I'm old enough to remember making my own blobs

February 24, 2021 6:34 AM

Blob generator. Control the parameters of your custom blob. Does what it says on the blob tin. [via kottke]
posted by veggieboy (24 comments total)

Someone needs to combine this with the iceberg testing tool
posted by Lanark at 7:30 AM on February 24, 2021 [15 favorites]

Can they follow this up with a Steve McQueen (you know which one) generator?
posted by hwestiii at 7:53 AM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

Cool! Next to the change buttons are buttons downloading the blob id's for embedding into a webpage or draw app.
Setting it to the highest randomness and complexity, and after many tries, it made for me a rough outline of a cat. I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying this app .

You remember making Your Own Blobs?
You were lucky. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' the Blob mill, making Blobs For Foreign Export, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week.
posted by otherchaz at 8:18 AM on February 24, 2021 [4 favorites]

Setting it to the highest randomness and complexity, and after many tries, it made for me a rough outline of a cat.

After a few refreshes of an extremely random and complex blob, I got a decent and recognizable approximation of Lisa Simpson’s head.

Turn them down to the lowest setting and it is guitar pick after guitar pick.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:31 AM on February 24, 2021 [4 favorites]

I just realized you can change the colors! This is very fun.
posted by turtlebackriding at 8:51 AM on February 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

Blob generator
Lives on AWS
Blob generator
Hands upon the mousewheel
posted by genpfault at 9:17 AM on February 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

This reminds me of that very simple evolution game I thought I found on Metafilter like 10+ years ago. I played it a bunch when I was supposed to be doing philosophy of science homework. It was basically sticks and circles stuck together in different ways. I think the goal was to get them to evolve to walk. Usually they didn't. But I haven't ever been able to find it since then.
posted by aniola at 9:29 AM on February 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

You were lucky. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' the Blob mill, making Blobs For Foreign Export, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week.

You were paid? How hoity-toity of you.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:38 AM on February 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

> It was basically sticks and circles stuck together in different ways. I think the goal was to get them to evolve to walk.

Soda Constructor?
posted by genpfault at 9:38 AM on February 24, 2021 [4 favorites]

I swear the default colour gradients are inspired by a pack of origami paper.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:17 AM on February 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh boy all you can eat blobs!
posted by aubilenon at 11:02 AM on February 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

is this fortnite
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:25 AM on February 24, 2021 [8 favorites]

hah! I was just this morning looking for pictures of green blobs for a phonics puzzle and dissatisfied with my non-custom clipart options. Thanks.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:26 PM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

This reminds me of that very simple evolution game I thought I found on Metafilter like 10+ years ago. I played it a bunch when I was supposed to be doing philosophy of science homework. It was basically sticks and circles stuck together in different ways. I think the goal was to get them to evolve to walk. Usually they didn't. But I haven't ever been able to find it since then.

You may be thinking of something like Genetic Algorithm 2D Car Thingy.
posted by jedicus at 12:34 PM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

Randomness = 7, Complexity = 9
posted by straight at 12:37 PM on February 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

Honey, if I could control the parameters of my custom blob, I wouldn't be the size I am HA HA HA.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:18 PM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

The topologist in me just sees the same circle over and over and over
posted by Think_Long at 1:19 PM on February 24, 2021 [6 favorites]

Hey, I resemble that remark! (for all of the above...)
posted by blob at 1:58 PM on February 24, 2021 [9 favorites]

Finally I will have no need to waste time designing and randomizing my own blobs. This is the promised push button future I have been waiting for.
posted by vorpal bunny at 2:50 PM on February 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

Do you want blobs to become the dominant "We're a hip, hot company" marketing signature? Because this is how you get blobs signaling "We're a hip, hot company" as a dominant marketing signature!
posted by achrise at 3:37 PM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

Insufficient blob opera.
posted by GuyZero at 5:41 PM on February 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

is this something I’d have to purchase retail blobs to understand
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:52 AM on February 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

Hmm... generate a few points around a circle, randomize the angles, randomize the radii for each point, and then connect them with a spline and fill it in. Nice.

For a splat instead of a blob, I bet expanding some of the individual points into smaller blobs with the same method would work. Preventing overlap (or getting the fill algorithm to handle overlap) might be a much bigger hassle though.
posted by Foosnark at 5:17 AM on February 25, 2021

The topologist in me just sees the same circle n-dimensional manifold

for reasonably small values of n ;-)
posted by sammyo at 6:48 AM on February 25, 2021 [3 favorites]