MediaSynth #3 - co'llusion

I'm struck by how well the illusion translates over to the product. I could stare at it for a while trying to figure out the impossible path of the ball. I wouldn't worry too much about the wobbliness you mentioned as it does not detract from the illusion. On the surface, it may not be visually appealing. However, knowing how much work you put in and seeing how well the animation flows, I can look beyond the dirty cardboard.

I love what you've created! our group had the same idea of using the Penrose stairs but we gave it up eventually, so it is nice to see you use this illusion to build this fascinating work. I'm also impressed by your use of 3D printer anyhow you changed your plan to print is separately to save time. Although you said that there was a disaster struck at the end of the 3D printing, I feel like the final product looks great.

Very neat project! I didn't think that you could incorporate movement into the illusory contour effect, but you guys did it very well! Having worked with sprite animation myself before, I imagine a lot of effort must have gone into this project and it clearly shows. Also, using Vine to present your work was a very good idea, since it allows for clear playback and seamless looping, which I think is important in order for your illusion to work. Good job!

This was a very interesting project! This is pretty similar to the McGurk effect, where the same sound can be heard differently based on the visuals provided. There's pretty much only this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0) on the subject, so I never thought it could work with anything more than just one-syllable sounds! I like how the entire piece came together, using the distortion both to create the effect as well as to set the mood of the piece. Nice job!

That's pretty incredible! I love the animation and the fact that it was done programmatically rather than with images. It's a really unique way to apply this concept, and there was an interesting theme along with it. When the Pac-Man are facing outward, the triangles don't seem to serve much of a purpose (I can see them turning into something else to fit with the theme), but I love when all the shapes come together to create the shape that doesn't necessarily exist. With that and a little tweak to the sound, it looks like an awesome co'llusion!

That's a really nice way of animating that illusion! I loved how the scenes changed as more was added to the figure. The sound definitely goes with the animation well. There are many ways of making a looping video, and though we had trouble with Vine in particular, it turned out well in your case; the fade from end to beginning is very nice. As with the original standing image, I have a harder time seeing what the "illusion" is with illusory contours, but nice job!

When I watched the video for the first time, I didn't turn up the volume so I was wondering "well, this is beautiful, but what for?" Then after reading your process and illusion description, I went back to watch the video again and heard the sound. Then I was amazed, because the 3D experience is so cool.
I have to say that the plastic projector you guys made is so awesome and this is the first time I see someone making a project in this way. There is one point, however, I think could better fit for your project. The sound is balanced in the background and, if we don't have a pair of stereo headsets, it's difficult to feel the 3D experience from sound. So I think it could be a good idea to pan the sound from left to right and back from right to left.
Anyway, good job guys! I love your project.

I definitely enjoyed your product and liked how you guys took a creative spin on a part of CMU that's so symbolic. It's very aesthetically pleasing, and the sound definitely fooled me at first.

When it comes to your use of Shepard's Tone to make it seem like the sound is getting faster, maybe you can also take a look at Scale Illusion or Tritone Paradox to add more distortion and will accompany the same scale and climbing effect like the bridge.

Concerning revision, I think you can experiment more with the visual illusion. I was definitely fooled by the sound illusion and understood it's connection to your piece, but the color illusion just seemed like a filter to your visual aspect.

I was impressed with your ability to portray the illusion so well, especially since the scene’s simplicity meant you needed to use motion to get the point across. Whereas the other examples you included had familiar objects (like a chair or the Eiffel Tower) for viewers to compare size with, your video used parallax and shifting perspectives effectively to do the same. Still, I agree with your ideas to include more of a background in the scene, though not just for aesthetic purposes. When I first watched the video, I couldn’t really tell what was happening. Even the effect soon became clear after a few more loops, adding even just a floor would have provided context indicating the figures’ positions, which could help viewers see the effect faster.

