Here's a little preview of a project I'm working on for the Burning Man theme 'Metropolis'

These are buildings rendered in OpenGL with simple textures. Runs pretty much at 60fps.

3D madness

Working on 3D stuff. Check out new toy at right.

I have been programming these particle physics simulation thingies lately. They are fun to mess with and the calculations can be applied to many different effects.

This stuff is way fun to mess with when you're bored.

See my openprocessing.org page for the interactive version.

2 band-aids later:

New computer

I decided I need to build a computer dedicated to being portable. I can't be lugging my whole desktop around whenever I want to show this thing off, so I need something a bit smaller.

Enter the portable desktop computer. It is based off a MicroATX motherboard which is about half the size of a standard desktop motherboard. I had this plastic equipment case lying around that I was just using to store stuff in, it looked like the perfect size to fit the small board. I did some research and found that the maximum dimensions of this type of motherboard is about an inch smaller than the smallest dimension of the case. Yay!


Components fit like a glove.
The standard size power supply dwarfs the micro sized motherboard.



















The specs are as follows:

AMD Phenom II 3.1ghz dual core (overclocked to 3.6ghz woot)
ASUS M4N68T-M MicroATX motherboard
4Gb DDR3 1333 ram
old 40gb hard drive
old 400w ATX PSU
to be installed: ATI Radeon 4850 video card
Case is a plastic equipment case I had lying around.
Cost so far: $330

























Modifying the case to fit the computer components should be fun. This motherboard fits PERFECTLY in the case with the power supply, it's like it was made for it.

OS installed.
Time from pic above to this point: about 45 minutes.

Field - An algorithmic music performance engine

While learning this programming language processing I have been struggling over what ultimately should become of all this labor. Originally I started about a year ago with Max/MSP making components for electronic music production. Instruments such as synthesizers, granular processors, also sequencers and loop editors. My intent was to make a kit of home-built instruments and tools to be able to execute a very expressive live electronic music performance. The functionality part of the whole project was no problem for me, however, the challenge lied in the user interface side of things. I have some hardware midi controllers and these work okay, but I found it difficult to efficiently tie the computer and interfaces together.

It was through working with these controllers that I first came up with the idea of using multitouch for this music performance project. My ultimate intention is to make the interface and the program into one. I didn't think I would start working on it this soon, but I came across a concept that I thought would be very unique and expressive and also slightly generative for a music performance. I have started on a project that will either be really awesome or a big waste of time. We'll see!

Field is a musical instrument where objects slide across a plane and by encountering certain things in the world such as walls, cursors, fields, or other objects, sounds are generated.

Objects are created in the world through a multitouch interface. One finger sets an object bouncing around the world. Objects can have multiple parameters for playing sounds. An object can do something different depending on what it encounters. For example you can assign a different drum sample to each wall it bounces off of, and a note value to play when it passes across a field. Each object in the world can have a different value of each. You can create multiple objects at once and send them all in different directions creating complex random rhythms. An object's speed can be quantized in either or both the X and Y direction enabling creation of regular timed rhythms. Objects can be modified by cursors and fields.

Fields are static in the world and make sound when an object moves across them. Objects can be assigned a note value to play when moving across a field, or the field can choose the notes based on various parameters. Sounds in fields can be triggered from multiple parameters, such as object entering top, bottom, left, right, x position, y position, and speed.

Cursors appear when a certain gesture finger combination (such as 2 fingers) is presented. They perform various actions on the objects that move across them. The most common cursor will be the erase cursor. To remove objects from bouncing around the screen simply use 2 fingers to create a line between your fingers that will erase all objects that move across it. Other cursors include pitch modification and speed modification.

You will be able to select between different worlds, and move objects between worlds. This will create almost a loop selection structure to the instrument. There is virtually no limit to the amount of objects that can be bouncing around a world. Extremely complex compositions can be created if you use slow enough moving objects.

Here's a sneak preview of the super alpha alpha version, no sound yet even lol. Thats a cursor tho, hard at work erasing those balls.


























If anyone wants to contribute to this, let me know. Right now it is on hold until I can program my way out of it being a cacophonous noisy mess.

and