Did you ever find yourself doodling and daydreaming that a line you were drawing was something physical, like a hill you could slide down? Perhaps you found yourself imagining that the line would become reality, á la Harold and the Purple Crayon, and you could roll or slide away from whatever it was that you were avoiding by doodling.
Well, if it’s an imaginative diversion you want for your doodled line, here’s a nifty little amusement by someone who lists themselves on deviantART as “fsk“.
Line Rider is a Flash interactive that allows you to draw a line, going more or less from upper left to lower right, that will represent the two dimensional topography of a hill. When your line is drawn, you click play and the Line Rider, a small character on a sled with a trailing scarf, will go sailing, bouncing and, if you’re not careful, tumbling down the hill according to forces of imaginary gravity.
The module is quite cleverly done and is much more fun than my dry description would suggest. In addition to a nice bit of semi-realistic slow-motion gravity, fsk has programmed in a good bit of humor in the way the character responds to the physics of your imagined line. Play with several variations of line and you’ll see what I mean.
You can use a hand tool to scroll the drawing area (much as in standard graphics applications) and extend your line well past the boundries of the working rectangle. You can also save lines that you like for future use. fsk states that the interactive is a Beta (still in development) and invites comments and suggestions.
Link via Marco Bresciani.
You may already have seen this MIT demo video of a sketching environment that understands certain elements of physics, but if not, here (embedded YouTube).
No, I hadn’t see that. Very cool. Thanks.
thats very cool, but its got nothing on this 2d-3d sketch tool. check out the video and play with the apple.
here is the link.
http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/teddy/teddy/teddy.html
Very cool. Thanks!
But even thats not as cool as this MIT “assist, sketch and understanding ” system. the program can recognize what you are drawing and apply….
well, just check out the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZNTgglPbUA
LINE RIDER IS THE GREATEST IT SUCKS THE GAMES AWAY
I love line rider it’s great! I play it like every day.