Lemur

JAMIE ROBERTS: well yesterday i finally finished programming the lemur patch. the lemur will be used as a touch interface for the drug selection process of the installation. 

initially i had a few problems with the radio button object within the lemur itself. i was having problems retrieving the values of each individual buttons.

so instead a opted to use the midiout function in max to communicate with the lemur via the Jazzdemeon MIDI input 0 and outputs 0. this allowed me to use three custom buttons and treat them as radio buttons (so when one is press the rest switch off)

i will upload some screen shots after the weekend 

P.S it would be really nice if the research studio had access to the internet

STEPHEN REILLY: The idea for the audio so far.
As soon as a user steps in front of the brain a drone will play showing that the interaction has started and the user will reveal the different parts by pressing the buttons on the model head. I will upload the drone soon, I have got a few loops off my friend Joe which are probably suitable.
I am going to arrange 4 short audio tracks to resemble the brain sections. I am going to use sampled drum beats, melodies, vocals etc. These will run continuously and quickly fade in when selected by the user.

An extra part of the interaction will show how the effect of drugs on the brain, we have decided to show the effects of cannabis and cocaine. I am currently researching these effects. So the 4 original sounds will be affected by filters, delays, wave-shaping, pitch shifting in max msp hopefully letting the user feel a grasp of the effect. There will be buttons activating these effects, which will trigger audio resembling the particular drug. There will also be an wet/dry amount to show different levels of intoxication.

Start of the max Patch

JAMIE ROBERTS: today i start programing the various control and key inputs within max.

The interface Max patch will be relatively small in design and quite simple in programming.

however it soon came to my attention there would be a few problems along the way.

1st problem to date: for each of the button that will be place on the head a bang will output within max to trigger the relevant video and audio crossfade.

however to i realized that if the user where to press down a second button while still holding the first one then let go both videos would crossfade back to the start screen thus cutting out both videos.

i struggled for while to find a solution the Rob mills came up with a system of 0 1's attached to the gate object this cut out the keyup object if another button had been pressed .

Problem solved !

 

ROB MILLS: Researched the effects of the chosen drugs on the different areas of the brain.

I then used this information to get ideas of ways i could alter/effect the video to represent these effects.

Added blur effect, colour editing and frame skipping to each video which will be triggered and the amount changed using Jamie's interface when drugs are selected.

Next main job......video sourcing....oh dear..

Meeting and ldeas

JAMIE ROBERTS: well after much head straining over the final idea we have managed to envision the final thing today. we deiced to go down the more abstract educational route (if that makes sense) rather than the straight up educational experience. this also mean our target audience has shift a few year into the adult audience.

as my role is the interface of the project my max patch is going to be quite simple however i have to learn new techniques such as soldering this could prove difficult.

i'm aiming to finish the soldering by the end of the week 

ROB MILLS: Programmed a cross-fade between four videos to be triggered externally. Boom..