[-empyre-] RE: FWD: squidsoup/altzero5 intro

[anthony rowe <ant@squidsoup.org>]

hi jim and everyone

sorry for the delay in responding...

At 12:05 PM 6/7/2003 +1000, you wrote:
> i have visited altzero several times in the past. i recall the 3D oceanic 
> version where you'd
> swim into interactive shapes of sound. very cool. and those shapes bore 
> relation to the earlier
> 3D piece on theremediproject, where you ran into circular letter hordes 
> that were nicely
> interactive also. when you grabbed them and shook em, they'd sort of boing 
> around sonically and
> visually. great fun. was that with pitch shift (rateShift) or just panning 
> or what?

the sound is produced using simple pan and volume control calculated using 
the geometry of the space - the relative coordinates of the sound and 
camera, and the direction the camera is pointing at.  we were planning to 
have at least a surroundsound version but several factors got in our way - 
mainly time, reliability and  accessibility.  despite the fact that we use 
3D, we aim to make our work as accessible as possible - hence shockwave and 
a limited reliance on xtras.  surround/quad is still on the cards, as is 
rendered 3D simulation stereo - as the exported files made in the 
composition tool contain all the spatial data needed; we could make a new 
player for a CAVE (or almost any other relevant platform in theory) given 
the chance, but the first step was to make a straightforward shockwave 
player, and solid simple installation player.

> i downloaded and tried out the new compositional version. i imported a 
> sound but couldn't figure
> out how to get it into the composition. i tried to drag it hither and yon 
> but couldn't seem to
> drop it into anything. help out a poor lad here please, Anthony.

in order to import a sound in the composer tool you need to select it in 
the sound library and press CTRL and click somewhere on the sphere.  it 
then appears as a red square.  due to public demand ;-)  i've written a 
rudimentary readme/basic instruction set.  see 
http://www.altzero.com/altcompose/altzerocompose.pdf


> what Director Xtras, if any, are you using in this piece?

the 3D xtra (obviously...) and amplitudeXtra in composer tool only (not in 
the player), and a couple of other xtras (again in composer only) for file 
management.  the rest of it (even sound synchronisation) is native director.



> also, i wonder if you could talk about who Squid Soup is, Anthony? And is 
> it also a business?
> Who does what?

squidsoup is a somewhat amorphous thing that changes over time.  we started 
out as a commercial organisation that tried to push at boundaries and make 
more adventurous interactive design.  or at least open the eyes of 
corporates and advertising agencies etc to what was possible.  however, we 
also vowed to spend at least 1/3 of our time on our own work.  that was 
possible for a while, and the logic was that we'd do commercial work rather 
than spending a lot of time talking to arts funders, thereby maintaining 
the independence of the work etc etc. and doing commercial work does (at 
times) cross fertilise into the more experimental work we do.  and vice 
versa...

we are spending more and more time on experimental/non-commercial work now 
though, so things are heading in the right direction....  and commercial 
work is mainly in the education sector.

so we're poorer but happier :-)