Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player?
John Were you able to get a sense from the whole list of (a) which specific MIDI (or MIDI-like) features implementations are most desired; and (b) how much they'd be willing to pay for this in player size? - *** MIDI in Flash Player needs to implement Midi Show Control. - As follow-up to Tyler's blogsume and your question, here are the online key resources to implement the above Even implementing the old spec MSC 1.0 would be a great start for FlashMIDI. That has been superseded by v1.1 and discussion is now underway [October 2005] to design the next generation known as MD-MIDI.. MIDI Industry Investigates Major Update to MIDI Protocol http://www.midi.org/newsviews/hdmidipr.shtml Some references http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Show_Control#External_links MSC 1.0 http://www.richmondsounddesign.com/txt/mscspec.txt MID Manufacturers Association http://www.midi.org/ see page on complete 1.0 spec http://www.midi.org/about-midi/specinfo.shtml Partial list of Sound Show Control Projects that use MIDI Show Control http://www.midi.org/about-midi/msc/mscchart.shtml Finally, I highly recommend Adobe-Macromedia to run any plans for implementing MIDI in the Flash Player past the excellent people who populate the Show Control email forum. It's low volume very high signal to noise professional discussion [averages around 100 messages per month until you hit a hot topic :-)] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/show-control/ Closing comment: I'd argue for implementing MSC and not getting yoo hung up on MIDI sound as much. Focus on how easily MIDI can enable interoperabilty among the growing catalog of so many interestng devices and software. FlashMIDI would provide a valuable missing part of that environment by virtue of easily customizable user interfaces - superb scalable graphics and typogpraphy etc. The world of touch screesn, kiosks handhelds..They all need to interface with eaach other but also to sophisticated external hardware - videowalls, projectors etc. The data demands of these applicatosin are often quite small. You get a big bang for your buck and less perforamnce issues. That also makes it MSC an excellent candidate for MIDI in the FLash Player v1. I hope this helps Thank You. Best wishes Jason Cunliffe ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Re: 3D in Flash
Anyways, if anybody wants to know more let me know. Ralph, thanks for the follow-up posts. and Yes I'd love to hear more.. Including any specific examples about passing data control messages etc between your swf and the Viewpoint player. I hope this is of interest to other Flashcoders. At your discretion to take it off-list however. Browser hassles ? Error messages? Debugging methods between the two? Pros and Cons for you using SWF+Viewpoint? Sounds like you had the Viewpoint plugin floating over your SWF via CSS.. Any problems with tapping mouse clicks and movements ? Hearing about other peoples Workflow and coding experiences is always helpful. I am not surprised that you had to use forums and more, since not many have pushed Viewpoint yet. But that is also par for the course -- Direct-L was always essential for serious Director Lingo work, just as Flashcoders is to Actionscript . Q: Were Viewpoint developers responsive and on target for your needs? Q: Did you get the impression that stronger use of Flash is firmly on Viewpoint's roadmap or not? thanks Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Re: 3D in Flash
Ralph I looked into Viewpoint in some depth about 2years ago. Wonderful plugin. especuilly when used with Right Hemisphere products. http://www.righthemisphere.com/ Viewpoint is very powerful and mostly well documented it seemed. However the initial built-in Flash implementation was rather frustrating as it included no modern actoinsscript scripting and was limited to simple animated decals for 3D. Viewpoint is Uber cool when combin 3D with Flash and Poser choreography :-) Has Viewpoint Flash imporved much or is it planned to soon? love to know what you've been doing anyway and any general description of kinds of conenctivity paths you';ve forged - Flash XML sockets to Viewpoint API dynmaically etc. So many apps couldbe buildt with Viewpoint player, but so far all only simple catalog stuff is what I've seen .Shame really... Would be great to integrate Flash-Viewpoint seamlessly into Skechup3D workflow http://www.sketchup.com/ thanks Jason - Original Message - From: Ralph Caraveo [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flashcoders mailing list flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 2:30 AM Subject: RE: [Flashcoders] Re: 3D in Flash We've done some working merging Flash and Viewpoint. This is a gangsta approach beware...there's quite a huge learning curve but we have a fantastic product...to be released in January. -Ralph ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player?
Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player? YES PLEASE - I WANT MIDI in the Flash Player... Too many people assume MIDI is just for music, musicians and for musical instruments. It is not. Arguably MIDI's greatest success has been in interoperative hardware of many kinds. http://www.google.com/search?q=show+control In addition to keyboards, drum boxes, synths, FX devices and PCs, there is a valuable world of MIDI control surfaces which include Mixers. The control surfaces are rally a subset of the industrial uses of MIDI which fall under the rubrik MIDI SHOW CONTROL used by major entertainment developers for show biz extravaganzas, such as Rock and Broadway shows, Las Vegas themed developments and Theme parks like Disney World etc. Midi Show Control was at origin a broad and visionary protocol extension anticipating all kinds of devices and uses -- for example: laser discs [remember them], lighting systems, smoke machines, networked MPEG video players, hydraulic equipment, etc.. See list at end of this post or Check out the original 1991 spec MIDI SHOW CONTROL (MSC) 1.0 http://www.richmondsounddesign.com/txt/mscspec.txt THE SHOW CONTROL MAILING LIST There is a very intelligent and informative mailing list where dedicated professional Show Control developers discuss everything from precise programming issues, bug sleuthing, general brainstorming, security, project research and Show Control business. The list also addresses life beyond current MSC spec - next generation MIDI Show control if you will, Show Control over Ethernet, Wifi and so forth. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/show-control/ Let's be clear MIDI is only a subset of ShowControl. And most show control developers would not could not take Flash seriously for many applications and formany reasons - at least until now perhaps/ Among the obvious that there was NO midi, no hardware I/o, and not even an attempt to syncchronize sound with video. Flash sucks compared to other systems. Likewise Public security of big instsallations could be a nightmare in a theme park based on Flash. But the name of the game is to use each tool for what it doews BEST. And as all here know, Flash has some special virtues. So for designing and developing end user interfaces, especially the many stages of design mockups, aided by the growing portability of Flash makes it very attractive. For Show Control applications, Flash 8 offers convivial, easily customizable options. Thus the need for MIDI. In reality even if Flash had MIDI in the player, [which it should], full professional use would be limited due to likely timing unreliability. There are better and well known tools for handling that. But Show Control developers are famously ingenious and route around most problems by combining technologies in new ways, optimizing the benefits of each. For small scale applications or where timing and public safety are not an issues, MIDI in the Flash Player opens up a fascinating new world of using FLASH to drive an exciting range of external media hardware. Flash will probably never be able to compete with the likes of MAX, PD [PureData], KeyKit and others. But given the skill of programmers on this list I would not be surprised at what emerges, especially when used WITH those other MIDI-friendly hardware and software. KeyKit [Tim Thompson] FREE http://nosuch.com/keykit/ PD [PureData] FREE http://puredata.info/ http://www-crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software.html GEM for PD GEM stands for Graphics Environment for Multimedia and is an external (plugin) for the computer-music software PD. http://gem.iem.at/ MAX/MSP [commercial sold by Cycling74] http://www.cycling74.com/products/index.html Be sure to look at 'Jitter' - a set of over 150 brilliant video, matrix, and 3D graphics objects for the Max programming environment. http://www.google.com/search?q=max+msp Today we can begin to freely experiment interfacing Flash to the above using Alexis Isaac's promissing Flash MIDI and the plugin he has developed http://www.alexisisaac.net/products/flashMidi/ The goodies emerging rapidly in the world of Processing further suggest why Flash Player should include MIDI. http://processing.org/ enjoy, Jason *** excerpt from MSC 1.0 spec *** Hex command_format -- 00 reserved for extensions 01 Lighting (General Category) 02 Moving Lights 03 Colour Changers 04 Strobes 05 Lasers 06 Chasers 10 Sound (General Category) 11 Music 12 CD Players 13 EPROM Playback 14 Audio Tape Machines 15 Intercoms 16 Amplifiers 17 Audio Effects Devices 18 Equalisers 20 Machinery (General Category) 21 Rigging 22 Flys 23 Lifts 24 Turntables 25 Trusses 26 Robots 27 Animation 28 Floats 29 Breakaways 2A Barges 30 Video (General
Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player?
