Help

Below you will find descriptions of the available commands for artists and investors, and later a section on coding that has the details on how to code your own pieces.

Commands for Artists

You will first want to explore the variety of pieces in our gallery by using the "Random All" command. Once inspiration has hit you, you can start by making a remix of an existing piece. To do this you will edit the javascript code. Changes you make will immediately be reflected onscreen. You are given 140 characters in which to make your piece of code art. This limitation encourages the search for creative solutions.

Once you are happy with the piece you have created you can now mint it forever to the blockchain for the world to see! Remember that you will never be able to make changes to the piece after you have submitted it. So make sure you are happy with it and then select the "Mint" command. You have the option of setting a price for the piece so that art investors and fellow artists have the chance to own one of your pieces.

Commands for Investors

You will first be interested in using the "Random All" command to explore the art pieces. Next you can use the "Buy" command to purchase pieces you are interested in. Once you have some bought some pieces you can use the "Set Price" command to change the price of any piece you own.

All Commands

Buy: Buy this piece of generative code art. There is a 1% platform fee for all sales.
Set Price: If you are the owner of this piece you will have this option available to you for setting your asking price.
Random All: View a random piece of generative code art from our entire collection.
Mine: View a random piece of generative code art from your own collection.
Mint: Submit your art piece to live on the blockchain forever! To abide by licensing laws, be sure that have the license to use this code or have made substantial changes to it before submitting it as your own.

Coding

The code viewable below each art piece fits into the template below. Your code is inserted into the u(t){} function. Within that function a number of programatically defined shortcuts are available for your benefit. There are the mathematical functions sin(), cos() and tan() that can be used with the shortcuts S(), C(), T(). There is the R(red,green,blue,alpha) shortcut that can help you to set colors by outputing rgba(red,green,blue,alpha). To access the canvas for drawing use c and x as the shortcuts for the canvas and canvas context. To see all the operations you can perform on the canvas 2D context, "x", see Mozilla's CanvasRenderingContext2D documentation. Lastly, make use of t that is the time since your code started running. This allows for all sorts of animations posibilities, just limited by your imagination - and 140 characters!

let S = Math.sin
let C = Math.cos
let T = Math.tan
let R = (r, g, b, a = 1) => `rgba(${r | 0},${g | 0},${b | 0},${a})`
let startT = Date.now()

let c // canvas
let x // canvas context 
let u = t => { } // function

function loop() {
  requestAnimationFrame(loop)
  u((Date.now() - startT) / 1000)
}
loop()

Terms

The codegolf.art platform is released in good faith to perform its goals as best as possible. Even so, due to the complex nature of software, it cannot be guaranteed bug free and as such it is not responsible for any damage or loss caused by its use or misuse.

Curation

Anyone is free to mint on codegolf.art. You or your pieces may be removed from the platform if you contribute offensive content or if you directly copy pieces from other authors.

About

codegolf.art is a generative art marketplace, visual coding playground, and blockchain minting facility. The goal of the project is to promote generative art and to facilitate collaboration and support between artists and art investors.

On-Chain Code

What makes codegolf.art unique is that the code to generate the art is stored on-chain. With traditional NFTs, content is stored off-chain, usually on IPFS, which does not guarantee longevity. NFT owners can easily find the situation where they retain the receipt of ownership of an NFT yet the NFT content is missing forever! Storing the actual code on-chain ensures maximum lifespan of the art pieces and retains value for art investors for the entire lifespan of the blockchain it is stored on.

140 Characters

Each generative art piece is meticulously coded in javascript to fit within a 140 character limit. The javascript template used by the generative art pieces was created originally by demo scene artist, sigvef. It has been well adopted by other generative / demo scene artists and so the tradition is continued here. The 140 character limitation was originally adopted so that the full code could fit into a tweet on Twitter. Now the 140 characters can be minted onto the blockchain. You can read more about the template and find further inspiration within the active commnunity at Dwitter.

Contact

Join our discord server for everything related to codegolf.art.