[jitter] About my MS thesis project in Audio Engeering (but actually nothing related to Audio Engineering)

Hi,

MJ encouraged me to post my thesis project here. I started my thesis project at Dec, 2006. I finish almost all the patches. All I need to do is put all the patches together and do the final adjustments. 

The reason I didn't post the idea of my thesis earlier is because I know I am just a newbie of Max/MSP and jitter, I studied Max/MSP for one year and I studied jitter for just 5 months -- all by myself. I am not sure I can really finish my project. I have already explain (in the other post) that the reason I want to use Max/MSP and jitter for my thesis instead of choose audio engineering-related topics, so I am not going to say it again. 

I think this is a simple project for many of you (I know you guys are all superman) but is really NOT easy for me because of my programming background. So please don't laugh at me if you think my project is too easy or too stupid. 

The basic idea is I built a fish tank and I use iSight to track 5 different color fishes. After I get those 5 different fishes' position (x,y), I sent those position back to Max to do bunch of math/calculations and send it to MSP to the MSP synthesizer and to Ableton Live 5 through MIDI/Rewire. I also make bunch of animations in After Effects and Flash (simple flash action script 1 so flash file can get fishes' position). That's why I need those movie files and flash files can be playback in jitter. And the positions I get from fishes will be the very important reference numbers of my movie playback like position, size, rotation, zoom, blending mode.....etc. By the way, I also put a "green screen" in the back of the fish tank so I can use jit.chromakey to key out the green screen and combine/blend fishes' images into the movie files I made. That is the basic idea of my project. I actually add more details of it.

I hope everybody understand what I am talking about. I just want to create a environment which is totally "Native" and "Natural" as best as I can. My problem is I can not do anything I want because of my patch skill is still poor (or you can say sucks)....so I just try my best. However, I almost finish all the patches. I just need to put them together. Besides, I don't have any time now because my professors are waiting for the final defense. 

There are two things I still not very satisfied: One is I send MIDI information to Ableton Live so I can remote Live's effects and loop points.......but I still need more ideas to make the loops in Live sound more "live". I mean, even I put more then 15 loops in live and use effects randomly and choose playback point randomly, I am still afraid that audience will get boring after keeping listening my music over 15 minutes. What I can do is just stop/start playback audio randomly or make playback stop/start by fishes' speed (I created a patch which can detect fishes' swimming speed, so if their swimming speed is lower then a level, the music will stop, only video shows)

The second thing is I don't know how to perfectly sync the MSP synthesizer I create in MSP with Live. (I tried but I failed). To make audio sounds better and reasonable is really not easy. 

This is supposed to be a quiet ok project for you guys but not a easy project for me especially I have only learned Max/MSP for few months. I have already show my demo (except jitter part) to my professor and he think it is fine for him. However, I still think it is not enough because my professors knows nothing about Max/MSP (the degree I am taking and the department is not focus in this area) 

Right now I need to do the final adjustments and make sure everything runs well.  ( I mean, everything MUST runs well in my PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 and my PowerBook G4 1.2) MJ told me that there are one people have already used fish tracking idea before. I believe(and I hope) that my project is different from this guy and there is no way to go back or redo my project. 

Here I am opening for any additional ideas or advice for my project especially in MSP and Live 5 part. I also want to thanks for everybody's help, Wesley, MJ, Stefan, Vade....I mean, everybody who had ever answered my stupid questions before. You guys really help me a lot, I can not finish this project without this forum and all of you. Pleas take my best respect and my big thanks.

CK