Using sound to deform objects

[da7a]

i am currently seeking a way to use sounds to deform objects.

ulitmately i would to to set it up interactively and in realtime accepting live sounds from a microphone but for a start one that does it in a linear way would be ok.

does anyone know of any downloadable melscripts that do this or is here an easy way to do it in maya without additional scripting??

thanks

[guyb]

I'm looking for it as well .. It seems there's nothing existing except a "midi-device" plugin here in highend3d but I couldn't download it .
As far as I understood, the only way is the develop a "device editor" (like the buttons-box on SGI or the joystick plugin). Anyway you'll have to convert a component of the music (beat, level, frequency) in data (?) to be mapped ...
I found freeware to output frequencies or levels from wav. files and store it as numbers in text files. But how to use this column of numbers as an input, not a clue.
The one with the magic solution wins a Bingo t-shirt ...

Again something that used to exist in the unforgettable TDI-Explore ... (along with raytrace in Ipr ... proper interlacing ...)

Guyb.

[da7a]

can you tell me where to get that freeware thing.

it would be a start at least.

maybe then i could do something similar in flash by making it read the text file.

[campbell]

I havent played with it, but audioWave plug should do it for ya ...tho you could probably just as well do it with the output of the program mentioned, but this plug gives ya node so its eay to hook up. Just doing a web search it would seem that its been recompiled for 4 recently ...it's AW's (but their site is fuxed to their teef at the moment) ...and i couldnt find a mirror for it out there ...audioWave.mll ....except one other page outside aw's, but its a 2.5 compile. You might have some more luck perhaps. Maybe someone feels like posting it locally? Heh! ....like me, i just noticed its sitting on my box (submited it now, expect it in plugs>utilities after next suite updates)

Hope it meets your needs (send my a flyer for the show?)
-C.

[da7a]

ok from another forum.......

"MAX has an option in the motion rollout that allows you to add expression controllers to any modifiers and effects you may have in your scene. One of the standard expression mods is sound... you can make any adjustment (whether it's a modifier or a part of a modifier) use this expression...
just assign a .wav file as the sound clip in the given rollout, and there you go..."

i found that max can do what i want and its built in, the problem is still that i need to do it in real time.

can th plugin you are suggesting do this????

[joojaa]

Audiwave is am plugin suplied by aliaswavfront (its free) it works quite real time but not quite since you cant record at the same time as you playback but it evaluates your wave in realtime tough.

[campbell]

Yeah, cant feed a live stream of audio in (but i havent read the node documentation...if there is?). If it is just amplitude that you're interested in for channel modulating, then your set (apart from realtime/live audio sampling): its up to you to build a network that pipes the amplitude about as a modulator (for expressions or otherwise). How have your experiments gone with it ? .....by real time are you talking about response in the app or sampling of an 'external' audio stream real time? Tell us exactly what you want to do and someone might be able to help...

C.

[da7a]

simply using the amplitude of an overall sound is not enough..
i want to hook a microphone up to my computer then filter the sounds by frequency and then have each frequency value control a parameter in the scene in relatime. i am exploring different ways to do this, max and maya seem too limited so i may i use blender or virtools to devlop my own "game engine" to allow me to do what i want. its for an installation i`m working on where the sound the people generate by moving in the space is amplified and then vizualised in a very comlplex analytical way. it might later be developed to use it at concerts and nightclubs to make viusals that react to the music. i hope to collaborate with some electronic musicians on it......

[goggle]

Try Houdini if you can get access to a copy. It's CHOPs are practically set up for this kind of stuff. And it has no problems bringing in live data. (MIDI specifically, but others as well I believe)

-James

[campbell]

Sweet candy, i figured as much ...ive always dreamnt of having such fun. mmm, and Houdini, there is some more candy, but no ordinary candy. Dribble, dribble.

Got any coder sound friends? Perhaps someone in a dept at a uni? Suss the plug API to build a new realltime audio node with freq analysis/decomposition (might as well have granualar synthesis whilst your at it! ...some angry objects). How soon does this need to be? A mate of mine might be interested ...

Sorry i cant offer much more than drool.

C.

[da7a]

dribble dribble indeed.

i dont have any mates that are in to that sort of scripting or programming side of things.

this is a a kinda long term research project im doing with the result being the installation but in reality i cant research anything without having the software i need to experiment. im hoping to have a test version running by the middle of june at the very latest. that estimate is to allow me time to develop either a script for max or maya or an inteface with blender or virtools. then with the fun part........

if anyone out there has any tips or could help me with the script or program development i`d really appreciate it. i dont think i could ask someone to do the whole thing themselves because theres just so much crap i want to work in to it, it would be too personal i think.
but anyway help would be much appreciated.

i have no funding on this, i might be able to apply for some but its highly unlikely that i`ll get any.

ill head off to see what i can find out about houdini, ive never herad of it before, thanks.

[da7a]

http://www.ojuice.net

aparently theres a whole scene all about coding "demos" that usually react to music.

its intense stuff and it seems to require a very high degree of knowlegde of C++.

[censored].

[goggle]

Sorry, should have been more explicit.

Houdini is a procedural 3D animtion software by SideEffects. Procedural meaning that everything is math based and constantly re-evaluates itself. (sort of like uber-history) If you change a parameter on a node at the begining of your chain it's effects are propogated through the entire model.
And you're not limited to simple node chains either. each node can be connected to almost as many other nodes as you like and they can cycle back on themselves.

For your specific application you could bring in your audio through a 'Mic' CHOP (CHannel OPerator), then run that audio through your own specificly defined mathematical filters and then use those filter's output to drive animation, textures, lights, camera, shapes, pretty much whatever you want to.

On the down side it's rather expensive for a project with no funding, and the learning curve is quite steep.

-James

[joojaa]

Umm yeah houdini is great but its not that hard to do this in maya... All you need is to extract the audivave with some relatime Fast fourier transform and pipe this to your atribute.

However it much easier said then done! Since you must do this via the API. Its not hard it just takes a hellof an investment in time which frankly is not worth the trouble at all (unless you plan to do more stuff in the future).

But siince youre just testing then you can do it with allready recorded clips!

[da7a]

to be honest, doing it with recorded clips at this stage is uselss to me. i was going to do some invsetigations that way but its really just a waste of time for me.

[joojaa]

Why? I mean you can record them and play back 2 seconds later thats almost realtime!

[dkouts]

Will this plugin work in 4.5?

Ive tried to use it, but the error box just keeps telling
me things are missing etc.

Pretty useless to to a scripting newbie, you would
think this would be a simple process in an app like Maya.

Daniel

[hammer]

as you mentioned pretty much earlier on, you can load any server device into the device editor and map the attribs to your scene. this works in real time as well.

you said you have the data (FFT, amp, etc?) on a text based format
=> what you could do i set up a java server which reads the data either from a textfile or via a so-called wrapper class (e.g. java calls procedures from a C++ program in real-time).

you might want to see the motion capturing docu.
furthermore, we're currently working on a similar process for physical motion capture - if you're interested, and your output is text or C based, we might find a way to collaborate on this.

cu
Hammer