{"id":537,"date":"2015-06-28T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-06-28T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/?p=537"},"modified":"2019-08-22T20:10:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T20:10:21","slug":"drummer-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/drummer-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Drummer Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"DrummerGameTrailer_WIP\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/20514578?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Drummer Game\u00a0<\/em>(2011) is an EAGER-funded project (National Science Foundation, grant no. 0940723) focusing on the implementation of an interactive multimedia spectacle featuring Chinese terracotta soldiers. Two teams consisting of six drummers control six cohorts of terracotta soldiers and issue orders to their respective cohort using a series of rhythmic patterns, each representing a\u00a0particular command. The goal of the spectacle is simple&#8211;beat the other army. Shrink-wrapped into all this are a series of newly developed technologies and their respective research vectors, including GPU-based crowd simulation (led by a collaborator Yong Cao), the development of 3D visual assets (led by collaborator Dane Webster who is also the author of the video linked above), and my contributions: an unconventional\u00a0approach to analog signal input and analysis from a series of authentic and very much resonant Chinese war drums, including a combination of dynamic time warping and &#8220;binpass&#8221; FFT filtering and amplitude tracking, and a new situation-aware soundtrack engine that provides seamless and musically satisfying transitions between different states (e.g. attack, retreat, march, stand, win, loss, etc.) by ensuring that all transitions occur on a downbeat, obey the meter and tempo (including changing tempi), and pull transitioning material from a database of appropriate options (based on the combination of\u00a0starting and ending states).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-546\" src=\"http:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Patterns-1024x455.jpg\" alt=\"Drummer Game rhythmic patterns and commands\" width=\"730\" height=\"324\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Patterns-1024x455.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Patterns-300x133.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0two audio-centric\u00a0components have been encapsulated in a new audio engine codenamed\u00a0<em>Aegis <\/em>capable of utilizing audio snippets of varying granularity and supporting database of possible entry points, so as to ensure maximum variety while retaining structural integrity of a precomposed work. Consequently, in addition to the ensuing musical conundrum consisting of\u00a0six cohorts being led by six drummers, each issuing unique commands to their respective cohort, the entire team is accompanied by a soundtrack that best reflects their current state. The system is\u00a0also affected by\u00a0audience input\u00a0whose cumulative loudness (cheering) and the amount of light generated using their smartphones and other light-emitting devices would influence\u00a0their team&#8217;s\u00a0overall morale. Although the final production was limited to a more controlled environment,\u00a0the project yielded a complete scalable and easily expandable audio engine realized in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cycling74.com\">MaxMSP<\/a> with supporting content. Another challenge posed by the project was the use of authentic Chinese war drums whose resonance resulted in profuse signal cross-contamination through sympathetic vibration and called for a careful consideration of alternative\u00a0signal capture techniques.<\/p>\n<p>Above, you can see\u00a0a list\u00a0of patterns the initial engine was capable of recognizing, and below are two musical excerpts&#8211;one showing transitions between various states using musically appropriate transition material, and the second one being a parody\u00a0that uses silly, out-of-context transition material instead in order to clearly delimit\u00a0transition boundaries and showcase their meter sync, as well as the strong beat awareness. Musically, soundtrack snippets were composed as placeholders with the primary goal of testing and assessing audio engine&#8217;s capabilities. They were put together with contributions from two of my undergraduate research assistants, Michael Matthews and Jonathan Utt.<\/p>\n<p>Research Team:<br \/>\nIvica Ico Bukvic (Co-PI)<br \/>\nYong Cao (VT)<br \/>\nDane Webster (VT)<br \/>\nFrancis Quek (VT, PI)<\/p>\n<p>Listening Examples:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/Audio\/drummer_game_normal.mp3\">Normal transitions<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/Audio\/drummer_game_spoof.mp3\">Parodied transitions<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Research Publications:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/iem.kug.ac.at\/fileadmin\/media\/institut-17\/icad15\/proceedings150707_2.pdf\">Bukvic, I., and *Matthews M. (2015).\u00a0AEGIS AUDIO ENGINE: INTEGRATING A REAL-TIME ANALOG SIGNAL PROCESSING, PATTERN RECOGNITION, AND A PROCEDURAL SOUNDTRACK IN A LIVE TWELVE-PERFOMER SPECTACLE WITH CROWD PARTICIPATION. International Conference on Auditory Displays (pp. 35-43). Graz, Austria: IEM.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drummer Game\u00a0(2011) is an EAGER-funded project (National Science Foundation, grant no. 0940723) focusing on the implementation of an interactive multimedia spectacle featuring Chinese terracotta soldiers. Two teams consisting of six drummers control six cohorts of terracotta soldiers and issue orders to their respective cohort using a series of rhythmic patterns, each representing a\u00a0particular command. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,34,3,96,97],"tags":[109,200,201,204,198,203,205,197,316,14,196,20,199,202],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-collaboration","category-portfolio","category-research","category-software","tag-109","tag-aegis","tag-audio-engine","tag-binpass","tag-chinese-drums","tag-dane-webster","tag-dynamic-time-warping","tag-eager","tag-francis-quek","tag-maxmsp","tag-nsf","tag-real-time-dsp","tag-terracotta-soldiers","tag-yong-cao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ico.bukvic.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}