Final full System example with Resolume explanation

Here is the last installment from me about the projection mapping system before hand-in. I think this video out of all the ones included in my portfolio, is the one that demo's the combined systems strengths and weaknesses. Obviously in an ideal world I would invite everyone in the world in my room, alas a video must suffice..

As you can see from the thumbnail, the colours are once again matching up. So lets look at how to recreate this in Resolume Arena.

I have written a post a couple of months back about how Resolume works, so please read that first if you havent already to bring yourself uptodate

So in the case of replicating my Light Speaker, I used a relatively simple range of parameters

 

As a source for the colours, I am using the FFGL Colour Strobes built into Resolume. You can set the Hue or Colour you want displayed per channel using the hue slider, pictured above.

In the case of the colour organ, I used three channels, just like the Arduino - RGB. The Brightness and Opacity levels were then mapped per RGB channel, using the FFT reading as input.

In the picture above the brightness wasnt mapped yet, as that came through practical experimentation with the system. The Opacity is however. As you can see above, there are also sliders to control ranges of values being applied to each parameter, allowing for very deep control over the whole interface.

As you can also see, Resolume have actually included quick Low Mid and High buttons for mapping you parameters to one of the three main bands.

The two main controls, which effectively control the blending of the colours when audio is recieved, are the Gain and Fall knobs. these can really be thought of as attack and decay knobs on a synth and they control how senstive the reaction to the FFT reading is. Unfortunately for use as a colour organ, finding a sweet spot was really difficult. In the end, the most pleasing and representative way was to have the reaction gain set to 2/3rds on all three colour channels.

As you can see, the opacity band is fully open, meaning that is no audio is coming through, there is absolutely no colour being displayed, which was one of the main requirements of any system. However as talked about the projecter still spills light. Thats not resolumes fault though.

I found through testing that keeping the brightness band at the lowest of half open was the most effective for getting a nice colour blending, and all the previous videos shown on the blog, along with the accompanying portfolio were done using these parameters (bar one for illustration of my point).

There is a quick screen shot I just took illustrating my point about the width of control given to brightness, by comparison to Opacity. Both are just showing the Lowend Red channel. The same applies for all three.

As demoanstrated through the portfolio, the system works well, however unfortunately cannot be implemented for actual production purposes, and perhaps wouldnt be that good even if you could due to increased levels of distraction.

for the remainder, I shall be showing practical examples of my working setup that I am using to write music with currently. Cheers.

Final Artefacts Demos and Explanations Part 2

I first have to say that formal testing of the system in terms of using it whilst working on music was impossible with my current setup - I dont have two computers. However at the expo I have access to another computer loaded up with music software, so it will be possible to demo the systems together in that capacity.

For these examples, I have run the two systems together as colour organs in order to demo and analyse the efficacy of the systems.

While I am waiting for the videos to upload to Youtube, here is a quick phoo to get the idea and allow me to keep typing!

Before I go on, I want to talk about some of the immediate issues I noticed with te system, that perhaps you too have noticed.

I really hadn't considered the fact that one light source cast on to such a surface would cast shadows onto shorter pillars that were off center. When far enough back, you can hit all the longest pillars easily, however the deeper the other pillars are by relation to the longest, the more extreme the shadows cast become.

There is a way round this, however there is only one - to have multiple projector rigs. this is expensive, space consuming, time consuming and noisey. Realistically, for use as a tool for analyitical insight into audio in the studio, it doesn't have much future. This is certainly not to say that it hasn't been extremely insightful as a method for analysing the light speaker though. It has also been a gret way for exploring the power of FFT analysis for splitting up incoming audio rather than traditional filter based EQ's in the analogue domain, such as the MSGEQ7

At this point the diffuser is unpainted as I relly dont have the time, so there is a very slight tinge of orange to the colour, as seen in the above picture. the colour being shown on the acoustic diffuser then should match the laptop screen, which is extremely similar to what the colour organ above is displaying - a kinda of pinky off white tone. As a note, this means there was a pretty even balance of audio frequencies at that point in time, with a slight tendency towards the lows and highs. Turns out that you can gain meaningful insight into audio from colour ;)

The first of the demo videos of these two in action are taking a while to upload, so for now Im going to get on with seting up my Ableton set ready for testing later on this evening on the flatmates.

