Sources Android App v1.4
"Sources" is a fun and unique program for creating computer graphics images and animations. It allows you to combine simple geometric constructs (waves and repeating patterns) in various ways. Surprisingly complex (and often quite beautiful) things can emerge. (The background to the banner above was done with Sources.) It is surprisingly deep, with countless possible permutations. It works on fairly modest phones and on large tablets.
Sources is not a drawing program - you do not manipulate pixels. Rather, you place and adjust "sources" - suppliers of repeating waveforms. You can turn on animation and watch the various parts move and interact. To get an idea of the range of things that Sources can do (so far!) have a look at the galleries. One of the motivations for writing this program was to take advantage of two of the standout characteristics of Android devices - their direct touch control, and the generally high quality of the display. The galleries cannot do justice to the glowing colours you can produce on the likes of a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone. It is worth noting that the great majority of these images were produced with only a handful of sources, some with only 2 or 3. It always a surprise when some peculiar 3D-looking object pops into existence when you have simply combined a few sources. Over 40 examples are built in to the App to give you inspiration and show how certain effects can be achieved.
Of course, animation adds a whole other dimension - these images move!
The Lite Version has the following characteristics:
- full basic functionality. (Pro version has a number of extra features.)
- can't create the largest images or animation
- any definitions you come up with in this version can be imported into the Pro version.
The Pro version adds the following:
- high quality modes for circles and for sweeps.
- high quality waveforms mode.
- ability to create Live Wallpaper from your design, in conjunction with the free SourcesWP.
- 3 levels of smoothing (simple gaussian blur at the moment). These optimizations make a big difference to image quality.
- ability to control the default quality used in the main, animation, render and image screens.
- curved sources - with various functions: sine, exponential, power, log etc. This opens up a whole new set of possibilities.
- limits - you can make sources start and end at a particular point rather than covering the entire screen.
- removal of restrictions on animation, rendering and images.
- many more undo/redo levels
Fuller details of the differences here.
A fuller description of the use of Sources will be found in the tutorials. Advice and important information for Samsung Galaxy S2 users is on the Advice Page.
Finally, since a picture is worth the proverbial 1000 words, a couple of images which i came up with while I was putting together this site...
