A Slice of π – A MOD Music Visualizer

When making Into Oblivion, I was a bit frustrated that it was rather hard to gain good information from the FFT analysis and that it was utterly impossible to find which instrument was playing. And then a friend told me about MOD music.

Unlike audio files like mp3, module files aren’t rendered down to just the audio information. Simplified, they have two elements: A collection of distinct audio samples and tracker information when to play which sample and how to modify its pitch, volume and other properties. So that means if your visualizer is a MOD player, you have all this juicy information available at your fingertips!

So there were a few things I needed:

  • MOD files: I got those from ModArchive.org. I chose:
    • chiptune, phantasmagoria, rsectro and zapped_out by 4mat
    • Rivendell by radix
  • A MOD tracker to analyze the MOD files: OpenMPT filled that spot quite nicely and was easy to get into even for a total beginner like me.
  • A MOD processing library – of which I only found one! Luckily, PortaMod has (nearly) everything I needed, and the creator Brendan Ratliff was most helpful on Twitter.

Since this was my first foray into MOD music visualization and I wasn’t cooperating with a musician, I wanted to keep the visualizer as general as possible; any file that it could play should work. I also wanted to use as much information as possible. In the end, I chose a rotating circular representation divided into slices. Each slice is a MOD channel and each MOD sample was assigned a color. Pitch modifications made the radius go bigger, and everything is pulsating according to the output amplitude.

Downloads:

Executable for Windows
GitHub Repository (MIT License)

And now there’s been enough talk – have a preview video and a few screenshots!

The song used are, in order:

  • Rivendell by radix
  • phantasmagoria by 4mat
  • rsectro by 4mat
  • zapped_out by 4mat

chiptune01      phantasmagoria01

phantasmagoria02      phantasmagoria04

rivendell03      rsectro01

rsectro04      zappedout03

Generative Art – Sketches #036 to #042

The last batch was a bit mediocre, but this one has some really strong candidates! I’m proud to present:

#036: Among the Stars

Based on a work by the ever-fabulous Titouan Millet! It turned out not to look like the original too much and instead has its own charm.

s036_among_the_stars_01          s036_among_the_stars_03

     s036_among_the_stars_08     s036_among_the_stars_07

s036_among_the_stars_06     s036_among_the_stars_05     s036_among_the_stars_04

#037: Energy Transfer

An experiment with agents and attractors.

s037_energy_transfer_01     s037_energy_transfer_03     s037_energy_transfer_02

Generative Art – Sketches #029 to #035

It’s been over a year since I last posted a collection of small generative art sketches – but that’s not because I stopped making them, I just got a bit lazy with posting. There’s quite a lot queued up now! And without any further ado, here are candidates #29 to #35.

#029: Plasma Blob

This one isn’t terribly impressive, but it was made in a few minutes to demonstrate Processing to a colleague and is reasonably nice to look at.

s029_plasma_blob_03      s029_plasma_blob_02      s029_plasma_blob_01

#030: Mara’s Ocean

A typographic variation of #028: Isles using the Mara’s Eye font.

s030_maras_ocean_01      s030_maras_ocean_02      s030_maras_ocean_03

s030_maras_ocean_04      s030_maras_ocean_05      s030_maras_ocean_06

#031: Chimera Maker: What Has Science Done?!

The sillyness levels go through the roof with this one. For executables for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android and for more pictures, check out it’s own blog post!

031_chimera_maker_01     031_chimera_maker_02     031_chimera_maker_03

Into Oblivion: A Music Visualizer made with Processing

With my newest generative artwork, I embark into the wonderful world of generative/reaction animations: It’s a music visualizer.

I’ve used spectrum analysis (powered by minim) and Processing to make a reactive artwork. It works especially for songs with breaks and theme changes where it becomes really apparent that the result is really dependent on the currently played music.

If you are Windows, you can download it here – edit the default.xml to use your own music, change the color scheme. Check out the readme for the controls!

The source code is, as always for my generative art in Processing, available at the GitHub repository and open source. You can open it with Processing 3 – just import Minim.

Here is a video using a shortened version of Push Every Button by Lapfox:

044_into_oblivion_01      044_into_oblivion_02      044_into_oblivion_03

044_into_oblivion_04      044_into_oblivion_05      044_into_oblivion_06

Generative Art – Week 4

Four weeks ago, I started doing daily generative art Processing sketches – and now I am at the end of this fourth week. I’m glad I held on to the “do one sketch every day” mantra, even when I wasn’t feeling inspired – I made some pretty fun stuff this week. Alright, let’s dive right in!

#022: Tentapus Generator

That’s right – it has 10 legs, not 8! I really like how the legs always look so different. While generating, sometimes it almost looked like it was dancing. I might actually use this in a game one day – it certainly looks like it would be fun to play with.

s15_03_22_tentapus_generator_01      s15_03_22_tentapus_generator_02      s15_03_22_tentapus_generator_03

s15_03_22_tentapus_generator_04      s15_03_22_tentapus_generator_05      s15_03_22_tentapus_generator_06

Generative Art – Week 3

And thus, the third week ended. It had its hits and misses, but I learnt new stuff and I’m especially content with the three dailies at the end! And now, without any further ado:

#015: Probably a Metaphor for Something

On the other hand, maybe it isn’t. Let’s… let’s just skip this one, okay? I guess it’s safe to say that it didn’t go where I wanted it to go.

s15_03_15_probably_a_metapher_for_something_01

Generative Art – Week 2

And the second week is over! I had some interesting and diverse results this week. I’m especially fond of the Silk/LightWeaver and some of the results of Stormy Weather look very dynamic.

#008 – Silky Smoke

A variant of #006 (CircleTrails), inspired by this video where Casey Reas talks about the circle collision thing that #006 also uses, but with drawing lines between them. Silky Smoke works in a similar way, but isn’t about drawing a persistent picture and more about the movement created. It looks okay, but I have to admit that I was hoping for more.

s15_03_08_silky_smoke_1      s15_03_08_silky_smoke_2

s15_03_08_silky_smoke_3      s15_03_08_silky_smoke_4

Generative Art – Week 1

Hey! If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, by now you’ve probably noticed that (true to my tagline) I mostly post games that I make – but sometimes, it’s also other stuff. The “other stuff” might get a bit more company from now on! I’ve been getting into generative art, and I’ve decided to make one generative art sketch per day until I get bored with it. Every Sunday I’ll post the results of the week with screenshots, videos, executables for Windows and the processing source files. And if you’d rather see me making games, don’t worry – making interesting and potentially beautiful things with code will only help making my games look better. And now without further ado, I present to you week 1!

#001 – ShardSphere

First one in my daily series! Mostly inspired by Generative Art Chapter 5. I really like the beginning when it comes to life out of nowhere.

s15_03_01_shardsphere_1      s15_03_01_shardsphere_2

s15_03_01_shardsphere_3      s15_03_01_shardsphere_4

Android-Shooter

After I published my master’s thesis, a few people asked me about what I did for my bachelor’s thesis. I experimented a bit with controls for an Android shooter. Here is a video showing the game I did there:

Asset Credits: