Abstract
Lights inspiration is an interactive and sound-reactive visual tool for a specific song. It is composed by three different scenarios: in each of them there are 2D and 3D elements whose movements and size change on the basis of the amplitude or the frequency spectrum of the song. The user can navigate through these scenarios and interact with the elements by changing their color or their orientation in the 3D space. In the first scenario the main 3D element is composed by 8 tubes; each of them correspond to a band of the frequency spectrum of the song and the number of circles that compose the tube depends on the amplitude of the band, which is variable during the audio playback. In the second scenario, there is a central 3D regular polygon whose number of sides change continuously, their size depends on the volume of the song. There are also 8 groups of lines and circles around the polygon that move on the basis of the frequency spectrum. In the last scenario, there is a 3D tunnel in which there are cubes whose size depends on the volume of the song; the rectangles that compose the tunnel enlighten on account of the frequency spectrum.
Interface and Interaction Modality
This visual tool is played on a personal laptop by executing the source code. The user can interact with the computer program through the keyboard and the mouse. Depending on the chosen scenario, there are some keys that can change the colors of the element: by moving the mouse in the third and in the second scenario the user can change the orientation of the objects; by pressing it in the first and the second scenario he can change respectively the colors of the elements and of the background.
Technology
The code is written in Processing 3 by using the Sound library.
User experience
Lights inspirations is designed to play with the rhythm of the song, the movements, the colors and the gradient of the elements, by giving free rein to the creativity of the user.
Research and development context
The song played by this visual tool can be changed only by changing the source code. It might be interesting to give the user the possibility to choose one or more songs in a catalogue and see differences in the three scenarios on the basis of the chosen songs.