While there are many examples of pareidolia, it was interesting to see the illusion displayed with a dynamic component in the form of the changing lighting. I was surprised by how much more interesting this made the animation, which still shows the illusory effect pretty well. The audio component is less remarkable, though that doesn’t mean it was any less effective. Still, I didn’t think the pareidolic(?) effect was as apparent as it could have been. This is just speculation, but maybe the lighting, depth, and shadows actually draw viewers’ attention away from the foreground objects. Without knowing what to look for, it took a couple loops for me to discover the face on my own, since the lighting seemed more important. That being said, I still like the idea of the parts of the face being revealed gradually by the changing light. For a start, maybe you could bring the background closer and tweak the lighting angles to minimize the distracting shadows. Also, I would have looked into different formats for presenting your work. Trying to open the swf file was surprisingly annoying, and it would have been just as effective as a looped video.

I was lured into your project by your cover and when I clicked inside, I was kind of obsessed by your work. The moving Pac-man and the triangle hidden in plain sight reminds me a lot of the loading screen of a lot of games. One thing I think you guy did better than a lot of game loading icons is that there's sound in your loading screen and the melody fit with the Pac-man theme. However, the sound is a little bit off with the animation, but it's a minor problem. Anyway, you guys did a great job and I love your project.

My first thought when I watched the video was "Wow, this is really beautiful". The execution of your illusion is on point and brings together a great illusion, sound to accompany it, and elegant aesthetic.

By taking a look at your process and inspiration, I think the product reached it's desired effect. To take it another step further, perhaps you can experiment with different shapes of plastic or maybe two videos that are separate but effect each other within the plastic mirrors.

Concerning revision, I think by experimenting with different angles and distance to make the experience more enveloping would help. I could still see the faint outline of the plastic mirror and the flat angle of the jelly fish on the table could give away the illusion. In addition, maybe accompanying the sound to the movement of the jelly fish could enhance the reality of the illusion.

As others, at first I didnt see the illusion as well. I was confused. Then, after reading the documentation, I realized that i didnt see the illusion because you guys did so well! The best illusion is supposed to be defective to everyone. Good job! I tried to find the dark point and paused a lot on the video. Finally I did it lol. The whole process looks very complicated and I think you put lots of work in it. And the result pretty much matches up your intention. The animation is very impressive and beautiful! I really like the short video you guys present at the beginning. It explains a lot to me. Very nice job!

I think the idea is super good! The whole project is audio directed and the image kind of implies that no matter what I hear, it is just actually noise. It's kind of interesting. I think that if you guys can make the imaging moving or let the noise matching up with the mouth and make it a perfect loop, the whole effect might be better. The repetition is not enough for me. But after I hearing it several times, the effect was strong and perfect. I also enjoy your documentation and the drawing is super nice! I think you did a great job!

Woah, mad props for the 3d printing - that stuff is infuriating to work with sometimes, but it looks great! I also really love all the external skills & tools you pulled in to make this! Also, great documentation! Also also, you definitely have the best use of the Shepard tone that I've seen. Heaps of praise aside, I feel like the transistion from low point to high point is not quite as seamless as it could be. I feel like I'm still very conscious of the change, despite not initially knowing how the stairs were constructed. I might have made the structure a little bit more subtly reinforced, so that the top stairs weren't wiggling around and making it obvious that it isn't connected to the bottom stairs. Definitely the shakiness of the stopmotion animation helped conceal this, but if I'm being nitpicky (which I definitely am), it's worth commenting on. I'm also personally a little bothered by the ball's considerable change in shape from top to bottom, which I think is also making the break more apparent. Concealing the legs of the stairs through either editing or a perspective change would also be a good choice, I think.
You guys nailed the overall cohesiveness of project, interesting/engaging content, and it's really apparent that lots of effort went into this project! It's already really cool, but imo you'd be even better if you get your gif to appear even more seamless.

My first impressions upon seeing this product: I definitely thought it was beautiful and interesting, because the colors seem to flow endlessly and smoothly from one color to the next. It was also interesting because I had never seen the Pausch bridge that way before. Most of the time I only see it as one color since I'm only there at one moment in time, and the time lapse showed that the bridge does change color gradually. However, I wasn't able to identify what the illusion was in the piece. At the same time, I didn't think the audio fit very well with the piece, and I was a bit confused as to why I was hearing what I thought was random typing. I think a way to improve could be to find another way to use the Shepard tone to make it more beautiful and interesting. The audio didn't capture my attention as much as the visual aspect did.

