by Himanshu Vartak | Feb 20, 2014 | Newsletter
This was quarters week. While we were still moving towards overall progress, most of our efforts were directed towards the quarters at the end of the week. Having the quarters at the end of the week helped us in a way such that we could actually work towards our progress which would also be what we would show at quarters. We were primarily focussing on creating a working prototype which we could exhibit at quarters. This week we got hold of some of the equipment we required to begin our work. We received the first sound to MIDI converter and tested it to see if it really works. Victor began by making a simple prototype where he could identify every single that could be played. We had some faculty and students have fun with this prototype; Jesse Schell even played his harmonica and the system could recognise each single note. The art team worked on creating a storyboard for our narrative. Nayoung picked out some reference images for the same and built a narrative that matched the four movements. We had a detailed discussion about the flow of the narrative and how each movement represents a portion of the great cycle of life and death. With this in place, our artist began working on concept art for the stage setup and how our visuals would look on screen. We also managed to have our client, Dr. Thomas come down to the ETC and see the progress that we’ve been making. She was very appreciative of the visuals and the idea of having a narrative through the four pieces and...
by Himanshu Vartak | Feb 10, 2014 | Newsletter
The penultimate week before quarters, this week we concentrated on giving our deliverable direction. To this end, we identified what equipment we would be requiring to successfully input analog sound and convert it to MIDI signals. We debated for a while if we actually needed to get MIDI signals or if we could do with pulling pitch and amplitude of the music being played. Internally in the team we decided that converting sound to MIDI signals would give us more freedom to play with the music, as then we would be able to identify each note. Once again, we got in touch with Dave Purta who helped us in identifying portable equipment that could convert analog sound to MIDI signals. We also contacted Prof. Riccardo Schulz at the School of Music to get his recommendations and opinions about the equipment we should use. Monday was a busy day. We started the week by shooting for our team photo. It was an enjoyable experience, as we got to play around and pose in the green screen room. On the same day, we had a branding critique, where we got feedback on the posters and half-sheet designs that Nayoung had made. They were much appreciated with only minor feedback about text. We also attended a playtesting workshop hosted by Jessica Hammer, where we learnt many valuable tips and tricks on how to conduct a workshop. Seeing how playtesting would be a great guide for us in the coming weeks, this session was very informative. Christina made MIDI mock-ups for all the four movements, with quick turnaround. She also started work on analysing...
by Himanshu Vartak | Feb 10, 2014 | Newsletter
This week has been in a bit of a flux for the team. We, as a team, are still trying to figure out exactly what we are going to create as our deliverable. We’re still in the blue sky phase, but our technical research is ongoing. We got hold of our decorations for the room and began decorating our room with posters and lights. This will be an ongoing process for us as we will continue to add more artwork as we create art for the project. After analysing Dr. Thomas’ last email, we as a team, had a few internal questions about we wanted to achieve. Having decided right from the start that we wanted to create something more than just a graphic visualizer, we asked ourselves how we can make the experience more than just that. We researched about different technologies such as Myo gesture control, a band that can be worn on the hands and read your muscle movements, and considered using the Makey Makey. We were thinking about making the experience more than just about listening to music, but make it about the experience of creating music. We thought it would be interesting to pull data from the musicians themselves, such as their heart rate, or muscle movements and incorporate that into the visual experience. We presented a more concentrated approach to the deliverable to Dr. Thomas. We introduced these ideas to her and presented her an ‘ecosystem’ idea, where different cellular creatures represented each instrument. Dr. Thomas was very enthused about this sort of setting, giving us freedom to use any sort of technology...
by Himanshu Vartak | Feb 10, 2014 | Newsletter
We resumed the second week carrying forward the momentum from out first week. Having worked over the weekend on the various ideas we would present Dr. Thomas, we first presented these ideas to our advisors, John and Shirley to get their feedback about them. They advised us not to restrict our scope and present as many diverse ideas as possible. We also met with Jesse Schell, who mentioned that one of the basic hurdles to cross is to convince the audience that whatever visuals they are watching are being created at real-time and are not pre-rendered. He also advised us to keep whatever we do simple, yet innovative and interesting. On Tuesday, January 21, we presented our client with our multitude of ideas via Skype. While Dr. Thomas was overwhelmed with our entire repertoire of ideas, she expressed interest and enthusiasm in pursuing most of the ideas. One of the ideas that she wasn’t very enthusiastic about was about having the musicians moving about, driving a live camera feed. On Wednesday, we got to see our first basic visual prototype, courtesy Victor. We could see our vocals or a piece of music driving a 3D cloth model in real-time. This proved that our basic goal to convert sound into electronic signals was achievable and that we could go further ahead from here. We also had a branding review, where our artist Nayoung exhibited some of her concepts and we collectively gave her some constructive feedback. We also received an interesting email from our client, Dr. Thomas, wherein she further expanded her reaction to our ideas and gave us some...
by Himanshu Vartak | Feb 6, 2014 | Newsletter
A new team, a new semester, a new project. Same old striving for excellence. We began by getting the obvious out of the way; who are we and what are we good at? Having put up our skill sets, we settled on roles for the project. They are: Christina: Music Producer Nayoung: Lead Artist Victor: Tech Artist Wei: Programmer Michael: Programmer Himanshu: Producer/Programmer We then took care of housekeeping and formalizing our schedules around our electives and such. We had a small informal meeting with our advisors as to what was expected of us and what the deliverable was supposed to be. We deemed it best to get this answer from the horse’s mouth and decided to set up a client meeting as soon as possible. We took some time out to come up with our team name. We played around with various portmanteaus of music and light terms such as ‘Treble Makers’, ‘ See Sharp’, ‘Mathemusique’, ‘Euphonia’ and one of our most ambitious names – ‘Ambient Tessellation’! We eventually decided on something much simpler and something we hope will have quicker recall value, while also describing what we’re doing – ‘Graphic Tone’. On Wednesday, we met our client, Dr. Marilyn Taft Thomas of the CMU School of Music. We had a very productive meeting with her, getting to know better what her objective was with this project. We had a few questions of our own, which were answered and gave us a clearer idea of our deliverable. Dr. Thomas was very open to suggestions and expressed great enthusiasm for the work ahead. With this new knowledge, we spent...
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