Process:

To avoid having a cliched theme of human-nature relationship, our first idea was to divide the work up into two sections to show our wish that humans and nature could integrate with each other. In the first stage, the stars would become dim due to an increase in volume of ambient noises or even fall down and become light in the buildings if people clap. In the second stage, the number of stars and lights would increase simultaneously if claps and natural sounds merge to create a beautiful night sky and city scene. However, the complicated configuration is likely to be confusing, so we decided to stick to the primary stage of the human-nature theme. For the idea of turning stars into light was regarded as potentially amusing instead of alarming, we chose to separately exhibit the visual elements at the same time. 

In the implementation stage, we refined our ideas aesthetically and made it doable by using two screens, one for universe and one for city. we decided to change from a static universe to a moving one to make it more lively, so we used a particle system that is constantly emitting stars and rotated the front stars to give an illusion of moving through space. Then, we added in the background made through Photoshop. To make the sky more interesting, we added in the explosion effect of stars. We used FFT to detect surrounding sounds, and if it is past a certain threshold, a star will explode. The whole screen also gets dimmer when the noises are louder. The building part has similar sound detecting effects as the whole screen gets brighter when noises are louder, and if they are past a lower threshold, a light would come up in the center building. To make the aesthetics more unified, we also added a strip of the background into the city scene.