More findings, courtesy of Jack Merrell, of personifying inanimate objects.
Talking Tree, keeps an eye on temperature, air pollutant levels, takes videos, tweets, tracks windspeeds, has facebook friends, records ambient soundtracks of the day, uploads videos and photos.. pretty much covers all bases.
Learn more: http://www.talking-tree.com/
From the first stages of wanting to do a narrative animated performance with interactive elements to where I am now, I’m glad I explored Touchdesigner enough to not completely loose my initial concepts but build and incorporate more interactive elements. I’m also happy I stuck with both projects and produced the two alongside each other because I learnt a lot bouncing back and forth between the two. For example, a solution I solve in one project influences what I could and how I could do something else with the other project.
I found it also very useful to talk to different classmates both about my own work and their work to try and share solutions or techniques. The more everyone helped each other, the faster things started to grow and progress. The marriage between the two courses helped significantly as each course had their own strengths and pools of knowledge to share.
After sifting through all my screengrabs and putting together my videos, I can say that I have learnt a lot whilst undertaking this project. I found that when left to my own devices, after a few tutorials and class demonstrations of course, I started being able to explore through the rainbow of nodes and understand how they worked together and how I could use them.
At first, I have to admit that Touchdesigner and Abelton both felt quite daunting but after the initial few meetings and frustrations, the two proved useful, flexible and intriguing. I feel comfortable in both programs now and I really would like to continue pursuing them both because I feel I’ve only really scratched the surface of their potential.
Product 2: Final Performance and Explanation Video
Product 1: Final Performance and Explanation Video
PRODUCT 1: Fiction Emulating A Reality
Installation Piece
Marrying geometry and particle systems, the three sections are imagined to exist in a dark black room projected on three different walls. As the audience enters the room, the various components react to their the movement and actions.
1. The ambient track drives the manipulation of certain sections and shapes.
2. Movement triggers a sound which then in turn triggers ‘fiction’ and ‘a reality’ to appear as well as swap upon second trigger.
3. Movement upon an alternative camera causes the ambient track to skew noticeably without overwhelming the track itself, it also pans left to right.
4. Clap triggers are installed within the particle system where it is seen that particles pulse in certain directions when activated.
PRODUCT 2: Fiction Eyes A Reality
Installation Product
Equipped with boots, legs and a hat, Eyessac tracks human traffic going past. Trying to emulate as many humanistic qualities as possible, it aims to replicate the human eye whilst maintaining a completely peculiar nature.
1. Eyessac loves to watch as people pass by. He keeps his eye on anyone strolling by.
2. He blinks. Automated blinking to mimic the human eye’s natural inability to not stop blinking
3. Eyessac has a bedtime. Installed within the eye is a clock and as the hours tick by, Eyessac’s eyelids begin to gradually close until completely shut.
4. Clap activation to change the colour of Eyessac’s eyes depending on user preference. Four colours installed: grey, green, blue and brown.
All the components I found/learnt/built for my final projects. Thank you to Richard, Faith, Dave Barlow and Helen for the advice, suggestions and shared tips.
1. STONER
Used for projection mapping and skewing projections to fit shapes. Probably most useful for obscure shapes but very easy to use and helped get the Eyessac fitting nicer on his surface.
2. SCREENGRAB
Useful for making movies of what is happening on screen. Create a movie from the ScreenGrab CHOP and you can film what you are doing in real-time.
3. MOVEMENT TRIGGER - SOUND
By linking the movement sensed in the webcam, I found a way to trigger an audio sound with this sensor. In turn this audio track, when activated, went on to activate things such as text and line movements.
4. CLAP ACTIVATIONS
Using an audioin CHOP to pick up signals from a microphone and limiting it to the frequency of a clap, I was able to use a clap to activate certain functions. I ended up using this for the eyeball colour change and the manipulation of particles.
5. AUTO-BLINK AND SLEEP FUNCTION
Stimulating a interval to repeat from 0 – 1, I was able to open and close the eyelids to stimulate a blink. I then placed another eyelid over the top which would close gradually over time connected to a Clock CHOP.
6. MOVEMENT TRIGGER - AUDIO EFFECT
By using the webcam, I was able to create a movement activated audio filter, with the similar effect to a Flanger. By connecting the webcam to alter audio frequencies in the Oscillator CHOP, I was able to get my hand to manipulate the sound of my ambient track.
Just a little still from my project. Three circles, each characterised differently using various SOPs with various clapping, music and movement activated components.
Final Version of ambience without triggered sound effects. All recorded with live instruments, namely on the MIDI Keyboard, with a Flanger softly clicking by.
Clap TRIGGER activates a set of four alternating colours for the iris. It randomly selects one in accordance to how loud, and usually how hollow sounding, the clap is.
Using the book to track the eyeball from left to right. Currently all ready to go with the tracking, seems to be tracking well but of course, only in the correct lighting.
After inserting a very dodgy & simple ‘blink’, simply switching from the centre of the eye to a drawn on grey line - & full credits to Richard Burns - I used a Carve CHOP to wrap on a top and bottom eyelid & thankyou to Dave Barlow for helping me with my multiple geometry colouring.
Using this eyelid, I’ve set it to blink at a particular interval as well as getting the EYE to close slowly over time through the CLOCK Chop so it now has a bedtime.
