animation video

[Ron Horn]

For those of you without kids watching PBS you missed this

http://youtu.be/XBOQcQO0IFI

[Aaron Goldsmith]

State of the art 1998 computer graphics!

[Q V]

That was really cool! THANKS!

[Will Kalman]

State of the art 1998 computer graphics!

I bought both Animusic 1 and 2 a few years ago when my kids were really little and they loved it. We still put them on once in a while.

The graphics themselves may not be sophisticated but the creativity in the virtual music-making machines is really good and according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animusic, the instruments are programmed to fire off in response to the MIDI data of the music itself, it's not just a rendered animation in time with music. ATI released a version that rendered in real-time to show off their video cards a while back.

"The company is known for its Animusic compilations of computer-generated animations, based on MIDI events processed to simultaneously drive the music and on-screen action, leading to and corresponding to every sound.
Unlike many other music visualizations, the music drives the animation. While other productions might animate figures or characters to the music, the animated models in Animusic are created first, and are then programmed to follow what the music "tells them" to. 'Solo cams' in the Animusic DVD shows how each instrument actually plays through a piece of music from beginning to end."

[John Stimson]

I remember seeing those during a pledge drive. Very cool. The fact that the virtual instruments are triggered by the music reminds me of a project I got to see in person last year: Pat Metheny's Orchestrion. Pat worked with some engineers to build a bunch of different mechanical instruments that he can be controlled directly with his guitar, or from a recorded sequence so that he can accompany himself or build an entire composition from individual layers played (originally) on his controller guitar.