Presentation Feedback, and Change of Focus

Ok, so we had our project presentations on monday. Boy did mine not go well. I was actually feeling a little under the weather, so I wasn't really thinking straight, not a good start. Eventually ( after 2 hours of waiting ) I got to present. Ralf I don't think was amazingly impressed. Here is the feedback I got from my tutors, Petra and Lorna :

"- Sounds like an interesting product
- Ralf suggested getting it up to prototype
- Looking forward to seeing what you produce, played with processing a little, and is lots of fun.
- Well presented, and understandable
- Scope needs to be considered to make sure that it is achievable"

"Interesting project - though you need to sell it more! Aiming for the casual desktop user is kinda selling it short, considering the potential it has for inclusion into club setting. How are you going to differentiate it from the others out there - why would ppl use yours over theirs? Allowing for customisation would help to push up a level - and aiming for a particular group of users (like VJ's) would also help."

Taking all this, and Ralf's comments into consideration - I am actually going to be more ambitious, and I'm going to move back to my original idea. Which is a Visualisation *CONSTRUCTING* tool. Based in processing still, and still using 3d. But so the user has the ability to construt their own 3D visuals, and play with them as they see fit. Much more fun, right ?

So, I've sat down and gone over the preliminary details, and boy, will it be a BIG assignment. I've got a lot to do. I've roughly broken it up into four parts :

1. Audio - Analysing of Audio Stream, Returning Useable Data.
2. Creation - Creation of Shapes/Particles/Effects to be displayed
3. Display - HOW the objects are displayed. 3d, blending, blurring...etc
4. Presentation - Live mixing of saved created presets.

I've got to delve into a little more detail, but I think this will be the direction I will take. How complex it will all be when it's done ? I'm not sure. But it should be an interesting journey none the less! I'm tired and a little sick, so that's all I'm writing for now - but I'll write again tomorrow after I get the feedback from my draft report.

- Anthony

FFT Research, Project Choice and Processing Issues

Project Choice
I've decided to go with the audio-responsive visuals. I figure it's the most challenging option available for me and so it's therefore the best way to show off my skills for the end of year expo and beyond.

In Saying this, I wanted to get a decent amount of research done into FFT and Frequency analysis.

Processing Problems
Before I start anything, I've got problems. I wanted to start uploading my processing "sketches". However I've encountered a problem. I spent a large portion of time yesterday afternoon attempting to get the sketches to work as a java applet from within a browser - no joy there, and now I've found that something has broken, and I can't even export as a standalone application - BIG PROBLEM.

The error I get is : "File sonia_v2_9.jar,JSynClasses.jar,JSynV142.dll,libJSynV142.jnilib does not exist"
If anyone knows anything about processing and can help me, I'd appreciate it. I've also posted for support on the processing website here. Until I get this fixed, I can't show you where I'm up to in my experiments - as a last resort I'm sure I can export them from my laptop, so I will have to try that later.

FFT Research
Now to the intersting part ...
I've been doing some research into FFT and Spectrum Analysis. Just so I know what I'm dealing with here. I suppose I should start from the beginning.

In order to work with sound, I need to understand the format in which I can access it. Using processing, and one of the various sound libraries ( In my case, I am using 'Sonia' I can access the live stream of music via my soundcard. This data is intepreted via FFT ( More on this later ), and then outputted into a spectrum array. This array can then be accessed and the music or sound can be intepreted.

So firstly, What is FFT ?
FFT ( or Fast Fourier Transform ) is an "Algorithm to compute the "Discrete Fourier Transform" and it's inverse." Ok, so what is a Fourier Transform ?
The Fourier Transform Produces a Spectrum. It saves the Magnitidue of each frequency component. This data can then be represented as a graph or plot.

So how does this tie in with processing ?
The FFT Data is collated and stored in the array. Each array element is an "FFT Bin". These "bins" are basically storage elements for a *collection* of frequency ranges - not a single frequency. So how are you meant to know what frequencies are contained in which bins ?

Say you have a file with a Sample Rate of 44100Hz. A frequency range of 22050Hz is equally split into 512 bins. Each bin is : 22050 / 512 : 43.066Hz Wide.
The Left most bin ( Lowest Frequency ) has *half* the width of all other bins. ( contains frequencies 0.000Hz to 21.5Hz ).

