Animusic

[Koko Ed]

Way cool robot animation I came across on PBS.

Created using 3-D Studio Max

[BuddyB309]

oh these guys. my friend has one of there dvds

[RoboJedi75]

Yeah, one of my team members has the dvd. It's really great animation (and music ). I wonder how they actually did some of that.

[Elgin Clock]

w0w.. I'm uber impressed!!! (that means I'm totally impressed) lol

I'm thinking I want ot see some of that work on a big screen (maybe during the social) in Atlanta.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

w0w.. I'm uber impressed!!! (that means I'm totally impressed) lol

I'm thinking I want ot see some of that work on a big screen (maybe during the social) in Atlanta.

Maybe they should use them for the FIRST theme song.

[miketwalker]

I've been a big fan of the Animusic series since I ran into them on PBS a few years back. For the animation gurus of FIRST, they need to check this out. As was stated before, this is 3d studio max at it's finest. The 2 primary animators and music creators have developed a midi-powered animation system. The system actually takes individual channel inputs from midi files (each instrument having its own file) and create an animation algorithm to play the instruments as they'd like.

The final animation actually just becomes a rendered music file. They input the track and the animation automatically generates all of the movements that you see. So, for example, if you see it hit one drum then the drum next to it... there was no person animating that. The system actually takes the input and thinks like a musician would and gets into position to play it, and it'll hit it at the strength of the beat and such just like a real person would.

So, if they wanted to completly change the entire animation all they would have to do is plug another track in and every movement would sync with it perfectly. The only by-hand thing in the end product animation is the camera angles and lighting.

The technology behind it is incredibly impressive, I'd highly suggest people interested in animation and just the algorithms that do this so some research because it's one of the most impressive things in computer animation, and you'll respect the animations so much more when you can actually see how amazingly well it's constructed.

[Cody Carey]

Bam! Youtube link http://www.youtube.com/v/Gm1Wn_77z9g"

[Mazin]

Actually, I was thinking about doing the same thing with MIDI files quite some time ago, but on a simpler scale. I just wanted to make a piano and a script that would take MIDI files and animate the keys moving. Never got around, because I don't know anything about MIDI's data structure.

[RobertK]

Yeah, those are incredible. Some of our team has the DVDs... very nice software. Can't wait to get my 3D junkie mitts on it.