As an addendum to the last story, Ivica Ico Bukvic sends along an example of the [myu] Max/MSP + Unity game engine combination in action. Here’s the surprise: Unity isn’t generating visuals. Instead, Unity simulates ripples created by movement in the space, and builds physical models that are sonified and spatialized by Max/MSP.

Speaking of work involving art museums and the combination of Max and Unity, VJ Anomolee notes in comments his own work with the pairing. Lightbent Synth is an in-progress piece with alternative controllers and sensors that produces sound with a novel visual representation (sound’s very quiet in this preview — more hopefully once it progresses):

Lightbent Synth from VJ Anomolee on Vimeo.

Ivica explains the top work:

Take a powerful game engine (for animation, 2D and 3D graphics, physics, and on-screen interaction). Add the flexibility of a visual development environment for programming with virtual patch cords, for rich sonic and musical capabilities plus easy interaction with data and input. That’s the idea of combining something like Unity 3D with Max/MSP. In the example from earlier today, the solution simply routed basic data from a Unity-based game to a responsive music engine in Max.

In the case of [myu] – the Max Unity Interoperability Toolkit – that integration goes further still. Developed at the DISIS (Digital Interactive Sound & Intermedia Studio) at Virginia Tech, [myu] allows bi-directional integration of the Unity engine with Max or Pd. The two tools use netsend/netreceive to send data via TCP and glue the two together.

For visualists using Jitter, you can even exchange texture data, which offers some mind-blowing powers for live visuals.

Download at Virginia Tech — bonus, an extension of the aka.wiiremote object so you can use the lovely Wii Fit controller, among various other projects
Discussion on the Unity Community Forums
Discussion on the Cycling ‘74 forum
Virginia Tech DISIS

As an interactive prototyping tool, this should have a lot of potential for lovers of patch-style programming.

Thanks to Dr. Ivica Ico Bukvic, DISIS Director and researcher, for sending in his project. I’ll be curious to see what other people might do with this.

I’ve just finished my first full day of the Game Developer Conference. While this is not Create Digital Games, there are some real highlights here, from ideas in music and visual production and experimental interface design to the work to promote and codify interactive music at the Interactive Audio SIG. Between GDC and the usual cast of characters in San Francisco, there’s a remarkable roster of folks. Text is in drafts, so stay tuned. The fundamental contradiction of all writing is that of being and recording your being. But to me, beneath headlines about development products or new games, these things are never-repeated assemblages of interesting people – and they’re usually the ones with the stories. If you happen to be around, give a holler.

I’m also connecting with our friends at Boing Boing and Boing Boing Offworld, and we’ll have some joint coverage this week and next. They’re crazy enough to be doing a live video stream, so if it’s during the day West Coast time you can see what they’re up to:

FMOD is a wildly popular sound engine for games, used widely in games for PCs, consoles, and portables alike. FMOD is known for being on the bleeding edge as far as capabilities, but even given that, it’s a pleasant surprise that the engine has now made its way to the iPhone and iPod touch.

It’s got some impressive capabilities going for it, too:

• Mic input
• 3D audio
• DSP effects
• Compressed samples, MOD, and MIDI

And, in good news for indie studios, it’ll cost just US$500 per title to license.

Of course, you can add this to Pure Data (Pd), which found its way to the mobile platform via the (partially open-source) RjDj project. RjDj is a music platform, not a game platform, but Pd has some powerful audio processing capabilities of its own, and I’d count them both in the category of interactive music. The RjDj gang will be having their next “sprint” – a developer intensive to build interactive scenes for the platform – in Berlin, with New York to follow in January. (I’ll be at the New York event, naturally.)

December is the time for the next RjDj sprint: The Reality Jockeys would like to invite you to the Scene composing session on 12-14 December 2008 in Berlin at this nice location: