AI in Art & Design

Algorithm art can be made with examples, software, and other tools.

Artvy Team
September 23, 2022
4 min read
Generative Art Guide - Tips & Tricks

Generative art-tool/airbrush">art is a way of making new ideas, forms, shapes, colours, or patterns with the help of algorithms. First, you make rules that set limits for the process of making something. Then, a computer will follow those rules to make new works for you.

Generative Art by Manolo Gamboa Naon, an Argentinian artist who uses algorithmic tools including Processing to create art.

Traditional artists might spend days or even months working on one idea, but generative code artists use computers to come up with thousands of ideas in a matter of milliseconds.

Generative artists use the power of modern computers to create new styles of art. They do this by telling programmes to run within a set of artistic rules and guiding the process to the result they want.

Generative Art by Manolo Gamboa Naon.

This method cuts down on the time artists and designers spend trying out new ideas by a lot, and it often leads to surprising and sophisticated new ideas.

The best online course for generative art, according to us:

If you want to learn how to make your own generative art, we have two suggestions:

  • New York University's popular online course is great.
  • The book The Nature of Code is also a great resource on this subject.

Now, let's look at a few examples.

Michael Hansmeyer is an example of generative art.

Michael Hansmeyer is an architect who thinks of Generative Design as "thinking about designing not the object, but a process to make objects."

The process makes it easier to create happy accidents and new ideas that would normally take a long time to find.

Generative Architecture by Michael Hansmeyer. In this striking example of Computational Architecture, a grotto set was designed for Mozart’s opera. (2018).

Hansmeyer helped make the grotto set for Mozart's opera, which you can see in the picture above, by using generative design.

Artists like Hansmeyer are making the most of their creative potential by using computational tools to quickly explore, improve, and test new design ideas.

Michael Hansmeyer says, "The design process strikes a balance between the expected and the unexpected, between control and giving up control." "Even though the processes are set in stone, the results are not. The computer gains the ability to shock us."

Muqarnas, by Michael Hansmeyer. Muqarnas are elaborate ornamental vaultings, and some of the earliest and most impressive examples of a rule-based architectural design.  Using advances in computational design and digital fabrication, Hansmeyer invit…

Best Software for Generative Art:

There are many tools, programmes, frameworks, and languages that make it easy to start making your own algorithmic art. We've put together a list of some of the most common ones to help you get started.

  • The people on our staff pick. This is a powerful programming language and environment for making art with code.
  • openFrameworks is a popular open source C++ toolkit for making art that is both generative and based on algorithms.
  • Cinder is a free C++ library that lets you code in creative ways.
  • C4 is an iOS framework for making generative art that is free to use.
  • Unity is a powerful game engine that can help with generative art and large-scale installations.
  • PlayCanvas is a real-time WebGL engine that lets people work together.
  • hg sdf is a GLSL library for distance functions that have been signed.
  • HYPE: A group of classes that do a lot of hard work with very little code.
  • nannou is an open source framework for writing creative code in the Rust language.
  • thi.ng is a set of design tools for Clojure and ClojureScript that are free to use.
  • PixelKit is a live graphics framework written in Swift that is free to use.
  • OPENRNDR is a free Kotlin library for making art that changes over time.
  • Phaser is an HTML5 game framework that uses Canvas and WebGL to make games.
  • Canvas-sketch is an HTML5 framework for making generative art in your browser using JavaScript.

Best Laptops for Generative Art:

Generative art can take a long time to render if it doesn't have a lot of processing power. So we found some of the best laptops for the job and compared them. Our comparison is based on laptops made for machine learning, which, like generative art, is a field that needs high-performance GPUs.

The best way to learn about generative art is to try it out for yourself. We love The Nature of Code, a book by Daniel Shiffman. It shows you how to make your own generative art with real examples, clear step-by-step instructions, real code excerpts, and new ideas.

How do generative tools change the way we make art?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions about generative art.