This is a surprisingly engaging animation! Not sure if my laptop was just playing it slowly but it does seem a bit longer that 5 seconds and I felt like the frames were shifting extremely slow, which kind of took away from the illusion. It also made it harder to understand what was going on. I was definitely confused by the description saying "an image that appears to change without actually changing", because the animation definitely changes, and I think I was expecting a static optical illusion. I really like the interations you guys went though, and appreciate the honesty in what went wrong. I also applaud you for stepping out of your comfort zone in terms of the tools used to create this! Last thing is that Flash is quickly becoming out of date/losing support with browsers, so I'd be cautious using swf files in the future.

This is a really good project! I don't think you should worry about the sound, I didn't even realize it when I watched it. Your illusion works really well; after I watched the illusion and was reading the write up, I noticed that I didn't realize that it was completely dark at a point and there was no sight of Samus. I had thought that I saw her running. This means you're very successful, so congratulations! The only thing I was confused about was that I'm not sure how much this project connects to Kaniza's Triangle since I don't think there is enough information in a screenshot of Samus "running" in the dark.

I think you did a really good job! It's amazing how you knew nothing about Maya when you started, but were able to do the graphics so well. The sound is also very impressive. Something I really liked was that you gave the example of the tourists while explaining the project, and I think it's a great example. I actually like that the background is bare, since it doesn't distract me away from the illusion

Hello!
Initially, when I watched the gif, I wasn't really sure what the illusion was supposed to be, since I didn't really pay attention to the fact that the background color was changing. I think this makes your illusion even more interesting and effective though, because even though I didn't notice the changing background at all, subconsciously I still saw the normal colors! Going off of my initial misconception, I actually thought your illusion was trying to demonstrate an illusion of movement through a gradient of color changes, as it looks like the colors are undulating along the bridge. This actually reminds me a lot of the loading screen for Crash Bandicoot (anyone else know that game? Just me? Okay ...), in which the main character, Crash Bandicoot (we'd never guess) seemingly endlessly "falls" through a chasm of color, which also utilizes continuously changing colors to create an illusion of progressive motion. As far as improvements to your current work go, since I can't help but see waves in your gif, I think an oscillating, smooth sound representative of a wave would've been more fitting. In addition, I wish that the Shepard tone looped a bit more seamlessly so we could actually hear the continuously ascending tones.

The audio is actually just a straight repetition; it's the exact same sounds for both lines. There is no difference between the audio played for the first line and the second line. I'll edit the documentation to clarify.

One thing I really enjoy is how you guys used code to make the project, thus making the animations precise and beautiful. I like how you make a connection to the previous assignment with negative space and loading screens, but I think you should mention the connection to Kanizsa's Triangle illusion. The project was really done well, so there's not much I can think of that should change. One suggestion I have is to change the yellow triangles to something more reminiscent of Pac-Man, for example, if possible the ghosts (general shape), or the fruit in the game. Overall, your project was really well done, and I think you guys did a good job mixing the optical illusion with a mathematical beauty.

Wow, I couldn't tell it was a reflection on plastic at first. It's pretty aesthetically pleasing. Great camera angle. The jellyfish worked really well.

Since you mentioned holograms, I think it would've been interesting if you talked a little about holograms more, such as how they're constructed besides the method used in Pepper's Ghost and why Pepper's Ghost was more viable for your project than the other constructions.

As far as revision goes, the audio panning didn't make sense to me. The fact that the majority of the deep water sound shifted all the way into my right ear so quickly threw me off. Felt like it was in my head, which was very very uncomfortable. Not sure if there would be a significant difference if I used headphones instead of earbuds, but on my computer's speakers I couldn't hear the deeper tones at all so either way it probably requires an adjustment.

I really liked your project, especially since I've always found the Rorschach Inkblots interesting. I really liked the thought that went behind picking the spooky tone to add to the piece's uncertainty and the tri-tones to mimic the illusion of pareidolia. I think what might have been interesting would be to have the music change, just because the spooky music almost seems to distort my image of the blobs especially because they seem to move with the music in slightly unexpected ways. I think a different tone in music would affect what people saw which, in my opinion, would add to the illusion. Overall it was a great project and the animation was really nice and in my opinion flowed really well.

