Pressure Project 1

For pressure project one I was inspired by the original Isadora template to keep things simple and looping indefinitely as opposed to creative a narrative. My original instinct was to animate the patch with random positions and shape patterns to create something that was consistently changing to keep the viewer’s attention. Thankfully, Isadora’s license was not valid on my first attempt so I was unable to save my work. On my second attempt, I challenged myself to be a bit more intentional about my choices and work within the scope of the assignment. Knowing that we had the option to use a camera input as a sensor, I began the process of adding some video feedback and interaction to the patch. 

Adding the video to the squares was easy enough. From my previous experience with Isadora, I already knew how to add a new user input to the user actors, so it was a simple process. However, I quickly realized that the incoming aspect ratio was rectangular and the shapes we were given were square. In the spirit of simplicity and symmetry, I choose to crop the video to a square. This led to the image having a border and combining the projectors gave the effect of a color filter which I thought was a bit retro and fun. This basic foundation gave me the inspiration for the rest of the patch. 

The square image with a thick border remined me of a photo booth and I was off to create an experience that could capture that magic into an interactive experience. I wanted to essentially “take a snap shot” at the same time as the colored square appeared. I found the freeze actor worked perfectly for this. Adding the same trigger as the projector activation synced everything up nicely. 

I wanted to refine the images a bit more by changing the way they appeared and disappeared. For this, I wanted to create the effect of turning over a card or picture to reveal what is underneath. I have never tried this in Isadora before so I experimented a bit before I found the 3D projector. The setting on this actor are quite different from the normal projector, but I was quickly able to figure out what most of the options did. To rotate the image, I added a ramp to the Y rotation so it would flip into place when the projector became active. This worked as you might expect, but I did discover there were some artifacts and lines that would tear into the image as the effect was taking place. I played around with the blend modes and layer heights, but nothing seemed to work. Finally I found the “depth test” setting that made the transition smooth and looked good. I would have liked to flip the image back over when it disappeared, but I ran out of time and figuring out the timing and trigger delays was not as important to me as getting a good image. 

One of the goals for me on this project was also to explore new actors and refine my methods of using them. I have used the eyes++ actor many times, but with limited success. Recently I have tried filtering the input with a chroma key to isolate faces which has worked fairly well. This technique worked well for trying to essentially “zoom in” on the users face when taking the “photo”. I had to guess what actors to use to do the cropping and centering of the image on the “Blob” but I was able to get something that worked reasonably well.  

When it was time to present, I quickly realized the camera tuning I had done in my office at home was producing the same results in the classroom. I was able to franticly changes some setting to get it working again just before our presentations began. For the presentation itself, I choose to display the stage on the classroom TV. This was similar to how I had programmed everything in my office with  second display. I was excited to see how others would react and I was pleased that most people seemed to enjoy the experience. One thing I did notice was that at some point people started to back away from the screen. This was partially to give others space, but I think it was also because the camera was essentially following them and they didn’t want their picture taken. For a future iteration I might try to limit the range of the camera so it only interacted with people at a certain range and distance. 

Overall, I enjoyed working on this project and I’m happy I was able to keep most of the original programming intact.