So what does all this mean ?
This means that I can get data from a sound source, live streaming sound data - examine the frequencies, and calculate which elements represent which aspects of music ( kicks, snares, synths etc ).

And where will this lead ?
Eventually with a sufficiant understanding of the backbone behind the software, and an understanding of the data input and how it is aquired, I can isolate parts of my motion system to react to different parts / types of music in different ways. A greater understanding will help me to create a project of greater impressivenessnessness.

Any Questions ? Any Comments ? Any Suggestions ?

Where now ?
So what I have to do now, is try and get processing working. From there, the experiments continue.

- Anthony

Project Two Blog Links

I thought I'd keep a record of all the other studio students blogs - that way it's easy to keep in contact and see where other students are at. I'll update this post as I find out more blog URLs. I will also post brief project details here as well, so people can browse via interest.

- Anthony Massingham ( http://amassingham.blogspot.com/ )
Sound-Reactive Visuals

- Tim Cooper / Brendan Lidster ( http://timandbrendansstudio6.blogspot.com/ )
Business Ranking Social Network

- Dave Whipps ( http://www.davidwhipps.com/studio6 )
Local Designer Social Network

- Ben Bradford ( http://benrocksmmds3802.blogspot.com/ )
Portfolio

- Joy Christensen ( http://jchri63.wordpress.com/ )
Undecided

- Damian Carroll ( http://stoodio6.blogspot.com/ )
Magazine

- Grand Van Zutphen ( http://grantvzmajorproject.blogspot.com/ )
Music Video

- Jessica van Wegberg ( http://jessicavanwegberg.blogspot.com )
Title Sequence for a Film

No Details as of Yet

- Tom Ireland ( http://tomirelandsstudio6blog.blogspot.com/ )
- Robert Ninness ( http://rninne-mmds3802.blogspot.com/ )
- Dead Dredge ( http://ddredge22.blogspot.com/ )

Project Choices

So I've thought of something. It came to me during todays lecture. It requires a bit of history though. It's all about some Not So Impressive Entertainers.

Back in early July I needed something to help keep me sane over the holidays. So, inspired by one of my favourite artists ( Scott C ) I decided to create a "series" of images. And so I came up with the "Not So Impressive Entertainers". A collection of the worst, most pathetic, and unusual entertainers that one could think of. Ideally I wanted to come up with about 100 of them, get them all printed out and displayed somewhere.

So, During todays lecture, it came to me. I could do these as my project!

To give you an example, here are the first 6 NSIEs ( and the blogposts that accompany them, ensure you read the comment reply from "wonko" as he's been providing little biographies as they come :

I. Pretty Ordinary Hat Man
II. Squid Man
III. The Pied Piper of Greater South-East Queensland
IV. Charles and his Amazing Performing Pancreas
V. Lionel the Brussel Sprout Tamer
VI. Sicko the Clown

So I'm mainly posting this here so you can see my thought process and the options I'm going through. Both projects have pros and cons. However I think the way I'm leaning at the moment is to keep NSIE as a side-project, a more personal thing - and focus all my efforts on my sound-based project.

Any thoughts ?
To quote a friend , "Tap tap, is this thing on ?"
- Anthony

Project Extrapolation

So I thought it was about time I actually posted here explaining what it is I intend to do for my project this semester. As it still yet stands, I am not 100% sure on what I want my project to become, all I know is what I want to work with, and how I want to work with it.

1 ) I want to work with sound and video
2 ) I want to work in processing
3 ) I want to work in 2d and 3d

Using those three parametres, I think currently what I'd like to make are sound-reactive dynamic 3d visuals. Or a least one set of visuals.

Ok, so that's a lot of work. The first question many people would ask is am I capable of achieving this ? Yes. I think I am. I've spent the holidays and last few weeks brushing up on my programming skills ( I've still got a bit of a way to go, but that's what the next few days / weeks are for ), and I've started doing sound experiements in processing.

I'm going to bring a copy of my very simple version 1 beat detector into class tomorrow to see what the tutors and lecturers think of my idea and possible venues for project ideas. Tomorrow I will look into getting web hosting for the .java files and videos. I may end up using vimeo and my optusnet hosting space, but we will see what becomes available to me.

I'm looking forward to this semester, it will be good to have full control and not have to rely on unreliable group members. Let's hope things move smoothly from here.