Hi!
I was really impressed by the amount of effort put into creating intermediate forms (especially since the inkblots are so abstract), which made the animation look more believable. I also felt that the small details such as the dithering frames and tritone really added to the creepy factor. After reading your documentation, I was reminded of art therapy, in which a patient randomly creates an abstract piece that supposedly reflects their thoughts and emotions. Riding that train of thought, it would be really interesting and potentially creepy if you found some art therapy works from mentally ill patients (or serial killers/criminals, the insane, etc.). Nonetheless, your current work is already quite spooky, although disregarding the time constraint, I would've liked to hear longer snippets of the Shepard tone. I also wasn't really seeing any meaning in the inkblots, or rather I didn't really have time to look at it long enough to come up with anything, so again, maybe extending the length of the frames would've improved the effect.

Upon first viewing the illusion, I thought it was pretty cool how you incorporated the visual movement of the rainbow along pausch bridge with the seemingly ascending sound. Even cooler was how seamless the gif was, as it looped seamlessly. After reading the documentation, I thought it was really admirable how you incorporated the link between art and technology in the creation of this project. Using an existing piece of art to help convey the message really worked in your favor for this project.

An oppurtunity to improve I think would be to make the auditory illusion occur throughout the gif. When viewing it was kind of disorienting to hear the typing fade away at 3 second intervals, and I think there was an opportunity to leverage the Shepard's tone keyboards sound more in your creation.

I personally think that they music is beautiful and interesting, while the visuals are interesting, but not beautiful. The music brings to mind a lot of calm, zen games, especially those where one is a character floating in space or water, like a koi fish in a pond, really. I feel that the moving moons around the earth are actually detracting from the illusion, unless that is what you were going for, because it is hard to track with the eyes, but because of all the movement the eyes focus on the changing sizes of the moons and less about the earth and so the earth looks the same size while the moons are blatantly changing size. The larger vine post is less exhaustive on the eyes and seems more effective at exhibiting the illusion. Still, the relation to space was quite interesting and easy to understand.

Upon first weeing this work, I didn't really know what was being said, but as the video looped more times, I began hearing the words that were being displayed in the video. In that regards, the piece did a very good job of capturing the perceptual effect. Something in your documentation that I thought was interesting was the fact that you guys did actually say the 2 phrases, but altered the audio so that the 2 sounded very similar. I'm not quite sure that this is exactly the Pareidoila effect, since it's not the same signal each time, though I wouldn't have known that without reading the documentation, so you did a good job at masking the fact. Visually, the imagery did a good job and conveying the sense of paranoia in the piece, integrating the visuals seamlessly with the audio.

Something that could be improved is how the audio flows. There's a distinct noticeable static break in the middle which disrupts the pace of the work slightly. In addition, the white noise was a bit overwhelming. In all though, great job in integrating the audio and visual components.

Wow, this is pretty neat. A great take on the Muller Lyer illusion. The combination with the Shepard Tone really helps it. It looks kind of like an ascending ladder. It would be kind of cool to have some kind of object "moving" on top of it, perpetually sliding down the stairs.

I noticed that you said it was difficult for you to create a Shepard Tone from scratch. I don't doubt this, but there are several resources online which can create one for you without you having to cut up Youtube video soundtracks. This thread has a Shepard Tone plugin for Audacity, a free audio editor. You would also probably be able to customize the tone's speed to match your animation.

I think the only problem really with the end product is that it's not quite a perfect loop. Although the initial part was cool, it does prevent it from being a loopable gif/video. Maybe if you had an ending with the bars sliding all the way across the screen, or forwent the initial climb?

The quality of the models is pretty good for beginning Maya! My initial reaction isn't that the piece is beautiful, but it is very interesting. The reference to Red vs. Blue was quite humorous, and the audio component and visual components both referenced it. I do agree that the background could be made more interesting, but I think the point was the perspective given by the work, and less about the background. For the models, I noticed in the video that initially the two models presented are not the same, one is thinner than the other. Perhaps a better rendering or camera angle would fix it so that the two models are presented so they look to be the same? I noticed that you mentioned that usually normal sized objects are made smaller, so I think it would be interesting to have a piece where the subject is made to look larger (which, really depends on the subject). Overall, it was pretty interesting to see!