I have decided that I'm going to be asking them to listen to a bunch of material chosen by them first, then me, in order to get used to the systems first. During this time, I will be going over a bit of basic colour theory with them to make sure they can understand just what is going on. Once this is done, I am going to go through a set bunch of material such as drum loops and musical stems to demonstrate what certain types of sounds look like, I am then going to ask them to indentify what they are listening to without the speakers, using only the light. If they can determine what they are listening to, roughly at least, without listening, then I would say the system has real legs as a tool for metering audio in a creative manner.

I shall also do an intermediate piece about how a made the colour organ within Resolume. Cheers!

Diffuser PJ Mapping Screen Built!

It is so easy to underestimate how quickly time flies! You may remember two weeks ago I posted about having chopped all the wood and I just needed to get glue, well yesterday I finally got it, and was up until three this morning getting as much as I could done. I ran out of No More Nails about 3/4 of the way through, so I got up first thing this morning and went to get another tube.

Below is a photo gallery of the build from start to finish for your amusement. I have to say, considering the issues I had with the original cuts (breaking a circular saw and having to hand cut half the posts, I am really happy with the results, it looks really beautiful. All that remains now is to let the glue set hard and then get it sprayed matt white, as this will give the best surface finish for the Projections.

1) So as I have touched on before, QRDude is the software I used to create the design for my diffuser. This is a 2D QRD design, with a Scatter characteristic of 333hz, a diffusion characteristic of 666hz and a high frequency cutoff at 3750hz.

2) Here we have all the posts for my build stacked on a secondary baseplate. I intend to build another three of these after university, so I have bought extra MDF for baseplates. The wood used for the posts is Planed treated Red Wood Pine,  44mm x 44mm. The "well" depths vary from 0mm upto 24mm.

3) Here is another baseplate cut and ready to be filled.The well spread is 13, giving the baseplate a width and length of 572mm

4) I decided to go from the two axis first and then build out from there. This isn't really standard practice, you would normally just go row by row, however as I said the circular saw broke, so from 14mm posts down, the hand cut is slightly uneven on a lot of posts. To eliminate the chance of an uneven design, this way lets you glue two sides of every post you place after the axis are done, resulting in a more stable build as you go along.

5) Here you see it at just after the half way point, around one thirty this morning. I knew by this point that I had made the right choice as the lines and block placements were still going smoothly and perfectly.

6) This was just a couple of arty angles before I went to bed.

7) The first of these three was a quick one before I started again today with the fresh No More Nails. This will be painted white as I said, and then placed behind the speakers, central to my mix position. Happy Days!

Audio Reactive and Generative FFGL Projection Mapping

So in my hunt for the most efficient way to convey the idea of colour and sound relating to one another, I have turned back to Resolume and a platform within it that until very recently I didn't actually know existed. FFGL is a framework related to Fireworks and Supercollider, which enables the use of generative graphics from within Resolume.

When combined with the hundred or so FFGL effects that come bundled with it, you can really create an astounding number of cool graphics. The beauty of this of course is that, as I have mentioned in previous blog posts, the parameters of these Generative Graphics and Effects can all be controlled with the on board FFT analysis that can be performed with Resolume.

So after a quick Sunday morning jaunt around the Matrix (Internet), I discovered a great series of tutorials covering the basics of projection mapping in order to set up the room in some semblance of what I have previously discussed here, all be it slightly roughshod (Sunday Morning, remember?)

Unfortunately the HDMI cable I have currently is only a meter or so long, I am going to go out this week and get a 5M one so I can get the projector fully back and square in my room, enabling me to map both bass traps on either side. As this video shows, currently I only have the left side of my room going, however I feel the results speak for themselves. I must stress that, when combined with my tutorial dig, I have spent three hours on this particular mapping.

I unfortunately discovered that I could have had this operating at a much greater resolution, which is annoying, as now I have to re-do the set in 1920x1080 for maximum impact come Presentation Week. As I said though, a couple of hours and I will be back to this stage full res. From that point on, minus the time I spend on the LED side of the project and written work, I will be focusing on building that set up to the point it can be run for hours and hours without experiencing the same visuals twice.

As I suspected to begin with, I have found that so far, the more dynamic the audio signal being fed into the system, the better the results. Before watching, I feel I must post a warning that this video contains strobing lights and music of a graphic nature. See what I did there? Please excuse resolution, a new one will be up tomorrow.

More tomorrow, see ya!