Tyler-Egeto-Design-Flash-Experiment-Blog

This is just a little update, but a solution to a huge problem. After my initial experiment with Ape, I went to hook it up to my sound visualizer, but I immediately got stuck on an problem. In its current form Ape can only create two kinds of objects, circles and rectangles. So how could I hook up a Papervision3D object to it? The answer is, you can’t. But I found a small work around to solve the issue. Instead of hooking other objects up to it directly, I created a circle and then just use its position to tell the other object where it should be. Sort of like fallow the leader.

Anyways, it is simple enough to make the original circle invisible, then all we see is the new shape. I will see what I can do in terms of paper vision next.

See the small update here.

Tarot is a motion piece currently in production by myself and the talented Sara Cheung. This image is a picture of a few of the assets we have put together so far. The scope of this project is quite large, but we are well into production and should have no major problems hitting the dead line. Stay tuned for some more early looks of this project as we get closer to completion.

I have been experimenting with the new and still in development, not to mention very interesting, technology called Ape Physics. I am still very early into the process of figuring out what exactly I can do, and what I can’t, but I thought I would post a small example of what exactly it can do. Basically it gives me the ability to add physics to my programs with out doing all the grunt work, which is a mathematics nightmare.

So this is really just a tiny demonstration, but I wanted to share with you what I have being doing. So what do I do with this next? Well, I will be attempting to hook it up to my sound visualizer application, so that multiple spheres are pushed out from the center based on the audio information, and the physics will try to pull it back in. If all goes well with that, I will then attempt to push it further by putting that into 3D space with the Papervision3D technology I have been work with lately as well.

Stay tuned!

See Ape Physics Here

I have been working on a title sequence for a short movie called Mortecai. The film is a mockdocumentry about a vampire who wants to be a Hollywood star, but unfortunately, can not be seen on camera. The film is a final project directed by a student in the VFS Film program.

Besides the basic goals of any title sequence, things like capturing the feel of the movie, I had a few specific things I wanted to do with this piece. As a designer who works a lot of the time on the computer, I have been feeling the desire to step away from it on some of my projects, and really start pulling in some more traditional elements, much like I see in the work of my some favorite designers from the past. After watching a rough edit of this movie, and talking with the director, I immediately knew what direction I wanted to take this project, and I felt it would really compliment the style of the film. After pitching the concept to the director, and him liking what I was describing, I sat down and really explored and experimented with this piece.

It was interesting to look around me at others working on different films. I could see them on their computer’s working with the typical digital tools, mean while I had a pair of scissors in my hand.

The final titles is three still images, with a little camera movement over top of them, and the look of them being projected through an old film projector. It’s just a short sequence, clocking in at just 12 seconds, but the director was really happy with the final result, accomplishing exactly what he was looking for.

You can see the short video right here.

Here is another update, this one adds more interaction for the user, creating an stronger and more engaging experience. I have added camera movement to the visualizer. This is controlled by the users mouse, so you can rotate around the visualizer and see it from different angles. Check it out.

Check out the new visualizer here!

Today was a good step in the development of this project. I had papervision3D working successfully with the sound effectors previous to today, but I have now worked out the major bugs and can really begin focusing on pushing it further and adding some of the features. It is definitely not the final version, but something I am proud to show as another step in this process.

For those unfamiliar with Papervision3D, it is a new technology that allows us to place 3D objects from another program into flash. This really opens up a lot of opportunities for us to create new kinds of user experiences. By combining this technology with the new ActionScript 3 (a programming language) we can really start to do some crazy things.

In the last post I did mention that the audio was less than good for displaying the true dynamics of this app, and unfortunatly that has not changed. However, I am working on fixing it, hopefully before long.

Check out the new visualizer here!

Based on the results of my first Flash Sound Visualizer, I have been experimenting on how I could break that data up into groups, and apply it to larger objects. This was an interesting process, involving more math than I like to do, but in the end I am quite happy with the results. In today’s example I am demonstrating exactly that. Instead of drawing 512 individual lines on screen, I am now simply manipulating the vertical position of of pre-designed objects. These objects, (squares in this example), can be anything from a photograph to letters in a word. That is extremely powerful, and a must for where I hope to take this project.

To do this I broke the 256 values for each channel down further, dividing it by the number of squares per channel, and then averaged those values out before applying them. As a result the movement of the squares is equal the the averaged total movement of the space they represent. (like I said, more math that I enjoy)

Unfortunately I am still using the same sound from my first visualizer, which while great at showing exactly what is going on, fails to really show off the power of the program. i will work on getting that changed for future updates, I am just wary of copyright laws. It really does make a big difference to have a great song in there.

Just one last note, there is another update in this application, there is now a “style” button. This will allow you to switch between the new visualizer and the old one. Enjoy!

Click here to see the new visualizer

In further research towards my goal, I have been looking into how I can access data from within a sound file. I looked at what kind of information I could extract from it, and in how I could out put that data. My first results were simply lines of numbers, (512 lines for every 1/30th of a second), and I found that strangely exciting. but it wasn’t long after that, that I was able to take that data and turn it into something visual, and remarkably visually appealing.

When it was displaying the data visually, I then walked away from programming and stepped into a new pair of boots, I need to create some music to really show what was going on, and help me further dissect it, and ultimately understand it more. I created a sound file, while not very stimulating to the ears, a great example of what the application is doing. By sending specific sounds to the left speaker, and others to the right speaker, I could then really see what was going on, and further build off of it.

This was a solid step towards my goal, from this I am going to explore what I can do with the data further, and hopefully get it showing on other forms, as well as look at how the user can manipulate the data as well.

I have shared the results in the link below, so check it out. For this example it I recommend separating your speakers so they are on either side of you if this is not already the case, or listening through a set of head phones. Enjoy!

See the results here.

UPDATE: I have updated the file with stop and play functionality, also there is now a “mode” button. This will allow you to switch between two different views, one shows the audios Frequency, while the second displays its Amplitude.

My newest project, Visual Sound, has many challenges involved. The first one is the migration from the programming language ActionScript 2, to the new version, ActionScript 3. If you are unfamiliar with what that means, think of it this way, you are fluent in the English language, but one day it changes, there are new words and grammar, and some words, which you use daily, no longer exist, and if you try to use them you will not be understood. That is basically what it means to me.

So this has been the first phase of the project for me. This is important because what I want to create is actually impossible without the change. I have been experimenting a lot and you could say, re-learning how to speak. While I have found this process frustrating at times, overall it has been an enjoyable experience, and I am excited by the power of ActionScript 3.

After the basic experiments and figuring out how to do all the standard things, I moved onto aspects more specific to my end goal. At the heart of what the end product will be, there must first exist standard audio player functionality. This is things such as play, stop, and pause buttons, as well as the fundamental ability for the application to load in audio files from an external source and play them for the user to hear. So this is where I was forced to begin. I won’t be posting it in its current form, but I currently have a working mp3 player, very much like something you would find on your computer, albeit, much less pretty. That is where this project is currently sitting, perhaps barely a scratch on the surface, but the needed first step.

The next step is figuring out how the grab the the information I need from an audio file, and see if I can’t get a basic output of that data, even if it’s just numerical data. Stay tuned.