  • Helpful creation systems are making it easier for people to learn a wide range of creative skills. People who don't have any special creative skills will learn new ones. This will give new artists more power and make it easier for new work to be made. Apps like HumOn and Humtap let people who aren't musicians hum into their phones and quickly turn it into a song. Like Instagram did for photography, these and many other songwriting assistants like Jukedeck, Amper Music, Aiva, Melodrive, Amadeus Code, Alysia, Mubert, Endel, and Boomy are making it easier for anyone to create.
  • Anyone with an Internet connection can use open source software to add free tools to their creative toolbox. This means that creativity is getting cheaper, which is good for everyone. For example, openFrameworks is a free C++ toolkit for creative coding, and Magenta is a research project that looks at how machine learning can be used in art and music.
  • Computational artists are getting the raw materials they need to make new works or tools from open source data sets. For instance, Google's Open Images Dataset has 9 million images that have been labelled by hand with bounding boxes that describe each image. There are many different kinds of open source datasets on Kaggle. For example, there are thousands of classifications of urban sounds and paintings by the 50 most important artists of all time. The Art Institute of Chicago also shared 50,000 high-resolution images from their collection.
  • Generative creation systems are showing us ideas and shapes we could never have thought of. By focusing on the process of making art instead of the end result, they are opening up a whole new world of possibilities. They will inspire a new generation of artists to use tools to be more creative and make better use of their time. They will use computers to do the hard work and make nearly infinite variations in a given solution space.
  • The cost of making images, video, audio, and other assets needed for multimedia is going down because of procedural modelling. We will spend more time defining a range of possible outcomes, learning more about what makes something beautiful, and spending less time on boring, repetitive work. This will make making assets for movies, video games, and other digital media cheaper and faster. It will also give points to skills that can make smart systems, not just pretty ones.
  • Artificially intelligent tools will learn from us and work with us by coming up with ideas in real time, helping us stay in the flow and reducing writer's block. They will help people be more creative instead of just taking their place.
  • General Adversarial Networks make it possible for machines to learn about a set of data and then make very realistic copies of it in the same style. As this technology becomes more popular, you can expect to see more creative and imaginative ways to use it.
  • Creative Adversarial Networks make it possible for machines to add new things to what they make and even learn over time what kinds of new things are useful. This means that in the near future, programmes will become much more creative on their own.
  • Evolutionary algorithms are making it possible to code the basic processes of nature into art. This lets artists draw on the wisdom of the ages and show it in new and inspiring ways.
  • YouTube and LinkedIn Learning, which used to be called Lynda, are making it easier to learn new skills. Don't know how to draw? Just type "learn to animate" into Google and you'll find a lot of great tutorials.
  • As these trends come together more and more, they speed up the time it takes to go from being a beginner to an expert. Some people have called this the "democratisation of creativity."

What are some other names for art that changes itself?

This field has a lot of names, which can make it hard to keep track of. It is also known as algorithmic art and procedural art. It's also a type of computer art (artwork made with a computer), and sometimes it's called "autonomous art" (works made without human intervention).

No matter what you call it, it is a movement that is influencing art and design.

How to make art that changes itself?

Follow a step-by-step tutorial to get started making generative art. We suggest that you start with one of the following: Processing, OpenFrameworks, R, or JavaScript are all programming languages (p5.js). Just type "generative art tutorial" into Google to find a tutorial that makes you want to make art.

Where can I study generative art?

If you are just starting out with generative art, we suggest that you check out the following resources: The Coding Train, Three.js 101, Shaders: A primer, and WebGL Tutorials are all good places to start. These step-by-step guides will show you how to make algorithmic art on your own.

Can I make generative art without knowing how to code?

You don't have to know how to code at all. Start by looking up one of the above generative art makers on Google.

Where can I find examples of code for art that changes itself?

If you know how to code, you can search for "generative art code" to see some examples. Sites like Codepen and many others usually have full walkthroughs. You can also look for #GenerativeArt and #GenerativeDesign on Twitter.

What's the best course or class on art that changes itself?

We are currently evaluating a number of courses that will teach us how to make generative art. When we're done taking the classes ourselves, we'll write a guide comparing them for you.

What kinds of things can you make with generative art?

Any medium you can think of, including painting, drawing, architecture, poetry, music, drawing, digital art, data visualisation, line art, and even dance.

Where can I buy art that changes itself?

We're looking for the best places to buy generative art right now. Between now and then, we suggest you try Etsy, Artsy, and Society6. All of them sell good works of generative art.