I decided to come full circle to something I abandoned almost a decade ago. Computer programming, more specifically generated animation.
I'm opting for something more appealing to the motion graphics industry, music derived animation.
I am hoping to use Fast Fourier Transformations to create informational arrays from music, to create a bed on which my animation is driven in MEL, now there is no FFT/DSP analytical code with in MEL, so I have to turn to Maya's integrated Python shell system. So... meaning aside from just learning MEL which I only just started learning this quarter, I now also have to learn how to code in Python. Yeesh, I know... Good news is it's extremely close to Java, which I took freshman year in college, bad news is this was at San Diego State University so I never really paid attention, skipping class is the campus's favorite pastime. Worst yet it's been years since, so what little morsels of knowledge I did retain.. is buried underneath years of drawing and painting and sculpting... not easy to dig out. So its back to square one, worst yet.. Fast Fourier Transformations on principle I know what it does, but how it works remains a mysterious black box, and any explanations have required Linear Calculus and Algebra knowledge.. stuff I haven't given a thought about(thank god) since 10th grade..
But please allow me the pleasure of explaining the basic premise of the visual elements, the screen starts off black and weird optical abstractions(almost dust like) come to obscure the screen, from which as the music comes to play reveals a dancing bed of light which of course is driven by the music, then particles flow through the screen and warp around an invisible object, at first the shots are close ups and done in obscuring angles as the music becomes more full more particles are flowing revealing a sillouette of an elephant walking along this bed of light creating a wake in the particles passing over its body. At some point some of these particles cling to the sky and hold as everything else begins to fade away, these particles one by one grow into bell flower buds, then blossoms then bloom into full bell flowers, to which they evolve even further into flower shaped jellyfish. The music obviously takes off in another direction and the jellies begin to swim towards the sky, they pass by the elephant shilouette revealing their giant nature of their size. The Jelly's keep swiming and speed up as the music once again intensifies to the point where they once again evolve into speeding comets towards what appears to be a blackhole(this could change at some point) they burst through the black hole like a jet though clouds and emerge into this colorful nebula like place(the music really goes crazy at this point) where it gets really intense and visually abstract(this part will be done in fluids and will have the least amount of generated animation) and the movie intensifies to white with the music, and goes to credits.
I guess one can think of it as 2008's version of Fantasia only without the racist undertones.
I'm currently working with an experimental band Pain Plane based in San Diego to help create some music specifically for this piece.
I also found several libraries for use in python which helps provide FFT code and MP3/Wav class functions, learning to use them is gonna take some time tho, and learning to get that to work with MEL, might take longer. Worst Case scenario I have methods of doing it without code.
I'll complete a few more concept paintings to help illustrate my ideas.
heres a screen cap from a particle test.. its about 70% of there way there.
