after todays seminAR

had some discussion about projects. looking into feasibility of reactivision framework. some links that need more looking into

http://rooreynolds.com/2007/08/17/yo-yo-tuning-tangible-audio/

http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/?software

http://andypiper.wordpress.com/2007/08/08/slorpedo-the-video/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/reactivision/

http://reactivsion.s4.bizhat.com/reactivsion.html - forum for projects

PureData info and doco

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Data

http://www.puredata.org/

http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/Pd_documentation/

 output graphics library options

http://openframeworks.cc/faq

http://www.multigesture.net/

http://www.skanskgardsost.se/puredata/projects.html - reactivision output project ****

 http://vvvv.org/tiki-index.php?page=Documentation *****

Seminar 5 Storyboards

Click the 2nd and 3rd image to enlarge.

These were done in the Week 5 Seminar. Explanation below each image.

This is some rough sketch based on Kyle’s idea for building a virtual environment from the tangible lego block interface. By using cameras placed at appropriate angles and then using an algorithm to generate the 3d space. Reilly and I discussed this with Jane, as there are MANY possibilities here. Kyle’s was to create an environment that could possibly be dropped into UT for a player to explore.

Reilly and I had similar game design ideas, mostly inspired by the upcoming PS3 game LittleBigPlanet. We could use the lego blocks to design a 2d environment that players are dropped into providing a platforming experience. Or perhaps even a car racing game where the player tests the physics with ramps created…and then having to go back and alter their lego construction so that the player can launch their car at the correct angle to land on another piece of terrain.

After further discussion with Jane we decided to try think of other ways to use Lego, we were feeling inspired by the Case Study my team presented today, the reacTable.

As Kyle’s idea mentioned, the camera would read the colour of lego blocks and then apply certain texture in the Virtual Environment. We took this idea, but wanted to change the output, as Reilly has outlined in his post below. The drawings above represent our ideas that he has written about. The Lego would be looked at from a top down view for the sound tracking (like a non-linear AV editing system), and the side view would replicate the amplitude (volume) of the audio, as per the regular sound wave images we are used to seeing.

The tracking camera may also read the values of samples placed above (looking down onto the lego board) as higher pitched than those below. There are a lot of interface design issues, and many, MANY possibilities with this system.

The main issues that could appear would be if there are valleys in the middle of the ‘construction’. The camera can not read these from the sides if obscured by other blocks, and getting a reading from the top would be hard too. A setup involving IR technology *might* work, but I’m not sure on the small distances an IR camera system can distinguish between.

Anyway, Reilly and myself really like this idea, after running it by peers and Jane they agreed it was pretty cool, and I’m thinking it would be great as a final project, but possibly hard to pull off technically…

I was lying in bed but couldn’t sleep because I just kept thinking of new ideas. I had to get up and map this one out.

After speaking to Tim (a peer) about the idea and music feasability of it, he brought up that it could be tricky depending on the samples used because of how discrete the length of the blocks are. To ‘fix’ this, I say we just base it on a loose timing system. This isn’t going to be like Fruity Loops with 16beats per second and a million samples to fill in the looping gaps.

This idea was inspired by the ReacTable in a way. I was thinking this whole system would be a great idea for kids to experiment with, so wanted to built something extra to give the idea more depth by the ability to add and change samples on the fly. As above, there would be a touch screen with a list of samples on the left, touch a sample to play it (they should all be less than 2 seconds in my opinion). Now, to link a sample to a block, touch the marker on the edge of the sample, and drag your finger along to the corresponding coloured block (perhaps it is just a 3d model of a block). A link is created and any blocks that are now read by the camera with this sample, will output this sound. So a user can quickly change the entire sound of their constructed model.

To unlink the sound with the coloured piece, simply move your finger across the ‘virtual wire’ joining the sample to the block, and the connection is ‘cut’.

I think this could be done with a Flash interface, rear projected onto a surface, and using an IR marker as the ‘touch sensor’ to read the movement, similar to how GraffitiLuv 2 was done.

I would like to do up something like this a bit better in Flash to communicate what I mean, but I haven’t used Flash in a long while and its best not to get caught up in this. What do you think of that as an addition though? And my other ideas?

Assignment2: Nice Idea but I have something better.

I like the idea of using lego, I still have mine in a box downstairs. Using the colours of the bricks with video input sounds like a good idea, but Mike and i were discussing the idea in the tute on monday but it seemed to lack a bit in regards to purpose. We discussed perhaps using it for game level development, or basic architecture prototyping. Disucussing it with Jane even this seemed a bit lacking.

So after thinking about what else the colour of the bricks could represent I came up with the idea as audio tracks in a song mix. And upon further discussion with mike we did some scetches and found that the music could be read along the length of a lego board, with red representing bass, blue drums etc.. And that height could represent volume of that track, we could also use a block at the top to control the length/speed of the piece.

