Text-to-speech systems have been in development for a very long time. One that I use frequently for creating placeholder dialog in games is the AT&T Labs Natural Voices text-to-speech demo. It’s a free service that enables the user to type out any phrase and then download an audio file with that phrase spoken by any number of synthesized accents. For the most part they sound very realistic! The only caveat is that some words need to be spelled phonetically to translate well.
So it was with great pleasure that I discovered the website Xtranormal.com. Xtranormal has a web-based procedurally generated storyboard application as well as a downloadable version. I’ve attached my first text-to-video project as an example. It’s a parody of Stanley Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Here is my source. Note the icons that were dragged and dropped into the script to trigger animations, camera positions, facial expressions and even a sound effect!
What I like about this software is that it makes the process of concepting film very easy, and allows for the rapid expression of ideas. Video is rendered within the browser as well!
There are a few bugs that they still need to work out, but I’d imagine that they will fix them soon. If you move the mouse too much while editing in the browser, it will reset your project and there are some issues with formatting video during the publishing process. Overall, this is a fun and useful set of tools for kids and professionals alike.
In the past two years or so, we’ve been seeing more and more videos where people sample video and audio in combination and sequence them in interesting ways.
This most recent video however, takes a very new approach. Using Pulp Fiction as source material, the editor of this video created a 6 part montage of sound effects and musical samples from the film to build a new experience. The brilliance of this is that by taking source material that is familiar to us all, the technique becomes accessible.
Considering that people enjoy making these vid-sequences and their popularity is growing, I’d imagine that we will begin to see apps that make the process of creating these videos fun and easy.
Billie Tweets is a Twitter based tribute to Michael Jackson by the open source software developers 9Astronauts. It combines Michael Jackson’s video of Billie Jean with a karaoke style scrolling of lyrics highlighted word by word from recent tweets. Each word in the song is pulled from a new “tweet” and displayed on the website in time with the music. It’s a very forward thinking presentation and worth looking at.
In Bb 2.0 is one of the more interesting websites I’ve seen in a while. “In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls.”
Darren Solomon requested that fans record and post videos in the same key. He then assembled selected videos on one webpage, effectively transforming a browser into a web-based audio video mixing board.
Because all the videos are in the same key, they mix harmonically and sound very natural. The different elements are not in the same tempo but this interactive song is not driven by rhythm. Each piece fits an ambient vibe and they all blend well. It’s a very cool concept and one that I’m sure we’ll be seeing more interpretations of in the future.
I find ferrofluid to be fascinating. Ferrofluid is a fluid which polarizes in the presence of a magnetic field. This means that if you send a magnetic burst through it, you can create a visible ripple. With steady magnetic fields, you could sculpt the liquid into any form imaginable! As soon as the magnetic field is gone, the liquid loses it’s form.
I’d imagine that it was the inspiration for Terminator 2.
“LiquidAudio was a course project for ECE362 at Purdue University. It takes in an audio signal from a standard stereo jack and outputs the average amplitude of 5 frequency bands in a pool of ferrofluid.
This video demonstrates the project to the music of “Wildcat” by Ratatat. ”
More Ferrofluid
Water
This is an excellent demonstration of Faraday waves. Faraday waves are standing waves that appear on liquids encased in a vibrating container. As the frequency of vibration changes, so does the visible pattern on the surface of the water.
Non-Newtonian Fluid
Water and corn starch on a speaker. Non-Newtonian fluid behaves as a liquid until force is exerted on it, in which case it behaves like a solid. By placing non-newtonian fluid on a subwoofer, the rapidly oscillating pressure waves cause the fluid to splash very slowly.
If you filled a pool with non-newtonian fluid, you could run across it and swim in it!
What I like about this software is that it makes the process of concepting film very easy, and allows for the rapid expression of ideas. Video is rendered within the browser as well!
