Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Research & Fact findings

“Visuals are things we can see. They consist of elements, such as line, shape, space, volume, color and texture. These elements are organized using the ‘principles’ of design. Design principles are concepts and ideas that use the elements of design to create visuals” (Alan Hashimoto, 2003)
Visual elements are components that can be isolated and defined in any visual design or work of art. These elements are point, line, movement, color, pattern, texture, form, shape and space. These elements are important as they are the structure of the work, as they carry a wide range of messages. (Charlotte Jirousek, 1995)
Sound is created by vibration. Sound can pass through many different substances, in fact, it requires the presence of a medium. Sound cannot travel in vacuum. Air is the most common medium within which we perceive sound. Various movements around us cause vibrations in air molecules, which results in sounds being produced through waves.



Introduction:

Visual elements are essential to give better understanding of the music that been played and it can be influence by the music along with the rhythm and beats. Basically the visual is transmitted by a device that encode accordingly to sync with the music. The visual also is use to portray a certain sound into a visual form. This relation between the visual and the music has produced exciting results. Visual basically can be produce using basic elements by using the pitch control, volume and the beat of sound.

Music that been compose through digital although the basic instrument to create the music is produce by conventional instrument such as guitar, drums, trumpet and others. Some of the producer like to produce this kind of music straightly through digital by using keyboard, electric drums or even digital sampler that available. Most of the music is being performed in club, private party of special occasion so this is where the integration of visual elements is used to create excitement and bring the audiences to the next level.


Project Development

This is some of the project development process that I've done for the meantime and i will include more as this project goes on. Some of the sketches, diagram and creative development for this project has already been compile in hard copy in previous semester, so I will update the previous development later on.

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Actually this is the previous semester layout of the space that i'm gonna used. It consist of control console and projector. The projector will projected on the wall.



idea 2
This is the second ideation of the space where the projection will be from the top of the surface and it will combine the button with the console.



idea 3
After taking a short nap, I was thinking is it possible to project from the bottom of the console.



console
So this is the top view of the console where there will be 6 button on top of the console and one foot button at the bottom of the console.



the table
Some technical remarks that I made for future references and figure on the look and placement of the hardware.



the lights
This would be optional but I would like to have it as it will be setting up the mood for the user.



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This is the floor plan layout of the installation.


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This is some preview of the application for this installation. It is a Flash based application.











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The installation will be in dark space so I design my layout to have a nice neon glow effects. The used of bright color to make sure the gameplay would be clear and entertain and I hope I will get a good projector for this.

screen01
First screen of the installation. This is not final yet but this is how the look and feel of the application. I still working on some details and i will update the final screen shots of the application within this week. All the screen shots here are still under progress there are some details that I still want to improve within this couple weeks time.


screen02
This is the second screen shots of the application and this is where the user will pick the song they want to play. There are 3 type of difficulty easy, medium and hard. There are 3 songs to be used in this application. The first would be You Are My Diamond by DJ Tiesto, second song would be Invisible Touch by Dj Ferry Corsten and the final song is Lonely Girl from Above&Beyond. The girl dancing on the side of the menu would be looping within just to pages in the first page and the menu page.


screen03
This is the application content or the play where user will play and press the button on the console. In this page it will have the title of the songs played, life, score meter, guide note, star animation when click and finally the remarks on each press for example good, bad, excellent and so on. Only the blue button will be tap by foot other button will be tap by hand.


screen04
Each user will received point and remarks within each tap. If user missed or tap too early the meter will rise, the meter will only cool down if user get back to the right beat. User will hear some noise distortion of the songs and a red screen if they missed or press the button to early like the screen shots above. If the meter is full is gonna go on to the final score screen.


screen05
In this page it will provide some of the details of user game score such as total score, missed, combo, bad, excellent, good and perfect score. After the score if user decide to play again then they can play again if there's no user reaction in the application within 45sec the application will go back to the first page.


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This is some color code and typeface use within this application.

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There will be more coming after this!!! Sooooooooooo STAY TUNED!!!

References

This is some previous sample of references for this project but I will update the latest references from time to time.

tap1


tap2


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Some of books references:

Rudolf, A (1954) Art and visual perception, a psychology of the creative eye
Steven, F (1990) Sound and sentiment
Charllote, J (1995) Introduction to the elements of design
Maura, M (2002) Colour and sound: visual music
Enrique, F (2004) Audiovisual system for realtime performance and composition
Hugo, S (2004) Improvisatory music and painting interface
Ernest, E (2004) Audio Visual Interfaces in digital art
Martin, W (2004) The shape of song
Tristan, J (2005) Creating music by listening
Michael, C (2006) Visual Music

Monday, November 09, 2009

Sunday, November 08, 2009

The Installation

The installation consist of two parts, one is the application(software) that i develop using flash cs4(AS3) and the second part would be the console for user to control the application that consist 7 button. Each button will trigger the smoothness of the songs choose, if the user miss the button a distortion of sound will be trigger.

The application will stored some basic game type like total score, combo, hit, bad hit and some other stuff. If user hit the combo amount that been set in the application automatically audience cheering sound will be trigger. I'm probably looking for the possibility to store user name and high score using local storage.

The console will be hacked using normal keyboard and will be attach to button like a normal arcade console button. The button will be label by several color. The console will be attach to a laptop that attach to speaker. I also wanted to put some lighting that follows beat and create a more exciting mood.

The environment for the setup should used some dark. The lights that follow the beat will bring up the light within the space and there will be some light shooting under the console that highlights the button that user will be used.

Technical:
- the console will be 3meter from the projected wall
- the high of the console is about 1.2meter
- button size would be around 10cm diameter
- the middle button will be the paddle at the bottom of the console


The flow:





Structure view:

General brief

This is some of the general brief of this project but I will update from time to time as well as the progress of the project.


Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Ideation

TITLE : Music and visual
CASE STUDY : Music and visual
FOCUS : The combination of music to produce visual and how they can be complimented to
produce the output.

AREA:
Sound can be complimented by visual elements in such a ways to produce result. These visual elements are able to express sounds by structuring different kinds of elements together to produce and portray a certain sound. Visual elements and sounds can be incorporated together and are used in various ways, such as animation films where sound being the big part to create mood while sync with visuals on screen. Visual artist can also create visuals based on sounds they receive from any kind of sounds, whether it is a fully composed music or raw sound from vibrations.

IDEA & CONCEPT:
Create a interactive application that can provide entertainment for user. It is similar like "Guitar Hero Games". The purpose of this installation for entertainment purpose only.


Modifications and updates.

There are some changes that will occur in the application as I'm still doing some R&D and some testing on the application but most of the changes doesn't effects the old idea. It's still related to music and visuals.

The idea is to combine key note with sound something similar as the famous game "Guitar Hero". They will be 3 or more songs to be choose by the user. As for future I was thinking to include user name and try to store score of each user.


This are some of the screen shots of the development of the application...

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Flash development


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Mark and score systems


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Programming side including some library,module and external script and component.