School project, not a clue how to use MAX/MSP/Jitter PLEASE READ AND REPLY

    CNLacy
    Dec 04 2011 | 8:58 pm
    Hi, for a class project we have to create a program in Max. My team pretty much left me out to dry on doing it, and I have no clue how to use this software. I have a bunch of premade patch things, and 2 days to create it. Hopefully if I get some help from you guys, it won't take that long.
    What I need it to do.
    Play a video of rain on a loop with sound. When my microphone hears a noise above a certain sound level, it plays a thunder sound (maybe with a lightning picture overlaid onto the rain video if thats possible)
    What I would LIKE it to do in addition to the above. Using frame differencing and this patch my teacher gave us called Quadrants, I was hoping that the more movement it registered in the top 2 sections the faster the video would play. Then if it registered a certain amount of movement in the bottom 2 sections, it would play a quick splash sound clip.
    The idea is that the people in front of the webcam are interacting with each other and the program, "creating" a storm.
    Any input on how to do this would be fantastic, I'm using a trial version of Max 6, an Imac with an iSight camera. If you can help and need any other information, please respond and I'll get it to you ASAP.
    • seejayjames
      Dec 04 2011 | 10:24 pm
      jit.qt.movie for the video snapshot~ and >~ for detecting audio threshold. If above threshold, sfplay~ your thunder sound. if you want overlaid lightning, use a second jit.qt.movie and combine them with jit.xfade.
      changing video speed: "rate" message to jit.qt.movie. If you have this "Quadrants" patch already, take its output and use it to change the rate. Same for the bottom quadrants, if it goes past a threshold, play your splash sound.
      look to the [scale] object to get the parameters right when taking one type of numerical data and converting it to a different one, where the range needs to be different (i.e.: if you get "300" for an X-position, you probably don't want to set the movie rate to 300, but more like 2.5 perhaps. Experiment...)
      note: jit.qt.movie playing backwards is possible but the sound will be weird at best and cause playback problems at worst, at least I remember it doing this. So if you want to change the speed a lot, use a movie clip without sound, then play a sound file separately.
      Check the help files for all these objects, you can do it!