Walk in the park, look at the sky: collected thoughts, processes and observations made during the course of making things

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25.07.19 Tapering Curves and Lines in Houdini
A quick screen cast on how to control the width of a line or a curve over its length, using a B-Spline curve interface. Also includes a tip …
21.07.19 That Was The Week That Was — 21st July 2019
I started in earnest on a new client commission — creating four images using data, for a US based client. As usual everything starts out …
14.07.19 That Was The Week That Was — 14th July 2019
This week saw Lisa and myself take an impromptu break to the city of Copenhagen. We're both fans of Danish design so we were both looking …
07.07.19 That Was The Week That Was — 7th July 2019
This week I was mainly working in TouchDesigner, getting stuff finished for an exciting meeting happening the following week. One of the …
09.06.19 Using Vex to automatically create groups of points from CSV data in Houdini
In my continuing adventures with Houdini I was playing around with this CSV file containing number of kills by James Bond in Bond movies — …
29.05.19 That Was The Week That Was — 29th May 2019
This week I was focussed on getting a piece of work completed for an upcoming talk in Germany for Trend Micro. I had been given the …
20.05.19 That Was The Week That Was — 19th May 2019
A week of travel. Firstly Dusseldorf for Beyond Tellerrand for a few days then back for less than 24 hours before heading to Moscow for …
13.05.19 That Was The Week That Was — 12th May 2019
After the bank holiday on the Monday I travelled up to Edinburgh to apply for my Russian Visa so I could make my trip to OFFF Moscow the …
19.04.19 My Conference Code of Conduct
Many conferences now have a codes of conduct. So in this same spirit I thought I would write the code of conduct for ME that I can pass to …
29.03.19 A simple fade in and out technique with TouchDesigner
I was recently working on a project in TouchDesigner in which I needed to fade in and out background music when a voiceover came on. I …
27.02.19 Seeking alternative rectangles
My career has largely been predicated by things emanating from glowing rectangles. Whilst I'm incredibly grateful for everything that …
24.02.19 That Was The Week That Was — 24th February 2019
Monday saw me deliver work for a wonderful new client that will be rolled out during an event starting on the 4th March in California. The …
30.01.19 The First Things I Install on a New Mac
Having recently put my trusty 2012 iMac out to pasture — a machine that has given me great service over the years — I had the task of …
18.01.19 HOUDINI - RESCALING THE UI FOR HIGH DPI MONITORS
HOUDINI - RESCALING THE UI FOR HIGH DPI MONITORS Great tip by Matthew Hanger that came in very handy when I upgraded to an iMac Pro with …
24.11.18 Fresh — app to show recently updated files — one of my most used apps
Fresh — app to show recently updated files — one of my most used apps Whenever I get a new Mac, Fresh is one of the first things I install. …
21.11.18 Sneak peek of the interface / system I’ve built for this latest piece of work
Building my own systems is a big part of my process. Doing this means I have control of every aspect, creating a tool to create the work …
18.11.18 Exporting Hires Transparent Bitmaps from Processing
One of the many things I love about Processing, especially within the commercial work I do, is its ability to export high resolution images …
30.09.18 Radio 4 Data Stream Day
Radio 4 Data Stream Day Radio 4 takes the entire output of one day’s broadcast and turns it into art. I was very honoured to be asked by …
22.08.18 Finding distractions
The last few days — in between working on projects — I’ve found myself just staring at the screen, pointlessly browsing Twitter, closing …
01.08.18 Second build of my new system for Fadecandy driven LED installations done
This can drive 1024 LEDs through 16 XLR connections. Inside is a 5v 40a PSU, two Fadecandy‘s and a slimline USB hub. This is a smaller …
15.07.18 Less, but Better
Recently I've noticed something with my work output — year on year I'm making less. When I first started my site almost twenty years ago, I …
18.06.18 From the archive: Chomsky Space
I took some Noam Chomsky sound bites and put them into a 3D interface. The idea was encourage exploration through sound and typography, …
04.06.18 A Thank You to Processing
There are two pieces of software that have been a big part of my career: one was Flash and the other was — and continues to be — …
20.03.18 Eye Health and Working with Screens
For many years now I've been suffering from quite chronic dry eyes, brought about through working with screens, my lack of blinking (you …
05.03.18 Thank You Sinclair ZX81
On the 5th March 1981 a small home computer was released that, without exaggeration, changed my life. The Sinclair ZX81, retailing for …
24.02.18 Creating ctags for Processing .pde files for use in Vim
Ctags generate a file of language objects — such as method names and vars — so they can then be used and located inside a text editor such …
16.02.18 Tips on exporting video from Processing
Sometimes my projects involve creating HD format — or larger — videos of coded work created in Processing. There's various ways to create …
15.02.18 An introduction to the Dawesome Toolkit — my library for Processing
The Dawesome Toolkit is a library for Processing that I originally made for myself, so I could use bits of code I always use in my projects …
11.02.18 Make it Shine: Rendering 3D Objects Made in Processing
For a few years now I've been creating physical objects from data — using Processing to essentially terraform an object such as a sphere, …
30.01.18 Strangelove. Or how I stopped worrying how web design is meant to be and got …
brendandawes.com has been online since 2000. Over that time it’s been through various incarnations, from purely Flash based (gasp) to …