Worms' Challenge

[_acecombat_]

Now Worm we all know you are good at dll's for audio but here is a challenge for you:
Can you make a dll that could analyse a song and get a beat pattern or something so you could get something happening like on the vizulisations in media player. This could add some very good effects to AMS apps if you could.

[_acecombat_]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Or you could also try to work out how to use the windows media vizulisation dll's either way if you could it would be great!

[Worm]

Re: Worms' Challenge

I guess I don't understand exactly what you want. What would the end result be?

[_acecombat_]

Re: Worms' Challenge

something that can cause events to happen on the beat so you can have it change backgound or something.

[eric_darling]

Re: Worms' Challenge

This can be done, at least it has for other products. I don't know if this is too deep for development in conjunction with AMS 4. You have to have something that can analyze the waveform of the audio file in question.

There's a superbly written plug-in for After Effects that can do some incredible stuff. I once shared a cab with the kid that started Trapcode - a real genius type.

Here's the link: http://www.trapcode.com/products_soundkeys.html

[Corey]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Holy snap, their gallery is probably themost impressive I've seen vis-a-vis "How in tarnation did they do that" as well as "Dang, I wish I had done that". I must try out their stuff at some point in time.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[eric_darling]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Yeah, and if you know anything about trying to incorporate volumetric lighting in 3D renders, you know how long that takes. This guy started his company based on the Shine plug-in, which tackles that subject in 2D for After Effects both much better and much faster than any other plug-in before it came along.

It was, and still is, revolutionary.

I think he was 19 when he wrote Shine, or something like that.

[Corey]

Re: Worms' Challenge

That's cool. As for the volumetric slabs, they take along time to render as well as set up. particleIllusion (nee Illusion) is pretty cool too although it seems to me it renders everything at 26ppi or some stupid thing. Fun though, and easy to get similar results. It uses something called blockers and reflectors so that you can very quickly make your particle effects or lighting effects conform to whatever structure your video contains. The blockers and reflectors can also be animated across the timeline, etc.

Illusion was the very first "expensive" app I ever bought, I think I paid $200 or something like that... Their support was absolutely terrible, perhaps the worst I've ever seen, but the brand has since been sold, so...

BTW just downloaded 3D stroke and made a couple projects from their tutorials. Amazing stuff, you wouldn't believe how hard I used to have to work to get those effects... Very cool tool, don'tbe surprised if you see it used in upcoming promo materials here at IR.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[eric_darling]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Glad you have found that link so useful! I'm looking forward to that upcoming material, Corey. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Worm]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Well, the problem as I see it, is that AMS4 has no way of letting you fire an event to poll with a DLL to get the information. Sure you could put it in a silent mp3 and work off from that, but that event fires only about once a second. To do the visualizations, you'd need to get info more often than that. Looping is out of the question because it hijacks the interface.

I even tried thinking outside of the box on this one. But I simply couldn't come up with anything.

[Corey]

Re: Worms' Challenge

I know for sure it's possible in Flash, I've seen several dynamic EQs built in Flash which were clearly analyzing the spectrum somehow. If you go to Flashkit.com you'll see little tiny ones which accompany all the sounds in their download section. Like I say, I've seen it several times so there must be a tutorial on how to do it out there somewhere, i.e. Flashkit.

If I wasn't so crazy busy I'd check it out and build something but it's too nuts right now... If no one figures this one out I'll revisit it in a few weeks if I can...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[User1]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Worm, you mentioned that you would need an event that fires more than once a second, well I have an idea. Couldn't you use a repeating flash file with just a couple of frames and the action to send an fscommand. That way it would be sending an fscommand many times a second. You could use the onfscommand event in AMS to pick up on this and get events much more frequently. Might cause slow down though ..... but just a suggestion.
I have no idea about writing DLLs, but this would be a really nice feature if someone got it working.

[Corey]

Re: Worms' Challenge

Naw, Flash won't slow down anything at one event per second. I've created many projects which used Flash timers to trigger events, never seen a slow down yet...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Worm]

Re: Worms' Challenge

That probably would work, but I am not at all fluent in FLASH, nor do I own a copy. Maybe someday I can take the time to learn it, but for now I'll have to settle.

[Corey]

Re: Worms' Challenge

If you ever need a component built or something just post the specs, I'd be happy to assist you with Flash anytime...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software