Woah, I love how you made a real version of a classic optical illusion! Very interesting! I really don't know what other connections you could make- you already mention Escher's work and the impossible stairs in Inception, which are the two things I think of when I see this type of illusion. One thing I would change is something you already mentioned- making it more stable so that it looks more like an impossible set of stairs. Of course, I can imagine how hard it was to do the stop motion, so a little wobbliness is completely understandable!

I thought your product turned out really well! I've never seen the illusion before, so I thought it was very beautiful and interesting (because I wanted to know how it worked). There were a lot of connections made between your project and predecessors as well as implementations of the Pepper's ghost illusion at amusement parks and Coachella. If there was one revision I would make, I would suggest trying to implement the McGurk effect, which is when you see something that should make one sound but hear another, thus confusing your ears. I'm not sure how it would turn out, but I think it might add an interesting effect if it does work.

I thin it was a clever idea to mash up these two illusions. The ascending Shepard tone with the arrows moving up did complement each other. And also it was a clever use of Python, generating the different arrows to move up. I think your project illustrated the illusion really well. I do think that uploading it as an 18-second Youtube video may have detracted from the infinite loop part. Having the repeated part on a medium that would repeat automatically for you probably would have highlighted the infinite loop more, but then again, a lot of the media really doesn't do what you want them to. Anyways, great job!

Your project really frustrated me because I would watch the planets pass by and visually CHANGE SIZE IN FRONT OF MY EYES. The fade between the start and the end of the loop really helped you guys overcome the shortcomings of Vine (smart move) even though it still is kinda noticeable. We either didn't know how to better use Vine's loop, or it just doesn't do it as seamlessly as we thought it would. But despite that, your project is something that is beautiful and I probably wouldn't mind watching for a while. AND, it really clearly illustrated the illusion in a relatable way. Great job!

Despite how wobbly/glued together the structure was, I think the fact that it was a stop motion gif and everything changed consistently made everything seem very smooth. The perspective was perfect, and I honestly couldn't see where the gif+sound looped back again. I'm kinda impressed that you guys went through the trouble of 3D printing out the stairs and actually putting together the structure though. It all turned out really well though.

It reminds me of the game (Echochrome) that Yijing put in her explanation for this phenomenon because it really used the viewer's perspective to make the transition so believable. Great job!

When I think of the Muller Lyer illusion, I'm not very impressed. However how you handled it. The twist in having the fins rotate was very clever. I also liked how the audio was woven in, and it gave me the feeling of climbing a ladder or staircase. I'm especially impressed with the use of Python in making the illusion, very nice blend of the arts and technical skills fitting for this class.

Excellent piece. Very refreshing how you used an illusion in 3D space, one that wasn't confined to a screen or paper, especially considering I don't believe this was an illusion discussed in the previous assignment. While I had heard of Pepper's Ghost before, this is my first time actually seeing it, and it blew me away. The whole thing seems very well put together, including the audio as well as the looping. My one complaint is the slight jump in the audio as the sequence loops, thought that may have simply been caused by youtube starting the video again.

I watched the video first and had no idea what was going on. I initially thought you took a random video from an aquarium or something that layered it three times (my stupid explanation for the other three jellyfish at the bottom). But dang! You got me!! I'm stunned by how you guys pulled it off, especially with cutting out the clear plastic and constructing the tiny pyramid. I guess the perspective was also an illusion. As I was reading your documentation, I went back and forth trying to see what the illusion was. I initially thought the pyramid was big and the phone was tiny, so I was confused as to why I couldn't see the phone. And then I realized it was a tiny pyramid with a big phone. Unintentional illusion? Great work though. I think to enhance the immersive feeling, the audio could be synced to the movement of the jellyfish. There was a slight disconnect when I was watching it, so I didn't entirely believe the connection between the surrounding sound and the visuals, but it was close enough that I was willing to believe it. Otherwise, still a great demonstration of the illusion!!

