Review of "Tune Toys: Muse-O-Matic" and Outline for Audio Project

 I will admit that i was pretty skeptical when i first read the description of Tune Toys: Muse-O-Matic.  I was, however, quickly silenced upon tinkering with the programs Mr. Tim Thompson created.  Tune Toys is a collection of musical generators based upon user input of words and phrases.  As a musical toy, i find it very interesting how an individual is able to create music with great ease, see a visual image indicating said music, then play and save the music created to one's computer. It is an interactive program that utilizes 4 out of 5 senses to create a fully realized, interactive piece that is utilized across multiple mediums.  For the record, one feels much joy when typing in one's name or one's favorite website and a a fully realized piece of music is created.

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Outline:  Manual music creation tool.

Inspired by:  Retro Drum Machines

Overview:  Have the program set up to have sound effects, ambient noises, sounds from everyday life, etc.

Plan for now:  Have each track play when clicked.  Also have options to edit each track selected in terms to pitch, speed, and volume.  Also have options for playing all, pausing all, and stopping all tracks available.

.....I am still working on my track selection, but it will be a mix of tracks created from garageband, ambient sounds from free-to-use music sites, and live sounds i record myself.  

I would also like to maybe add some visual indication of what is playing as well. Wether it is radio waves, images of what is playing, or abstract aesthetics has not been decided upon at this time.

The Halloween Photo Booth: Results

Our photo booth was a success.  We received more feedback than expected; enough to verify our previous questions in regards to human reaction.  What was interesting, however, is the variety of reactions we received from people in regards to our booth setup.  Some not only returned the desired facial response, some even reacted verbally... much to our amusement.  We ended up recording video to track all facial reactions that the camera might have missed, as well as for record-keeping purposes.  In time, we will edit our video footage into a web-friendly format and filesize on http://reacttime.blogspot.com as an extra treat for those who participated.  In the meantime, we have our footage in raw and compressed formats, saved for viewing and editing.

One thing that we all agree upon in regards to our project is to conserve tape space as well as battery life when documenting.  We learned this the hard way, as we ran out of tape just before witnessing what was one of our favorite reactions of the day from none other than Adrian Duran.

We are still thinking of ways to expand our project. From expanded concepts, (confessionals was one that stuck with us), to expanded tool sets (monitors for viewers outside of booth,  scary image and sound selection to keep things interesting, etc,) we have ideas concerning how we can expand on our project.

One of the things I think we should be careful about is to keep it from becoming a one-trick pony of sorts.  True enough, we created an environment where we had total control of when and how we scared individuals. However, if we plan to make this a semi-annual thing, it is important to consider ways of keeping the atmosphere, sound, and imagery geared towards overwhelming the senses, no matter how many times one frequents our booth.

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Now that we have the tech and layout figured out, there are so many possibilities for what we can do for future projects. For the record, I have never been one to do many installations. However, i do believe that we have a formula that can be manipulated and expanded on to create a wide range of interactive installation pieces.   Making the experience very personal, and divided from the rest of the world is what i think works best for our project. As a group, we spoke briefly on creating a confessional complete with a digital priest.  Allowing one to go in and type whatever they're thinking anonymously would be a great means of venting for some.  We could also include some video and audio files that strengthen the experience.

Among all of the projects possible, the confessional is something that i definitely think I should do sometime in my artistic career.  With some tweaking, it can be very effective.

The Halloween Photo Booth: Desensitization Expieriment

We propose an experiment that serves as an activity for students and other individuals to partake in during lunchtime. We wanted to make something that fits the spirit of Halloween, lets individuals take pictures, and gives them an opportunity to view their photo as well as the photos of others. In the spirit of Halloween, we wanted to make something that the potential to be somewhat startling. Because of this we decided to make a Halloween-themed photo booth that lets us carry out our own experiment involving human reaction. Our title for this is “The Halloween Photo Booth: Desensitization Experiment”.

Desensitization is, by definition, the act of making something less sensitive, sometimes by gradual exposure or overexposure to an object. Many people believe that due to changes in media, people in this age have become desensitized to themes associated with fear and thrill. This can be seen in the change in the majority of horror films’ themes from “shock/thrill-fest” to “tragic humor.” Halloween is the part of the year that makes “fear and thrill” into an annual ritual of enjoyment. We wanted to capitalize on that ideal for the sake of our experiment.

