Re: Soft for Dancers Up Date #2/ Articles On Line[wasDear Armando & Antonio, May I thank you for your narratives; this discussion is really getting interesting, sorry I have not joined in before... partly I wished to see how it would pan out before jumping in. It is now getting very wide based, multi threaded and wish to address a "few" issues. I tend to find more agreement with Armando's replies in respect to "Movement vs. Gesture", "Velocity Peeking", "Emotional Engagement", and "Psychological Archetypes", but now wish to diverse into what I consider to be a more fundamental principal of software development: "What are you trying to achieve?". "Given enough resources - I can develop anything...." seems to be a common drive of mankind. I have just had the 'timing' fortune to see Spielberg's (aka Kubrick's) A.I. feature film last night, which unintentionally (i.e. not script writer intention) brought up some very serious questions about commercial exploitation that they seemed to overlook... mainly WHY create a sentient avatar - regardless of Hollywood happy ending stories. I had a discussion with a well known Visual Effects company a few years back when they asked me how long it would be until I could generate a fully synthetic, visually unquestionable, representations of a human actor. When I asked why, they replied because the client did not want to pay background extras (actors) royalty right every time they aired the commercials. OK.. I'm not going to go off one a commercial exploits argument, but what I would like to discuss is the INTENTIONS / APPLICATIONS of the types of software you would like to use or create. Everyone so far has put forward very good and constructive aspects of tools development without ever saying HOW they want to use them (Armando / mjumbe describe methods of implementation via scripting, but never describes the application). As a software developer, it is essential to know know why people are using a tools as much as knowing how, and I would like to ask if you would ideally like a computer to totally synthesis it's own dance choreography, or whether you would like better tools for pre/visualise 3D animations of your own performances, or whether they would like to have computer augment visual/audio performances in Real/Non Real time...etc... What are the fundamental OUTPUTs you are trying to achieve? I agree that a library of "microdances" is 'almost' essential for any of the above, but what interest me more as a MoCap expert is why you would go to the trouble of recording 50 microdances, bolting them together (with some emotional variables/blending factors) and generating a 3D representation of a continuous dance segment of performance - rather than just capturing the thing in the first place. This comes back to the discussion about emotional content, and I propose that a singular performer (human real person) will give a more congruent, sensitive, comprehensive, and component compliant performance with "tonal" harmony than a piece-meal compilation of microdances. If you disagree - I would ask WHY would you WANT a computer to produce a congruent.........harmony performance all by itself. Are you doing it because it is there to be done? Or are you doing it for personal artistic merits? If you fall into the first category I would like to ask where you think the boundaries of A.I. movement interaction should become a moral debate (please do not reply that Art & Morals should not be discussed together - unconstructive), and if you fall into the latter - could you please be more specific about you "product" or "presentation" that you wish to achieve. I feel that what I have written my fallen short of expectations of "artists", but I whish to get a better grasp of the OBJECTIVE and QUALITATIVE expectations of digital choreographers. For example I was pleased to see Merce Cunningham's "Biped" presentation at the Barbican - London last year - I was impressed with much of the graphical interpretation of body movement to abstract illustration / graphic art, but disappointed when a "raw video representation" of mocap markers came flooding across the screen - for me this is like seeing the dust on the inside of a cathode ray tube and someone stating "wow - look at the art in the fact we are using optical motion capture markers (i.e. ping pong balls)" - sorry it a part of the process I see every day, day in, day out, not piece of art just because it has been put into a context of an auditorium (personal critique - sorry).9 In terms of software, visualisation / presentation, tools development, what OUTPUT / RESULT would you like to achieve - maybe debate this before debating what process / language you would implement? Food for thought, Richard Widgery richardw@kinetic-impulse.com -------------------------------------------------------- KINETIC IMPULSE Digital Performance Art & Science http://www.kinetic-impulse.com --------------------------------------------------------
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