Then after discussing the idea with Tim, who has some musical background, he brought the concern of having the lego bricks being very discrete and sound samples often aren’t, depending how they were recorded and their playback. This could be managed by controling the length of samples and the division of time covered by a leg block. An alternative way around this would also be by making it perform more like guitar hero, in that each block colour may represent a single chord on the guitar or drum type. C, D, E… or Symbol, Snare, High Hat, Tom… each of these represented by red, blue, yellow…

As well as the sketches that mike drew, I also quickly did up this mockup in maya. This is more likely showing the colours representing audio tracks such as a looping bass, drum, guitar tracks instead of individual chords. The top grey strip and block show how the length/speed of the board is controled. If it is placed at the end it may cause the piece to be played over 4mins while half way may speed it up and play it in 2mins.

Idea 2, 3, etc

Ill add them after i finish conceptalizing them and get some more hash cookies. I know where i want these ideas to kinda go tho, with the motion in the ocean.

Idea 1

Ok my groupies, group members i mean, this is idea number 1 UNO!

Ok basically the deal with this concept was an extension of my soundscape construction idea from last year which everyone loved so much. Rather than articulate sounds using the almighty creative power of LEGO (all rights reserved) the idea is redesigned for video applications. Essentially the deal is this: you build a little lego city on the plane provided. The plane has cameras placed at appropriate angles, after your finished they all take pictures.

 The pictures are then thrown together using top, side and front views to make a 3d version. This 3d version would be exported into some application like unreal so the user could then explore their LEGO city in real time! but we aint finished yet. their would also be colour recognition so you can texture it using the LEGO too! red blocks might texture to brick, blue to steel etc etc. little stamps that software is able to detect could be used for misc items like doors and shit. i got a diagram in my graphics book ill upload when i get some time. but yeh, thats basically idea 1 in a nutshell. Thoughts, comments, Reilly go fuck yourself.

Week 5 Seminar

This was a pretty good seminar, briefly discussing a bit about last week’s results, and looking at our marks. We went okay I guess. Reilly and I then spent most the time discussing ideas for next weeks presentation. We had a few, and one we like quite a bit. Going to be posting these up and some of the storyboards we did very soon. We also got some critique by Jane and a few peers, and also critiqued some other groups ideas.

1st presentation review.

I think it went pretty well, I stumbled on parts but I think the idea was liked. Michael and Jane wanted more development of the physical bottle idea, such as, while the bottle is filling up, there is a sort of visual indication. They also suggested different ways for it to be played in a social context, and possibility of the player keeping the bottle. They had some decent ideas, but I think for the next part of assignment one we’re going to go in another direction..

some rough research notes…needs trimming

this to go in the influences section of assignment page. needs some trimming.

We had a couple of ideas previous to this involving ambient media, and also another idea which was more like a videogame, but we obviously wanted to expand the idea into something that could reach out to more people, and perhaps have a community involvement as an alternate reality game. We had a look for similar themed projects and investigated these. The most obvious and well developed idea out there at the moment is that of Geocaching.

Geocaching is basically a hobby whereupon players hide and seek for treasure in the real world, led by either a handheld GPS and data and clues provided by the main community website. It is like a childrens scavenger hunt, and locations can be downloaded from the website to a GPS or the user can print out an image from the location on Google Maps and spend time looking around the area. The treasure is usually being a waterproof container that may have a log book of players who have found the object, and sometimes an item which is swapped out and then reported back on the central community site.

We really liked this idea, but would want to extend on it by including the use of an audio input and output, so that players can create a story for themselves. Our short video serves as a basic way to visualise it [because of time and equipment restraints it is fairly basic]. The concept of the game is empowered by the participants enjoyment by the ludic form of exploration and creation. Communication is another aspect, in the way that players are interacting with people in a delayed fashion, within a society obsessed with instant communication.

Something that is amusing in this type of anonymous communication is the ‘Message in a bottle’ idea. It exists as this romantic and almost magical idea that we can write to someone our story and throw it away, perhaps for someone to find at another time and place. People have obviously taken advantage of this idea, as there are companies that exist solely selling prepackaged love notes in bottles, direct to your door! There is even a web site that has a list of countries around the world where you can write a message, select a type of bottle, and someone will go and throw it in the ocean for you.

Ass 1 Brainstorming

After discussing several ideas, including ‘The Vacant’ one by me, and the ‘environment generated by voice input’ one by Reilly we decided to go with this new one..

Our concept is to create an game using sound as input which can form or create a story through multiple participants’ interaction with a device.
Which device? Message in a bottle…

Basic concept:

Disseminate contextual location based information in a delayed fashion within a society obsessed with instant communication.

We then set about by doing a bit of research into similar things out there, the most obvious and influential idea was that of geocaching. We then created a short video to show how interaction might work.

Team roles to work on for the presentation. These are not strict.

