Animated Exeter update

Today we had another meeting with the technical guys who are doing the projections and the artists from Tundra. As a group we all asked questions which everybody had been wondering for a time. We also had a chance to share ideas with each other.

My idea went down quite well, however in the end I have decided not to go through with it for a number of reasons: my first question to the technical guys was, will the laptop running the projector have an internet connection, the answer was no, unless I want to get a 3G dongle. That has set my idea back considerably considering my idea runs purely from the internet and my server. I was hoping the laptop would have wifi, 3G will be a bit too slow for my application to run on an instant basis.
Secondly, I worked over the weekend to create a good stable prototype of my idea, however I hit a brick wall on this one! I got flash talking to a nice XMLSocket on localhost, however I couldn’t get javascript on the other end to connect to it. I couldn’t use flash for client side, as a lot of the people who would be using the application would be using iPhones, and obviously flash isn’t supported. So I tried to find a way where people could interact with the animation through Javascript. After blood, sweat and tears I just couldn’t get it to work! Maybe another time 🙂

Billy came up with a nice idea and was looking for a programmer to build it with him, his idea involved projection mapping and camera tracking. The graphics would involve a swarm of fireflies which are projected onto the cathedral and would settle on the architectural details, as someone walks past, some of the fireflies would move from their position and start following the people. Once the person moves out of range, the fireflies would snap back to their original position to form the stain glass.

We also thought of developing the idea further, where we could add a microphone somewhere, when there is a really loud sound, the fireflies would scatter, just like if a swarm of birds get spooked, then return to their positions. I think it’s a really nice concept.

We were thinking of ways that we could develop this idea. Firstly I would like to look into the types of camera we can get hold of. We have the option of either using infrared cameras which will pick up the heat of the people, or we could use a normal camera where we could track movement. We would choose the infrared camera if possible as it will be pretty dark on the night and we wont be able pick up much movement using a normal camera unfortunately. However we could ask people to get their phones out and wave a light towards the camera to grab attention.

I would also like to develop a dynamic particle manager, where it would spread all the particles (or fireflies) across a certain area, which means we could change the area where the particles settle on the fly.

The technology we are planning to use is:

• Flash for camera tracking and animation;
• Camera (hopefully infrared);
• Possibly a boom mic, or a microphone to monitor sound levels;

All of this needs to be in place in 2 weeks time for the technical rehearsal. Ouch >.< !