Our experiment is as follows:
We have realized that desensitization is not measured as an “either/or.” It is instead measured as an amount. For every individual, many factors play into one’s ability to be startled. We wanted to disguise our experiment as an elaborate activity that others can enjoy. This elaborate activity is our photo booth. Using visual cues and sound, we established a control by which to measure individual levels of desensitization to unexpected media. Once in the photo booth, we prompt the individual to put on a set of earphones. An audio cue will play so they know when the picture is being taken. Our interface is set up so that we can watch as the individual focuses their attention to the screen while waiting for his or her picture. As we take their picture, our image and sound plays in the booth, amplified by the somewhat claustrophobic environment we have set up

One way or another, the individual will react to the image and sound. What we want to find out, however is if that reaction is enough to generate a facial response. If so, this would indicate to us the most heartfelt reactions an individual can make. Results of our data collection is set up as http://reactime.blogspot.com, a blog that allows individuals to print the images of themselves as well as their friends that participated. There we can tally the results of our experiment, and generate a conclusion from our recorded findings.

We are using the Sleaze and Slime as the location of our project in hopes of getting a larger audience for our work. We are depending on word of mouth, (something we have already started,) timing of the event, as well as visual indication of our project to encourage people to participate. Since we will be showing it during lunchtime, we believe our photo booth will be considered a nice activity to do as individuals wait for class to start again at 1:00 PM. Our blog with posted photos encourages each individual to go to the blog to see their picture and the pictures of others. We believe that the opportunity to see who was and was not startled by our setup is enough to get some traffic on our blog. This way, they can take our data, save it, and manipulate it as they see fit.

Note: Because some individuals may be uncomfortable with having others view, or manipulate their photo, we have a short disclaimer that requires one’s signature, indicating that he or she is comfortable with having one’s photo displayed. This is a way for us to document the number of people that actually participate and keep us from being held liable for anyone else looking at our collection of photos.


Peer Reviews:

To accomplish our project, different tasks were delegated to each member. Me and Anthoney worked primarily on our interface and code for our project, while Scottie and Quaaim handled the aesthetics of the installation. Contributing equally, we exchanged feedback between each other about problems and solutions to every roadblock we faced. Making the code for our project was a group effort as well; We took input from Scottie and Quaaim as well as tested our project among a few people and took feed back from that as well. Having all of us meet on time was a problem every now and then, but we utilized other sources to stay in contact with each other about the work. Dropping files on the server was a big help.

All in all, everyone contributed equally.

Revised Video Project

Following the advice of the class, i expanded upon my original idea a bit.

First major change is the tv's widescreen format. I agree that this supports my idea a bit better. I want to figure out how to upscale the video feed itself, if there is even a way.

The best way my idea could be expanded upon is to incorporate more functionality of the tv to convey my idea a bit clearer. Because of this, i added a tv guide. Thanks to someone's suggestion, i implemented the idea of television stations, the tv shows of which all incorporate a synonym of "self," the subject that the individual watches when viewing my project. Some of the synonyms are a bigger stretch than others as far as coherency is concerned. Also some have numbers and suffer a case of "sequel-itis" in regards to showing up repeatedly. This reinforces my original idea of television shows being mostly stale, uninspired, copied, then packaged and repackaged under different names.

Revisions and Video Expierement

First off... my video expierement.....

.....complete with old-school rabbit ears.

This experiment was inspired by my own issues with post-2003 television... namely that while most mainstream television shows, while being interesting for a moment, are ultimately copies of one another and genuinely uninspired. Seeing a camera's portrayal on one's reality may seem interesting at first, but as the individual flips through the channels, the user becomes ultimately bored turns off the tv.

...For the record, i do enjoy quite a few shows nowadays. However, this experiment reflects my own opinions.  What is your opinion of television nowadays?

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Here is all of my revised work.  Revisions to each work of art will be displayed below the image to the work itself:

Digiscape Image:  Updated image to incorporate elements from my final digiscape.

Digiscape Project (Counts as 2 assignments. The original, then the update with full tweens, timeline effects, etc):  Fixed some timeline issues that created conflicts with the simulation of depth and seamlessness in the animation.

Ghost FPS:  Fixed a bug that made ghosts stop moving once killed.

Ghost Hunt : (previously revised outside class on another blog post):  Fixed an error that broke t the game mechanics, rendering the scoring system, level progression, and ultimately, the game, unplayable.

Bird Demo: Fixed a bug that makes the bird well when being fed a mosquito AFTER it already passes out. Now it can only be revived via a Med Pack.

Character Creation Utility: Reinforced my original concept and added a button that lets one print one's creation.

...Questions? Comments?

Midterm Project: Character Creation Utility

Make your own character.

As an animator, one must be adept at many things; color harmony, storytelling and perspective to name a few. One very important aspect of animation that one must always consider is character design. The root of any good animation is the full development of a character's look and feel, as it is from that that the animator develops how said character moves throughout an environment. Because of that, i used this dealer's choice project to develop something that would help me further my own character development studies.

Here i have three robots i have created, split into 5 parts. Each part can be mixed and matched with the parts of the other robots to create an entirely new creation. A help button can be moused over to provide instructions for one who may have any questions. The order in which you place objects determines their positioning. I set it up this way to encourage thinking not only of the positioning of objects, but their relationship with each other when making a unified composition. (similar to building blocks.) Once done, you can print your creations.

This idea is actually inspired by Rapid Idea Sketching, something I learned in IPC last semester. One takes many materials pertaining to a specific topic, mixes and matches them together, and photographs the results. The reason for doing this is to find compositions and concepts in your existing work that you may not see otherwise. I used the same basic concept here while incorporating elements that pertain to my specific intentions.

In short, I saw this project as an opportunity to make something that applied directly to my major that could benefit me in the long run.

Making it was not a problem, but did take just about forever to finish. Even now, there are many things that I would like to add to this. I feel that i could incorporate even more designs, more form and functionality, color choices, and even more backgrounds, if time permits.

Drag and Drop Demo

Meet your new pet.

This project is designed to demonstrate the drag and drop action in flash.  The bird can interact with a number of objects on the side.  Depending on the object you choose, the bird reacts differently.  If fed a number of mosquitoes, the bird will become sick, and refuse to do anything but feel sorry for itself.  Feeding it one more will make it die.... until you feed it a medical pack.  I set it up this way to mirror individuals who like taking care of pets as well as those who get amusement out of the misfortune of fabricated creatures.

In all honesty, i did not run into any major difficulties when programming this, it just took a lot of time. I came across the idea of making certain animations that i want to do invisible on the main timeline until i want to actually play them.   It also took a bit of figuring out in regards to the assignment of variables as well.  However, once fixed, everything flowed nicely.

As always, logic errors are a pain.

Note:  What do you think of the program as a whole? Is it too colorful?  Are the pastel colors too much?  Should i use a different color scheme?  What about the spacing of everything?  I know this is just an experiment, but i am open to all ideas and options in regards to improving it.

Ghost Hunt: Update

Click to Play.

For critique tomorrow, it has been updated, with the bug that "breaks" the game fixed. Turns out i needed an if, else if statement that we learned in class today for my game to support both conditions. Who would have thought?

Anyways, I took the advice of the class and created a level progression system, and and system for losing. It was always my intention to create a program that mimics the principles of games of old. Because of that, i have focused my game around a few things:

1) Simple, pick up and play mechanics.
2) An easy introductory level to familiarize one with the game mechanics.
3) Rapidly increasing difficulty past level 1.
4) Analyzing the patterns of each wave of enemies to find the best way to complete each level.

There are only 2 levels at the moment, but I am hoping that the increase in speed and difficulty between level 1 and 2 conveys the intentions i had when creating this.

My main difficulty i ran into was in trying to figure out the error i had before, with getting each level to progress. I realized that i had two seperate conditions that i was trying to fulfill with one statement, and by organizing my code and being careful not to override commands of the same function, I was able to complete this without having any bugs... that i know of at least.

I will be posting my next assignment later tonight once its finished.