Tech Project

Description of the challenges faced by the Tech Project

In today’s entertainment sector, the ability to provide compelling visual animation presentations during musical events in clubs, concert halls and other such venues, is restricted to large scale events promoters, artists, and mega-clubs. The main reason for this is that such visual animation presentations must be designed in advance for a particular event and specifically tailored for the music to be played. Moreover, designing, developing and finally rendering such visual resentations is costly both in terms of time and budget. The aim of project VISUALmusic is to remove existing barriers to entry and extend the use of this technology by developing a more affordable, Real Time 3D Motion Graphics Studio for Creative Music Industry SMEs. The VISUALmusic studio will eliminate the need for expensive design and development expertise in both the preparation and delivery of animation content.

Brief description of technology

In developing this new real-time 3D motion graphics studio the consortium is not starting from scratch since partner Brainstorm’s real time graphics engine already includes most of the required capabilities and entities. Particles, Shaders, 3D objects, texts, paths, trajectories, time lines, etc. are the kind of elements normally used by television broadcasters. However, in order to transfer this technology to the music sector, a range of developments will be required. For instance, core developments will include: • Adjustments and improvements for the real time graphics engine. • Scene extraction plug-in for current creation tools used by motion graphics artists. • DMX protocol module that will connect VisualMusic Player to other devices. • Natural interface module for live performance the VJ if one is involved; • Real time audio analysis and features extraction module. • A marketplace that will allow final users and creators sharing content. • VisualMusic Player providing the final user and the artists with the required interface to create and customize clips and themes. • Autoplay modes based on the audio analysis and other available inputs so that a video operator during sessions is not mandatory. • Full pack of clips and themes for the user to be able to use the tool out of the box.

What the project is looking to gain from the collaboration and what kind of artist would be suitable

One of the most important pieces for the success of VisualMusic is the full pack of clips and themes for the user to be able to use the tool out of the box. Some of the partners of VisualMusic, are capable to create their own basic contents as brick for their creations, but still remains the need to populate the marketplace with all kinds of proven clips and themes. The artist will create these contents by means of preliminary versions of VisualMedia which will help the projects in different senses: • Providing feedback to the development team about possible bugs and improvements. • Providing user partners with preliminary professional contents, so VisualMusic alpha and beta versions will be possible to be tested as soon as the software is ready.

Resources available to the artist

The company will provide the artist with a work place in the development office, with the following hardware and software tools: • Hardware. o Graphics Workstation o Kinect Sensor o LeapMotion Sensor o Mio Band • Software o VisualMedia suit o 3D Studio Max