This week, I provided a list for our final presentation and thought about what we haven’t done.

Location: Atrium

Setting: 8 speakers (4 on top and 4 on the ground); 1 projector; 1 projection screen

Sensors: 2 light sensors (control colours and patterns); 2 ultrasonic sensors (control sound effects and chords);  1 sound sensor (controls the eq).

Level controller: MIDI keyboard

Arduino: connect to sensors; connect with Max

Max Patch: Jitter (visual); Sound (play random sounds and send the sounds to the speakers)

 

What we haven’t done:

• Check the equipment availability.
• Check the location availability.
• Sound effects for the final peaceful layer. Add more sound effects if necessary.
• Trim chords and the composition for the rest of the layers.
• Solving the issue of data running.
• Play random sounds in Max.
• Send the sounds to the speakers through Max.
• Set up a main controller to enter different levels.
• Design a head-like shape object to place sensors on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 10, 2024

This week, we have encountered many technical problems, besides max, there is also the sensor part. For example, although the sensor is connected to the parameters that max needs to control, the data of the parameters controlled are very limited, and only jump between two numbers, so I wrote an email to Joe to make an appointment for next week, hoping to get some help. In addition, my work also includes building the sound effect part and music part of max.
The meeting with the tutor Leo this week also mentioned that we would concentrate on two days next week to solve the technical problems we encountered.

Mar 9, 2024

This week I mainly discussed with Joe and Leo the problem of equipment delay that I encountered last week and solved it. Currently, the signal received by the sensor can be sent to Max through Arduino normally. In addition to solving technical problems, this week I also focused on thinking about what sensors to use to control which parameters, and the conditions that trigger entry to the next layer.

After testing the temperature and humidity sensor, light sensor and ultrasonic sensor, it can be seen that the value of the temperature and humidity sensor changes relatively slowly, so it can be used to control some changes in the environment. For example, the more people enter the room, the higher the temperature and humidity will be, thereby changing the ambient sound level or other interesting parameters. The light sensor and ultrasonic sensor change values ​​relatively quickly and are suitable for controlling some parameters that require significant changes. Therefore, changes in sound effects, music and visual patterns are mainly controlled by these two sensors (see Video 1 and Video 2).

Video 1: A Video Showing the Value in the Max Patch Controlled by Light Sensor.

Video 2: A Video Showing the Value in the Max Patch Controlled by Ultrasonic Sensor.

In addition to this, I also briefly designed a placement diagram for the final installation. This will be improved as appropriate in subsequent rehearsals (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: A diagram showing a brief arrangement of the installation.

Mar 9, 2024

This week, I focused on crafting an immersive soundscape by designing unknown sea creatures’ sounds and hollow sound effects. Employing Mconvolution, I generated animal-like low-frequency sounds for the sea creatures. Some other sounds are from existing sound libruary, which can be used for non-commercial purpose.

I also manipulated violin timbres to emulate the ethereal singing of Sirens. Large reverbs are applied to sea creatures’ voices, delivering an authentic experience of being in a deep-sea environment.

In addition, I incorporated ambient sounds with reverb to heighten the sense of mystery and fear in the third level, emphasizing hollow spaces’ eerie emptiness and darkness. Experimentation with spatial effects further enhanced the immersion, creating a vivid and evocative soundscape that captures the imagination and transports the listener to the fear of the unknown.

Mar 4, 2024

After talking to our tutor Leo this week, we made the following things clear:
1. list all controllable variables on Max and select some variables object that can be controlled by sensor.
2. Connect the sensor to Max to see if it can be controlled.
3. The connection between the sound effects and the Max can be used (the Pictslider object adjusts the parameters of the xy axis). I need to build it, and still choose the controllable variable to connect the sensor.

This is a technical problem that was solved last week:
How to control color change
How to control pattern change

This is a defined variable that needs to be controlled by sensors:
The control of color is not in line with the theme and is not technically realized, so it is ruled out.
The visual part can adjust the pattern, including draw mode and size of the waveform changes.
I set the range values of the two:[0,11] and [-120,2]

It has got the sound effect package made by the team members, as shown in the figure below, which are the implementations of the sound effect part I built.
Problems encountered:

The four corners of the pictslider object only support the transmission of four sound effects, and there are many transmission media that need larger volume for sound effects.

The nodes object can hold enough sound effects, but how to control the yellow controller ball is a key problem. If the sensor can be connected with the ball, the audience can control it in real time to feel the trigger of different sound effects caused by their actions.

Mar 3, 2024

The main work I am doing this week is the second subsection of the Interaction Part, which is the connection between Arduino and Max. By communicating with Leo and searching for relevant information on the Internet, I compiled a main patch for sending data from Arduino to Max (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: A Screenshot of Max Patch that Runs the Operation of Sending Data from Arduino to Max.

After the port in the serial object corresponds to the connected USB, it means that the serial object has received the data sent from Arduino, so the “print raw” object will cause the value to be printed out in the console according to the delay time interval set in Arduino, and the corresponding data groups will also be displayed in the following three message objects.

I tried to send the Arduino data of the ultrasonic sensor directly to the Max patch in the visual part made by Ruojing to change some parameters (see Video 1).

Video 1: A Video Showing the Ultrasonic Sensor Arduino Project Sending Data to the Visual Max Patch.

It ran successfully, but at the beginning I found that when the delay value was too small, that is, when the time interval between the two data generation was too short, Max could not work properly, and there was a very large lag. However, after increasing the delay value, although it can run normally, the data changes too slowly and is not suitable for the actual operation of our final installation. So the bigger problem I am currently encountering is how to balance and coordinate the actual operating rate of the equipment and the required operating rate of the installation. This is also what I will mainly need to work on over the next few weeks.

Mar 1, 2024