I enjoy learning new design skills through side projects and experiments.
Roundaround
Multi-player drum machine
Roundaround lets multiple users jam together and create looped rhythms online in a visual way where all steps are placed in concentric circles.
Skills: three.js, react, html, css
Team: Ali Momeni (lead). Various engineering collaborators over the years
Open Source: View on Github
Duration: 2022-2023
Creating rhyhtms and multiplayer jamming on Roundaround
Dranimate Web
Turn any 2D image into a hand-puppet
Dranimate Web lets you animate any 2d image with your hands using a webcam, and also add infinite number of regular webcam recordings that can be inverted to showcase sketches so that you can use it as a canvas of expression, and project it in real-world.
Skills: three.js, react, html, css
Team: Ali Momeni (lead). Various engineering collaborators over the years
Open Source: View on Github
Duration: 2019-2022
Dranimate Web 2022 with LiveDraw
Dranimate on Web made it more accessible – which previously required special hardware (Leapmotion) and software (OpenFrameworks)
Having Dranimate on Web made it more accessible – which previously required special hardware (Leapmotion) and software (OpenFrameworks)
While I haven't actively worked on the original Dranimate, I've assisted Ali and the team demoing it on various events.
Original Dranimate by Ali Momeni and the team
Google SPAN 2017 Pittsburgh
SimpleVR
A virtual reality authoring tool
An immersive storytelling tool that enables users to craft narratives using 360° panoramas, adding text, images, and audio to create interconnected panoramic rooms.
Skills: three.js, React, html, css
Team: Ali Momeni throughout the last iteration. Many collaborators through out the project timeline.
Demo: SimpleVR.irl.studio
Brief: Develop a browser-based virtual reality authoring tool designed for non-technical youth to create immersive stories.
Duration: Fall 2017 - 2020
Storytellers can enhance their stories by guiding the reader in a room through a narrative or add a soundtrack to create a more uniform story through sound as well as gaze-activated sounds.
Storytellers can enhance their stories by guiding the reader in a room through a narrative or add a soundtrack to create a more uniform story through sound as well as gaze-activated sounds.
With SimpleVR, I have had the chance to improve my front-end development skills, understand designing for virtual reality systems for limited hardware, and most important meet with so many talented youngsters as well as education technology enthusiasts such as teachers, which are interested in using SimpleVR in their classrooms.
Poli
A platformer game made of tangrams
In Poli – the first ever game that I've designed and developed using Unity, players navigate geometric environments inspired by the tangram to find Poli’s mother while avoiding enemies.
Skills: Unity, C#, game design & development
Source Code: View on Github
Brief: Develop a 2D platformer that has 3 levels and 3 enemies.
Duration: 2 Weeks (Fall 2017)
Speed-up gameplay shots from Poli
Future Voices
Collectively Imagining the Future
As four designers, we explored technology’s role in community-driven design futuring for shared spaces. Initially a playful urban projection in a Pittsburgh vacant lot, the project evolved due to children's enthusiastic reactions, leading us to adapt the technology for classroom use.
Skills: Projection Mapping, Millumin, OpenCV, Workshops
Brief: Create an impact in Pittsburgh through technology.
Duration: 4 months (Dec 2016 - Mar 2017)
Our first experiment: An Interactive Urban Projection
FV Events: An interactive urban projection, a futuring-driven projection mapping, a virtual reality futuring exercise
What is Web Mashup?
An explainer video for the concept
To illustrate "What is a web mashup?", I created a visual of a developer making a website to help apartment hunting. This project, my first in After Effects, highlighted that simpler visuals are more effective in explaining complex concepts.
Skills: After Effects, communication design
Brief: Design motion to effectively make a complex abstract concept concrete by utilizing multiple senses.
Duration: 1 month (Fall 2016)