An abstract narrative experience where touch and embodied interactions affect the story told through real-time 3D projected imagery, lighting and audio.
OVERVIEW
Created for SIGGRAPH's pioneering "Interactive Dance Club", MeldOrbs provides a unique multi-participant experience. Touch and proximity-sensors on the orbs produce visible effects in the projected imagery & audio to advance the narrative. Simultaneous contact from multiple users creates unique effects and branching of the journey; collaboration is rewarded.
In multiparticipant installations, feedback must be immediate and clearly associated with action among multiple and simultaneous signals.
THE JOURNEY OF THE ORBS
Collaborative participation is rewarded with unique experiences, such as the possibility of controlling multiple iso-surfaces (shapes that fluidly blend together). The visual experience expresses an abstract narrative, with many branching points, leading across varying landscapes; metaphors for states of unity or dissolution.
3D IMAGERY RENDERED IN REAL-TIME
The 3D graphics were created & managed in real-time with procedural-based Houdini software & SGI computers. Use of Houdini's procedural caching system allowed animated 3d data to be rendered at a high level of visual fidelity in real-time, resulting in an engaging experience.
Orb sensor wiring diagram, above.
Proximity sensors triggered state changes fluidly in the software's node-based networks. 3D objects, motion, & audio were painstakingly tuned for real-time interaction & high frame rate output.
Below, images from the Interactive Dance Club installation.
