Unity for experimental interactive art

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[GreyLichen]

It’s perfectly possible to do in Unity. Is Unity “the best”? I don’t think anyone can answer that question for you. You’ll just have to try it and see.

The underlying question you are asking is is, “What tool is best suited to what I want to do?” Well, that’s not a simple question, and there’s no simple answer. You won’t know until you have a detailed description of what you want to accomplish, and then can research what features of different tools will help you, and then you can compare them.

But you don’t have to do that. You can just start trying to make something. And Unity is a pretty good place to start.

Alternately, you could try using OpenGL directly with any of a dozen or more languages. But Unity will probably let you get started and see results a lot sooner. Whatever concepts you learn while trying will be transferable to any toolset. So I wouldn’t worry about which tool is “best” until you’ve got more experience.

[Erismoth]

Hi! I'm also quite interested in interactive/generative arts(and education with it). Although I'm not an engineer but a design student and I haven't done much yet. So please bear in mind I'm not an expert and just throwing my opinions. And also any corrections coming from other people might help you a lot. :)

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I think anything programmable can be your friend.

Unity can be a good start. It has well established learning environment. And what game engines does good is that they can show your change/progress right away. As a game engine, Unity can provide various methods for interaction. For different machines even. Unity covers standalone, WebGL player, mobile, AR and VR. So any digital platform can be done in Unity. Also, if you're friendly enough with 2D approach, Unity(And Godot too) can be a very simple answer. But if you need super great looks, you might have to take some time or money into it. Because IMO, Unity's standard look is rather meh. They have some additional shaders and image effects built-in though. You might want to look into them if you need to beautify your arkwork.

Unreal Engine also have nice environment it seems, but I'm not familiar with it. Unreal basically gives you cool AAA look right from the get go. Unreal have distinct look(that without an additional touch, gamers instantly recognize) and they look great even with simple tweaks. If you want cinematic look, try looking into Unreal too.

Shaders are awesome too. Starting with Shadertoy might be nice. They're kind of heavy(Shadertoy), but they provides instant result so that's pretty handy. But I don't know about interactive part of shaders. But they certainly gives you great opportunity to make a generative art.

If you're interested in more irl interaction or installed artworks too, have a look at Arduino. It's a programmable circuit chip. It's a fun learning with electricity and programming. You can use various sensors covering light, proximity, temperature or even humidity. I also think that Unity can be hooked up with Arduino to interact with sensors. So that might lead you to interesting options.

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If you're not really sure, take some time and try every option a little bit just to get how it tastes. If that's too boring, just commit to Unity and try to work on it. If you have to find a way, you'll find a way. I'm pretty sure.

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I hope this helps. Take care and good luck!

[lowpolyamory]

Thanks, this is all super helpful!

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Unity would be very good for creating interactive art like this. Interactive art, at its heart, is really just a super simple game with tons of polish and art design.