Concept/Contextual analysis – Kyle
How it would work (Mechanics), Feasability – Reilly
Video production, research of related works and influences – Mike

Criteria..
2. Design Solution:
a. The solution – prototype demonstrates evidence of background research eg inspirations are cited
b. The solution demonstrates potential workability
c. The solution is visualised as a holistic entity
d. The solution demonstrated flair and innovation
3. Technical design – research:
a. The solution – prototype connects to the design
b. The solution functions are clear
c. The solution functions are robust
d. The solution functions are elegant

Decent idea…BUT!

I think its not too horrible an idea but maybe the interaction is a little shallow. I dunno, maybe its just me but it seems like a painful way to control a game. Also i think the goals of the game would be a bit shallow because the highest peaks would be made by the loudest possible sounds and there is no real way to make a negative landscape (ie a valley). Might need to refine this a bit, see if mike has any ideas.

Perhaps…

I had this epiphany that we could use sound inputs for interactions in a game environment but without using the standard concept of sounds controlling the character interaction. Rather the sound inputs would control the design of the level. The level would mutate according the levels of sound. This would be done by peaks of sounds forming high terrain and periods of no sound forming flat lower level terrain. The game aspect would a 2d side scrolling racer somewhat like Excitebike or California Games both of which are awesome NES games. Thoughts?

brainstorming…The Vacant

Going off the ‘ambient media’ focus of tangible media, I was thinking of a sort of installation. The interaction would be fairly basic, and the participant may even take a while to realise they are doing something to alter the space..I like the little phrase of “If a tree fell and know one was around to hear it…“

Basically the installation would consist of auditory output (I guess it could be extended for video output too) and motion sensors *need to finish writing this up*

lectures and readings so far

So far the lectures haven’t made me fall asleep, we’ve been given a bit of info on past projects, and delving deeper into the meanings of tangible media etc. Here are some quick notes from the readings and seminars.

Dourish – I found this one quite hard to read, and after having a year off from both uni and the CIF I instantly felt back there. I really don’t like long winded theoretical crap, but I guess if I can get one or two things from it, it’s helpful. I didn’t write too many notes down, but during the seminar we talked about the definition of Phenomenology. It is pretty convoluted stuff as it has a few meanings, but is basically about the study of ‘understanding the world and people’s interactions within it’. That could sound pretty vague, and I guess it is, but yeah..something to think about.

Ishii, Ullmer etc. - This was pretty interesting, since this Ishii guy is sort of the ‘founder’ of the tangible media world and works at MIT. Over the past 6 months I had been looking at some of the projects on the MIT Tangible Media site (they were the first results on google naturally) and found some of the projects interesting. Anyway, the main points I wrote down were..

3 key concepts of tangible bits

• Interactive Surfaces – (metaDesk), this is becoming more popular in the world as consumer products rollout touch input due to cheaper component manufacturing prices. NintendoDS, iPhone etc. It really depends on the implementation and for what product for the success of this input though. The NDS system has done very well for Nintendo, as they have found a casual market for (non) gaming.
  And the iPhone, well, it will sell to the Apple zealots, but most product reviews have rated it average to poor with poor usability and lack of standard features that even cheaper phones have.
  I like Microsofts’ Surface video, although I think it will be another 10 years before this thing is commonplace (if it begins to take off), I like the retail shopping part of it..we will see.
• Graspable physical objects – (transBoard), I wouldn’t see stuff like this coming into the consumer market as it seems over the top, but I guess it all depends on implementation and subtleness. I am probably too limited in my thinking to actual consumer communications devices.
• Ambient media – (ambientRoom), Interesting stuff to read. I am also currently reading a book on theory of fun for game design which talks about the way the brain processes and ‘groks’ what we do into chunks that help us live mostly on autopilot. It’s quite a bit of stuff I haven’t really thought about before, like how we process ambient media as we walk through a city or just sit at home..

The article talked about how we transitioned from mechanical to electronic devices and since the PC was born, we have lived with this generic Mouse/KB input interface. I don’t see that changing, unless computers can do NLP, but even then, it wouldn’t be as accurate as we want for stuff like 3d modelling and software development (at least I hope they don’t become THAT aware, because THEN we will have problems ).

Something that I did think about reading all this stuff was the rollout of the newish QR ticketing system. Obviously the project has been doomed as the ticketing touch screen machines had been sitting at stations for over a year. When I had been told that some of them were active, I went to use one, and it was absolutely fucking terrible in both design, interface and functionality. I may go into more detail on that in a later post if need be. But for now, I’ll leave it at that.

Hello All!

As I have said in the ‘About’ page this is setup so that a few of us 5th [and final, after part time work etc] year IF90ers can post ideas/thoughts/crap related to the final semester subject of Tangible Media.

Why use wordpress rather than create a site? Because it is quick and easy to both post and edit content with multiple people. This semester is going to be busy enough as it is! Another reason is that I prefer the database be hosted somewhere else other than QUT as I was not aware of when they last deleted all my previous project blogs.

Yay for uni!