Roger Pibernat Trias, Glen Fraser
Animatron is an experimental environment (very much “work in progress”) that enables creation of “visual poetry” in the form of animations and images, created in real-time through live coding. It’s implemented using the open-source Godot engine, and communicates with any “client” application or live coding language — such as SuperCollider — via the network, using the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol and MIDI. In the workshop the participants will learn: • how to install the software • how to setup the system for playing both solo and collaboratively • the basics of creating and controlling frame-by-frame animations via OSC • how to create new image sequences • how to define custom OSC message definitions • how to set custom MIDI mappings to control the animations No prior experience or software installation is required, although proficiency in any live coding language that supports OSC is welcome.
The abstract is displayed here for proof-reading and will only be part of the published proceedings, not of the final version of this web catalogue.
Animatron is an experimental environment (very much “work in progress”) that enables creation of “visual poetry” in the form of animations and images, created in real-time through live coding. It’s implemented using the open-source Godot engine, and communicates with any “client” application or live coding language — such as SuperCollider — via the network, using the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol. There are a lot of live coding languages for visuals –we all know and admire Olivia’s fantastic Hydra–. Most of them, if not all, are meant to create video synthesis by means of shader manipulation. Animatron’s base element, on the other hand, is the image sequence, the frame-by-frame traditional 2D animation. Compared to audio, Hydra and other shader-based live coding systems would be similar to synthesizers, while Animatron would be more of a sampler. The word used is environment, and not language, because Animatron is language agnostic. It’s controlled via OSC (Open Sound Control) and MIDI. It can be used from any other live coding language able to send OSC and MIDI messages, and even from MIDI gear. Since it’s live coded via OSC, live coding practitioners need only to learn the OSC syntax in order to use the system, and they can do so from the language they are currently using. For those that use a language lacking OSC capabilities, as well as for the newcomers, a simple language will be presented (which one is to be determined – we’re working on a very simple editor). As stated above, Animatron is controlled via the network. This allows for many livecoders to control a single Animatron instance running on a remote machine, hence being able to live code animations collaborativeley, with hardly any installation procedure. Animatron’s repository provides a short collection of image sequences (assets), but users are encouraged to add their own animations. These assets can be loaded into the system without having to recompile or even stop the program. Same goes for new and custom OSC message definitions. They can be created live. The OSC interface has been designed to be extendable using OSC itself. It’s sort of a proto live coding language (Open Control Language?) where the user can define new OSC messages combining existing ones. MIDI mappings are also set with OSC messages. Even the configuration files for Animatron are lists of OSC messages. The system is currently being actively developed, but we reckon it’s mature enough for other users to play with it, and are willing to present it to the community in the form of a workshop.