Wow, really cool project that synthesizes the audio illusion with the visual one well. The idea to show an "impossible geometry" in a physical space was a lofty goal and I think it was executed well, albeit not completely seamlessly. I was really impressed by the amount of effort and planning that went into building the physical scene, and I think the gif feels more believable because of the use of physical scene, as opposed to using a computer animation.

I think your work is interesting because you have these weird, changing shapes combined with the spooky sounds. You did a nice job creating the unsettling effect you were going for through your choice of visual and audio. I think it'd also be cool if you emphasized that your artwork is based on someone else's material (since you used real Rorschach inkblots). You do mention this, but did you consider how this makes your work almost like pop art, since you're borrowing from psychology? One revision that would be really cool to see would be to add audio pareidolia to your work. You do add some audio-uncertainty with the tritones, but it'd just be interesting to have viewers both see and hear things that aren't there.

I really like this project! I think it is definitely interesting, because even though I'm aware of the Ebbinghaus illusion and the phenomena it creates, I still found myself question if the center circle was ACTUALLY staying the same size! And it's beautiful - it's smooth and the soundtrack really compliments the animation.
I also thought your documentation was really thorough and clear. I liked how you showed other examples of the Ebbinghaus illusion.

I think this project is super cool. It's definitely interesting, and like you said, I think it is beautiful because of its simplicity and continuity. My favorite part was how the audio and the visual components really complimented each other. I also thought you guys did a great job connecting your illusion to the Muller Lyer Illusion and the Jastrow Illusion we saw last week in the Ignis fatuus project. I agree with Kaalen that it would have been cool to make it a gif or vine so that it really could continuously loop forever.

Hi guys, I really liked your project. I preferred the tritone(?) audio, and I think the combination of that and it being near Halloween made me see a bat in the video. Watching it looped might have made it easier for me to think about what the images were, but I'm sure that's something that can be done easily. For the audio, again I would have liked to hear it on repeat so I could tell if I heard it going up or down. Other than that if the animation and transition between the images was smoother I think it would have been cooler, but I know that would have taken a lot more work. Great job guys!
Here's a Rorschach test I liked: https://patternity-images.s3.amazonaws.com/Rorschach-01.jpg

Your documentation is amazing and I really love your product! It's really nice that you included a lot of video and sound references to it.

The sound is very pleasing to my ear and I could listen to that for hours honestly. The way you guys animated the gif is also really nice and definitely highlights your illusion really nicely (I noticed you used Unity, great job!). There IS a slight slight lag in the video or sound and if you really wanted to perfect that I think it could make it a lot more seamless and perfect. I think the audio could have been better unified with the animation, but the cosmic and crystal effect really do complement each other quite nicely.

I thought you guys chose a difficult illusion to recreate, and I'm impressed with how much you guys put into it. Even though you guys didn't get to the point that you wanted to, I still think it does a good job of showing the illusion. One thing is, although its supposed to look like its changing as the lighting changes, there was more of a feeling that I saw more of a hidden image and was able to understand it better as the clip went on.
When I looked up visual pareidolia, an example I liked was this one, which you all may have seen before: http://www.all-about-psychology.com/images/face-on-mars.jpg

The animation is really cool! As a CS major, I really love that it's coded (I really enjoyed looking through the source code) and the result is beautiful. I think one way this could be improved is by timing the sound better with the animation. The sound itself is really fun and not annoying to listen to after a while, and its nice that you incorporated the Pacman sound into it to really unify that theme. I think this unique concept of a loading symbol is really intriguing--I love whenever sites or games use different fun loading screens that fascinate the viewer and extend patience time.

I was very impressed by the animation and I fine the style nice and fun. However I do think that it's switches into this static a little too quickly the timing for the sound change may be a little off. I also think that if it visually chance to the black version it would also emphasize the static even more. Regardless animation is very good and basically seamless and your use of negative space is really capitalizes on the concept through the illusion of the triangle when there actually isn't one. Great job

I think you guys did a good job in transitioning the blob images. However I was not sure if the sound is supposed to make us see a different image. The creep your sound did make the last blob seem more like a creepy face, but I personally don't have much of a reaction to the blobs. I don't see an image, so that may skew my perception of your piece. It also would've been good to add the sound as a part of your context but that didn't negatively impact how your work was perceived. Good job.

