Timing is key…

I realized that I’d been putting off working on the animation because I wanted to address the issue of timing my classmates brought up last friday: namely, I restored the master tempo to its original 120 bpm, and fixed minor timings in word animations (see the current version with crappy built-in audio here, but turn your volume down—it’s loud).  The music, up until tonight, wasn’t finished.  So, I sat myself down in GarageBand and finished recording everything.  I re-recorded the melody and baseline, determined the bridge and intro, and modified and finished the descant.  All told, it’s three tracks of piano some spliced together, and it plays very loudly instead of very quietly, which I consider a moderate improvement.  I wish I could make it sound like it does in my thoughts—I hear amazing sounds in my head but can’t get them out into daylight.  I’m satisfied with it but not enchanted.  I’m not sure I have the skill with keyboard-driven software instruments to enchant myself.  Volunteers?  No, seriously, I would love a cover of this.  I’d also love a new sewing machine, digital slr camera, and a sexy red foreign sports car, for the record.  And a kitten.

Code-wise, I’m looking at ways to combine all the circles into one MovieClip object, which I can then use as a mask.  I’m also trying to make things work with classes and packages, as it’s much cleaner.  I’m not sure where I want to put the socket (in its own class, with methods to talk to other classes; or in the main class).  I’ve discovered that, no matter the screen size or the number of circles, the flash implementation of the processing app starts to slow way down.  Ugh.  Distressing, particularly as I’m not sure if I can find an alternative.  I need to find out how to make Processing and Flash talk over the web, not just over my computer’s local ports.  That could be difficult.

I’m reading “Postmodern media culture” by Jonathan Bignell, which is turning out to be an interesting and informative read.  I’m also beginning to panic about getting everything done by the end of this term, but I’ll just keep working, staying up later and forcing myself to get up earlier as the term progresses.  I keep thinking, “I can do this, I can do this, I will not melt into a puddle of ectoplasm and stain the peculiar blue tiled carpet in my room…”  I went to Fencing, but my right ankle (specifically, the muscle/tendon that runs along the outside of the shinbone and serves to lifts your foot up/flex it toward your leg) burns when I try to step forward.  Having decided that I should not keep stressing it when it hurts so much, I skipped out after footwork, showered, ate dinner, and got to work.  Whee.  People were playing video games in the lounge as I went by, and later they watched a movie (The Devil Wears Prada).  If I’m not careful, I’ll pick up another fun book, and then where will I be?

Oh, children, children…

And parents.  Spent this afternoon (took a break around dinner, see below) and evening learning about parent-child relationships, event listeners, and classes in general.  I have decided to never again use timeline navigation for anything but animation… the class-based movie-clip stage method that Jody Hall explains so well in this tutorial is so slick and easy that I think even a beginner in both Flash and OOP (object-oriented programming) could understand and apply it.  I wish I’d read Hall’s work years ago—it’d've saved me loads of sweat and tears!  As it is, I find myself wanting to make an application (I did make one (Mac and PC) as a follow-along to the timeline tutorial), but I’ll be good and stick to my circles and animation!  I’ve been trying to devise an overall gameplan of how to structure the animation/underlayer/mask elements (and, later, how to incorperate Processing or run it alongside).  Thoughts: run animation on top of underlayer on the main timeline/screen, run mask over both.  Required: figure out how to run the two movieClips from ActionScript not timeline, figure out how to mask through AS, resolve circle animation issues, figure out how to use the circles as a mask through AS.  I can do this, I think… I can, I think I can, I think I can…  Three weeks, two papers, one animation and code problem.  Plus finals.

Other news: I biked to 5th St for falafel again (I’m getting mileage out of that twenty’s change, mum, thanks!) and went to see Whip It at the David Minor Theater; why they named it “minor” is a mystery to me, as I got my ID checked upon entrance, although I imbibed of no spirits.  Oh, and I finished Forty Thousand in Gehenna.  It was amazing, as all of Cherryh’s books seem to be.  Also amazing is my ability to partition off my brain from the panic that really ought to consume it this close to the end of the term.  Then again, my über-fast research/writing skills have never yet failed me, so it’s logical that my brain not panic, having never had a blow-up caused by failure to meet deadlines.  A child who has never been electrocuted can’t truly fear a live wire, right?  (I wouldn’t know; I stuck tweezers into an outlet when I was two, and that wasn’t my last encounter with high-voltage electricity; I’ve had four or so, to date: tweezer outlet, variable power source exposed alligator clip, light switch with exposed wiring, electric fence—with the back of my hand, of course!  Also, ask my mother about the things I used to eat/put in my mouth—paint, some strange orange chemical I found on a tree, sap my older sister told me was honey, any manner of household cleaning products, soap… the response from Poison Control to my mum’s repeated calls came to be, “What’s she eaten now?”)  Long tangent that was, eh?

UPDATE: I’m going to bed as soon as I post this , I swear (today’s migraine is getting nasty and I’m actually kind of tired, no thanks to my insomnia, and sleep and meds will do wonders for both), but I just had to do this now—I fixed everything but the radius problem on the flash end (big circles get too big), and here it is!  Plus the Processing apps in Mac and Windows.  You need to run the Processing app first, then the swf, and hope that the socket connection between them works!  If not, here’s the code for both.  And here are pictures at 320×240 and 640×480 of sample flash video feed, as the socket seems to be unhappy.  Methinks I must route it through the web or something…

Also, a small increase in stage size leads to a HUGE lag in animation… Will need to figure out how to work with or around this.  But, all in all, I’m VERY pleased with the progress made today.