#055 GAD BA3: Alchemy!

We had a lecture today with Mark that looked at the common mistakes made by people for the BA2 unit, most of them were simple ones which most likely came about through negligence but there were a few that came from people not knowing the correct way to go about the task. Mark quickly highlighted the issues and showed us how to correct any mistakes made.

Next up Mark went through some issues that people were having with Maya, I hadn't personally faced the issues raised however it was still helpful to hear about them so that if I do face those problems later on I will know how to fix it.

After addressing these issues, which took up the majority of the lecture, we were introduced to a creative software called Alchemy. It's a vector graphics drawing program that provides its users with an almost "random" way of creating conceptual art. The idea behind the program is pretty simple, it uses mathematically random data to create shapes that vary depending on the drawing tool used. It utilises the most powerful computer known, the brain. Our brains can interpret and recognise shapes better than any software or computer, a simple example of this is when we look at clouds and see shapes and figures in them. Alchemy essentially creates random shapes, that we can then interpret and with our own creativity, make something of it.

When I got back home I downloaded the program and gave it a try. Mark did say that you will either love it or hate it, and to be fair I had my doubts. So I checked out all the tools and had a bit of a play around with it to get used to it and found that actually, I enjoyed it! Below there are some of the results:

It doesn't look like much at first glance, but I pretty much just sat back for a while and looked at it and began to see a figure emerge. To me, I see some kind of mech warrior like those from Avatar or the Mechwarrior game. At the bottom you have the top of the legs and the central pivot (or the hips), which then leads up to the cockpit; there is even what looks to be a figure in the middle of the dark mass that is the cockpit. From there you have the arms that come out of it, with some of the random streams of ink looking like hydraulic lines or wires. Above the cockpit I see something like Cannons or Missile Launchers.

The next one reminded me of one of the Stormtroopers from Star Wars, or even the armour suits from the game Halo. You kind of have the eye slots of the mask and then the front side of the mask below them. The strange patterns below the head could even resemble some sort of pattern on the chest armour.

I know it doesn't look like much, but keeping in mind I can see results already from a quick 20-30mins of using alchemy for the first time. Strictly speaking, I am a pretty mathematical person, in the sense that I like doing things be set dimensions, amounts and sizes... I don't like anything that is random or done by eye. This was most likely why I didn't think I would like the software, but at the same time, I can see the use for it.