I think it was very well done and it actually completely fooled me. At first glance I had no idea what I was looking at and I thought it was just and image projecting onto the flat surfaces. But after reading the documentation I realized what I was looking at and was super impressed. I think that you are right capturing this illusion on camera is super difficult because a great deal of the illusion comes from seeing it in person. I think you could have considered Shahn's idea of form more with your use of the audio effect. There are no bubbles too be couple with the bubbling sound. I would maybe recommend including the sound of water swishing rather or try to include bubbles in the 3d effect to give more context to the audio aspect.

Cool! The rainbows totally had my attention. I've actually always thought that art and technology are pretty closely related, at least where our popular devices come in. Elegance, sublimity, etc things also tend to be useful.. or perhaps it is the other way round? There was a whole section on this back in my philosophy classes, where we discussed the purpose of beauty and art, including from an evolutionary perspective. Here's the link to that Zogg video on Aesthetics, which talks about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36-Bp9sAa3w
It's a pretty entertaining series. I can kind of see how one might think of beauty as a vague and occasionally reliable indicator of utility. Since technology is for solving problems, you'd think the two could go pretty well together. Aesthetics and good design definitely increases usability of the tech we use.

When I first saw the project I thought that this was an excellent combination of the two illusions. I would not describe it as beautiful though. I did appreciate the simplicity but it is not something I would stare at forever. I thought the animation was a tad bit bland considering it was just black and white. I did however find it interesting as I figured people using the shepherds tone would simply do a boring animation of something climbing stairs. I thought considering that you guys did a project involving lines you maybe could have considered what Kandinsky wrote about lines. In terms of what I would change I would just make an actual gif not a video recording of it. It would have been cool if it had been a perfect loop.

This is a great demonstration of this illusion. I definitely think the outcome matched the intent, as it looked and sounded like climbing up, as the lines got smaller as they went up. Definitely programming this is a great route to go, as it will deceptively last forever! It is definitely interesting, especially just trying to retrain your brain to not be fooled by the illusions. I think making a smoother, maybe more intricate, sound would be a great next step, though I don't know how complicated that is in terms of keeping the auditory illusion. Overall, great job!

The product is very interesting! The choice of figures and audio really do give it that mystical feel to it--and the illusion integrates quite well rather than being standalone.

I would mention some sort of perceptual effect that the animated version of Ebbinghaus's illusion causes. There was a great example of how our eyes respond to changes if it fixes on something versus not being able to fix on something, but I can't remember the name of the effect, and Google does not return accurate results. Still, though--it's interesting to see two ways of demonstrating this effect using Ebbinghaus's illusion.

Now, one thing I've noticed with the submission is a stutter on the visual loop that occurs every two cycles. It takes away from the mood of your project, and I'd like to have it be seamless. I'm not sure if that can be resolved though--if it's a video player issue or a compositional one.

I really enjoyed the concept of this project. I think you pulled off the eerie quality behind the words both visually and with sound. I think the intent matched the outcome in terms of poetic quality. For the audio, I could hear the first words, but could not hear the second set of words in what was being said. Possibly starting off with a vocal recording with less consonants would make that less apparent. For the visual, I think having the second drawing shake a little, would add to the effect and connect audio more closely with the visual. Overall, I think the outcome matched the intent, and it sent a very poignant message.

My initial reaction to the visual portion was that it was mesmerizing because of how perfect it was and how it did a great job of showcasing the negative space illusion. I actually thought "if long-loading-time games had great loading symbols such as this one, I'd be less annoyed for the first few times a long-load happened". For the audio portion, I couldn't really tell what was happening. I understood that half of it was from Pacman, and the other half was just static, but I didn't relate the auditory component to the visual one and that was probably my fault.
After reading the documentation, I now understand what you were going for with the audio and I can see the full picture now. It's sort of like a 'deeper' sound effect.
If I had to revise it, the first thing I'd do would be to fade the objects out when they went out of form, and fade them in when they went into form (while keeping the negative space illusion) and then instead of the static, I just have the Pacman music fade out and in as the objects did. Because I don't know Javascript, I may have used something like this to accomplish that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tGtL6upTEU

I'm definitely interested in your exploration of 3-D media over the digital canvases we worked on for the previous few labs. You've put much effort into your documentation and product, and it shows!

