GMU:Space Is The Place/projects: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 23:02, 13 January 2010

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→‎Stefan Bernhardt and Christoph Schreiber

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 ==[[Stefan Bernhardt]] and [[Christoph Schreiber]]==
-===Creating a self-playing instrument===
+===The Idea.===
-We want to create a self-playing instrument that uses a map of stars for creating soundscapes. The user should be able to change the snippet of the map, draw and edit zodiac signs and start and stop sounds.
+[[Image:Seite1.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The Spaceship]]
+Imagine the universe's infinite emptiness, a place where absolute silence rules. We want to fill this space symbolical and to give the innumerably stars a special sound.
+In interaction between the user with the stars and the stars among themselves, there will be different sounds create. They will picture a musically portrait of the universe.
-When a star is clicked, it makes a noise and a shockwave comes up. It evolves through the space and activates other stars and items on its way which also make sounds and send new shockwaves. So the application doesn't need any user input to go on but the user can take influence on the continuity.
+===The Concept.===
+[[Image:Seite2.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Shockwaves]]
+The user flies with a starship through the space. He is able to interact with the Star by activate them via shooting.
+An activated star makes noise and a shockwave arises. It evolves through the space and activates other stars and items on its way which also make sounds and send new shockwaves. An chain reaction starts and an uniquely world of noises is created.
+If a zodiac sign gets activated all linked stars will start making tones at the same time.
-If a zodiac sign gets activated all linked stars will start making tones at the same time.
+===Constellations and Orbs.===
+[[Image:Seite3.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Signs (Ursa Major)]]
+Some stars are interlinked to signs. From time to time new signs will uprise and old ones will disappear. If one star in a sign is activated by a shockwave, the other stars in the sign will also activate.
+Now and again different orbs like comets or planets will appear. If a shockwave hits  such an orb, a new sound, which is very different, will be created.
-====Two methods: Samples or MIDI====
+===The editorially Arrangement.===
-At the moment there are two techniques for realizing this idea:
+The tone color and the volume of the created sound are swayed by the size of stars. A large start creates a deeply and loudly tone. Which sound you will hear is random.
-# We render samples of the instruments and embed them in our application. It's easier to develop but very limited in functionality. The application could be distributed via web because no special hard- or software is needed.
+===Life and Death.===
-# We send MIDI events to an external software synthesizer which will create the sounds. This requires a powerful machine and much research but is more powerful in the aspect of flexibility and creativity. The application needs some additional software to be running in the background so it won't be capable to be distributed as out-of-the-box experience.
+[[Image:Seite5.jpg|right|thumb|250px| Planets, Black Holes,…]]
+The shockwave which is send out by a star has a finitely lifetime. With growing size it becomes weaker. How large an shockwave can be is addicted to the size of a star.
-====Have some fun with Flash and MIDI====
+===The realization.===
-[[Image:StarSynth-MIDI-GUI.gif|right|thumb|250px|MIDI-GUI]]
+The interface for our project is build with Flash. All sounds will be integrated into the Flash-file, so the "instrument" is very portable and easy to handle. The application could be distributed via web because no special hard- or software is needed.
-Finally we finished our research in sending MIDI signals from Flash to other apps. To do so, we developed a little proxy app which sends MIDI signals. At first, Flash sends commands via a networking interface to the proxy app which acts as a server. Afterwards, the proxy app converts this data to MIDI signals which will be passes to a virtual MIDI interface. This interface is connected to our synthesizer. This allows us to control any MIDI-enabled app just as good as you would do it with controller hardware.
-For testing purposes we coded a little framework which consists of some small classes and some GUI elements like buttons, sliders and a two-axis-panning field.
-=====Current problems=====
-# The whole synthesizer stuff is very very CPU intensive. So we have to optimize it or use a better machine (which is also difficult because of the software licenses).
-# Sometimes there are big latencies when transfering the controller data from Flash to the synthesizer. Maybe it is also related to the CPU usage of the softsynths. We have to investigate this issue.
-=====New possibility=====
-# Because of the networking interface, it is also possible to use multiple computers to control the synths. So the interface can be run through another machine which is also better for performance reasons.
 [http://news.discovery.com/space/particles-make-beautiful-music.html]