oops, I forgot to include links to the I-CUBEX set of MIDI sensors http://infusionsystems.com/catalog/all_categories.php?osCsid=540ddd8aa0ac63e6fb8054c988afefd4 and to Alcorn McBride Show Control equipment http://www.alcorn.com/products/showcontrol/index.html Jason ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player?
Yes, MAXMSP and PureData are nice applications, do you know how to trigger a AppleScript with MaxMSP? I would like to change a playlist in iTunes when a specific value is set. If you know something may I contact you off list? Sorry I am not up on Applescript at all... Try contracting some of these people: http://www.synthesisters.com/hypermail/max-msp/Sep05/30402.html good luck, Jason ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player?
MIDI bandwidth demands can be very misleading. So routing via XML sockets, Jabber whatever is _great_ for some applications and hopeless real-time performance-wise for others. Just depends.. Consider simple example of even few sliders built in Flash app from which you want to send/receive continuous control messages to some midi device. XIFF library might come in handy for passing non-real-time Flash MIDI in collaborative apps. For example remote Flash driven Audio/Video jukebox type instruments remixing hardware playback from Flash-TiVos. This could mean an end to Flash Video horrors and much more like interactive video apps that Director suggested way back when.. Re: interface idea, I encourage everyone to play with KeyKit. It has a brilliant unique modular interface GUI design including a lovely idea of savable 'pages'. Stuff like that can now finally be done in Flash. without too much grief. [Based on Plan9 I think.]. If anyone has a heads-up on actionscript to do that, I'd love to hear from them. Keykit has so much to inspire and offer FlashMIDI. Cross platform, programmable free, fun, very different. KeyKit could make a powerful background midi processor for FlashMIDI uses. For example already includes a neato telnet interface.Nasty timing MIDI timing and routing issues could be handled by KeyKit, Flash could do cool parts of the interface. oh And let's not forget GeoMaestro KeyKit extension: http://www.zogotounga.net/GM/eGM0.html I believe adding MIDI to the Flash Player could have similar catalytic creative effect to when Atari first built a MIDI port into their computers -- opening the floodgates to some of the best original sequencer software like Dr Ts. Commodore Amiga did the same thing when they included Video in gamut. Revolutionary in its day and still some great ideas from that machine have not reappeared .. like multiple multi-tasked 'screens' you can switch between. Avoided the hideous visual clutter we have since advent of rectangular windows forever. KeyKit Pages is actually a pickup on that same interface idea. Now that PCs and now [again] merging deeper with consumer video appliances in the form of new DVD recorders all with Tivo functions, it seems to me that Flash _should_ be an ideal user interface environment. - Jason ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player?
Hank Can you expand on that idea please. Sounds interesting... thanks, Jason - Original Message - From: hank williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flashcoders mailing list flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 3:26 PM Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] Who wants MIDI in the Flash Player? Of course, in thinking about this, with the new binary socket functionality, midi control could all be done by just writing a simple localhost to midi gateway. This would be pretty simple to do, and is probably what is needed anyway to deal with different drivers etc. And it makes total sense that if you want to control some local hardware that you need to download a piece of software. problem solved!! :) Regards Hank ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
[Flashcoders] Microsoft tweaks browser to avoid liability
Can anyone clarify please what changes will now need to be made by Flash authors ? CNET article yesterday: -- Microsoft tweaks browser to avoid liability -- Microsoft is changing the way its Web browser handles certain controls in an effort to shield itself from liability in an ongoing patent spat with a start-up backed by the University of California. see the full text article here: http://news.com.com/Microsoft+tweaks+browser+to+avoid+liability/2100-1012_3-5980658.html thanks ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