There's a funny thing about certain illusions--sometimes, the most masterful of illusions are the ones you don't recognize occurring. I wouldn't have realized the problem of making the ball the right size as it rolled 'down' the stairs unless you've pointed it out!

I find the work interesting given the figure of the clay ball rolling endlessly down the staircase. It moves with a sense of purpose that could not be properly emulated with either a completely normal ball or a more organic form, so I give you kudos for that. It is beautiful in a theatrical sense, as well. Perhaps making the animation less stop-motion-y would dissuade the illusion of it being a natural event.

I can't quite think of other works that employ the Penrose staircase, but I suppose I could mention how your project uses forced perspective to make everything look 'normal' like how Lord of the RIngs did it.

You acknowledge the benefits your project may have if you had more time. Even giving stop-motion animation and 3-D printing out a second try may show improvement. I would have little to criticize beyond what you have mentioned already.

It is a pretty interesting project. The first time I looked the video, I didn't see the words clearly (flash so quick), so I thought you were just repeating the same sound. But after watching video several times and knowing the poem, while I still thought the sound tracks are really similar, I imagined you read the two lines separately but used some 'magic' to make them hear like the same. Then I read the documentation and knew your intention. The idea is pretty awesome, yet I agree that it is so hard to be perfected. The video creates another illusion to me which is pretty interesting.(and it is close to your intention) The words worked as suggestions (as you intended) and the sound was ambiguous enough (but I had a feeling that they are the same). If I was doing the same thing, I might adjust the audio in two different ways to make them really different, since the suggestions from words are not strong enough. Still, It is a successful project and I like it!

It is so cool! I have to say the visual part looks awesome that the lines are becoming shorter, and together with the audio the video gives audience a sense that you are climbing onto something, which is perfectly integrated with the shrinking lines. I watched the video again and again but still cannot believe the pitch is not continuously rising. About the documentation, I feel you can say more about how you came up with this idea. Also, maybe you can add more elements into the project to make it vivid? Awesome project!

My initial reaction was that it looks and plays really nice and smoothly, but I didn't understand the point of it because I couldn't figure out what illusion I was supposed to be seeing so I was very confused. But it definitely is "beautiful and interesting".
After actually reading the documentation I realize that your project is much more than aesthetically pleasing! I really see how it tells the story of typical Metroid games. If I had played them before I'm sure I would've noticed what you were going for without reading the documentation. And it was also very impressive how you used the illusory contours illusion to enhance what was behind your project. I notice what's going on now of course though, but the fact that I didn't notice what was happening originally just proves your project's illusion worked the way you wanted it to.
If I were making a revision to this work, the first thing I'd do would be to change the first map from 'fade to black' to 'fade from black' or keep it black completely except for the mask. And then I'd try and find a different platform other than vine to loop it because (in our group's experience as well), vine very slightly distorts what you have. These revisions would be to help it loop seamlessly while keeping the ordering of the maps.
If I knew Vine didn't do exactly what I wanted, I would've used a tool from here: http://en.softonic.com/s/video-loops

In your Critique/Reflection, you guys were saying how the project didn't turn out as well as you had hoped. I'm a little confused at your intentions then because I thought the product turned out pretty well. The audio sounds distorted a creepy, and together with the images you guys put in and the black background, I thought the work had an overall ominous tone. The illusion worked for me as well; I distortion sounded like the text that was on the screen, so I thought you guys utilized the power of suggestion well. There's not really anything I would change in this project, but if you wanted to enhance the creepy atmosphere, maybe adding dim silhouettes to suggest something hiding in the darkness.

Ebbinghaus is the optical illusion I did for the last project, so this is a subject I'm familiar with. My original reaction to the work was awe and admiration. The project perfectly demonstrates the illusion and adds in the space motif and the haunting music to make the gif overall mesmerizing to watch loop. If I were have chose this illusion I probably would have done something similar to showcase it. I do have to say though that after watching the gif for a certain amount of time, I do think it is a little. I know this is a little bar but I wonder if more couldn't be added to the background that enhances the motif without distracting from the illusion.