it is about application to texturing. I
         | believe heightmaps would be acceptable (IANAL).
         | 
         | In slightly unrelated news, a bunch of Microsoft patents on
         | fonts expired last October.
        
       | piplikoc wrote:
       | Great article, I loved the interactive examples
        
       | prova1 wrote:
       | eeee
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | This is a very important concept to understand in visual design
       | too. Sometimes perfect alignment, symmetry, etc... can be the
       | wrong way to do something. Hardly anything in nature is 100%
       | symmetrical. These are sometimes things that go unnoticed by the
       | conscious mind but your subconcious will pick up on it.
        
         | thelazydogsback wrote:
         | I have an old tribal rug (Turkish/Afghan?) that has a "evil
         | eye" (but a good evil eye...) weaved into it in order to break
         | the otherwise perfect symmetry of the design.
        
         | fipar wrote:
         | Agreed! Aesthetics is item g) in Knuth's list of example
         | applications for 'Numbers that are "chosen at random"':
         | 
         | "A little bit of randomness makes computer-generated graphics
         | and music seem more lively" (TAOCP, Vol 2 3rd Ed., Ch. 3, p 2)
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-22 23:00 UTC)