OpenFrameworks, an artist-friendly creation environment that unlocks the brain-melting power of code in C++, now has a helpful guide to all the additional power you can add. Just as Processing, the code tool that helped inspire OF, benefits from the vast planetary resources in the Java language, so, too, does OpenFrameworks benefit from an impassioned worldwide community of coders working to make accessible all that lives in the language of C++.
If you have even an inkling of working in OF, go drool over all the possibilities – and, damn, are there a lot. The categories list alone is big, and each has a bunch of tools inside, likely including one that could inspire a project.
Animation
Bridges
Computer Vision
Graphics
GUI
Hardware Interface
iOS
Physics
Sound
Typography
Utilities
Video
Camera
Web
Networking
Of course, what I think might make this mean you’d actually create something is that you can tear off just one tiny piece of this giant cookie of code and nibble away, making some tasty form of art of your own, focusing on your own design.
Greg, who worked on the project, addressed ITP (NYU’s digital art school) alums as follows (Greg, hope you don’t mind being quoted here, but … the secret is out anyway):
I did a quick project with James George to create a directory of all OpenFrameworks addons. It went live today.
We built a site that searches github for all addons and then we categorized them and filtered them. There are so many amazing resources available in OpenFrameworks! From face tracking to animated GIF creation to projection mapping tools to all kinds of hardware control to sound generation and on and on.
Take a look and I bet you’ll think of three new project ideas just from seeing what’s available!