Cycle 3: مہمان – Mehmaan (The Guest)
Posted: May 8, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Cycle 3, touchdesigner Leave a comment »The Score
For Cycle 3, I knew exactly what to work on: the harmony between the particle effects and the floor pattern, the fact that there needed to be a visual feedback of the body in some way or form, and that the body needed to leave a mark. The last thing on the checklist came from the concept that the guest or the user should change the space by being in it, because that’s how mehman-nawazi works. The house holds the warmth of whoever was there.
So Cycle 3 added the trace. A silhouette of the users’ body’s that follows them in color-shifting cache through the space and stays for a few seconds. The colors cycle and change as the trace lingers. It’s not a shadow, it’s more like a very colorful version of a heat map of being in a specific position. The users can see where they were. This also caters to the visual feedback of the body that was missing in cycle 2.
The experience also expanded outward. Two additional scrims on the sides of the space were used to carry the partcile system of the falling petals. These were not interactive, just ambient. Just to give a feel of an enclosed space. The front screen remains interactive. There was also a screen at the back – showing everything that was going on in the space.
Resources
- TouchDesigner
- Orbecc depth camera for body/blob detection
- My trusty laptop
- Top down projector, and the rug
- Projection screen
- Motion Lab
- Tripod mounted Camera
- Scrims
Process and Pivots
The silhouette trail was the main new challenge. It uses a cache and feedback system inside TouchDesigner. Since there was only one orbecc available, the problem was to create accurate silhouettes using something else. This led me to the nvidia background top – which is surprisingly accurate. The body mask from that was put in a feedback loop with a cache top that makes the silhouette decay slowly. I also added a time-based color ramp function which makes the color change for each frame. The result is a trail that shifts through colors as it fades. Adding such dynamic colors to the particle system was also meant to act as a bridge between the zen particle system and the fast audio reactive floor projections. The floor pattern from Cycle 2 was slowed down.
The two side screens were simpler. They were just additional outputs fed from the same petal particle system but without the optical flow input. They made the space feel larger and more continuous. This meant that the users would no longer be just standing in front of a single screen. The environment was meant to wrap around you them, with screens all around.
What Worked, What Didn’t, What I Learned
What worked: I went in first, interacted with the system, and then invited everyone over to the space. I didn’t say take turns or anything. I just mad ethe gestures for everyone to come over and they did! That was a good idea as it worked as a good ice breaker for the initial awkwardness experienced in the previous cycle. Everyone was in the space from the get-go. The silhouette trail also worked great! It was an immediate visual feedback that was easy to understand. Everyone moved and watched themselves leave marks. They stood in one spot, did all sorts of gestures, danced around, twirled, and there was also a train happening at some point. So the whole experience was very very social. It was like watching people play in a fun playground.
I was told that the addition of the two side screens made the space feel complete in a way the single-screen version didn’t. It felt like an environment enveloping you. Lou mentioned that even though the side screens didn’t have any interactions, it was nice to go up to them and see their projections on your body.
What I’m still thinking about: The silhouette and the petals exist together but I dont know, there isn’t really much of an iinteraction between the two. Which is okay, BUT it would be nice if they could effect each other in some way. That feels like the next thing to do. Also for the previous cycle, I had tried to do a position based trigger. So I dissected the circular space of the rug in 4 quadrants, and depending on where a user is, it triggers some visuals on the screens. I couldnt get it to work but I keep thinking what if about it. I would also love to explore some physical interactions triggering some events in a cool physical-digital way.
What I learned across all three cycles: I started off by trying to make an AI listen to the user and ended up making a space that receives the user instead. These are two very different orientations, but I learned throughout the process that making a good experience requires you to pay attention to even the most seemingly-insignificant interactions and feedbacks of the users. Things that don’t even feel like findings when they’re happening are sometimes the most useful data you can collect. It’s just very easy to miss them because we (atleast me – I dont speak for everyone) are looking at the system instead of looking at the people.