Windows MIDI conversion question

[J. Landman Gay]

On 8/18/04 4:21 PM, Erik Hansen wrote:

> --- "Ken Norris (dialup)"
> <pixelbird at interisland.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>we (I) desperately need Shakobox for
>>
>>Windows.
>>
>> somehow figure out timing for playback,
> 
> 
> ay, there's the rub.
> 
> 
>>What is it, exactly, that you want to do? Why
>>can't you just create MIDI
>>files with one of the softwares available for
>>Windows and incorporate them
>>into your stacks?
> 
> 
> my graphics need to be precisely coordinated
> with the music. at least to the measure, if not
> the beat. tempo can change within a composition.
> this is dance choreography which is in lockstep
> with the music.
> 
> right now i am getting an extra 17 milliseconds
> for each repeat in the pendingmessages
> 
> on andale
>   ...
>   put 0 into counter
>   repeat with 1 = pStart to pEnd
>      put (counter * 1000) into tSpeed
>      send "setDancers i" to me in tSpeed
> milliseconds
>      add 1 to counter
>   end repeat
> ...
> end andale
> 
> exact sound and motion coordination is
> an absolute must. nightmares about moving
> to director... Scott Rossi said something about
> using Flash within RR, but hopefully it can all
> be done here.

It would be tedious and you'd have to use MIDI or another sound format 
in a player object, but the only other thing I can think of is to create 
a lookup table that has pairs of time stamps and graphics. You'd have to 
do each piece of music individually, which is the tedious part. You'd 
note the place in the music where each graphic needs to change and store 
a table where the first number is the time in the movie and the second 
is the graphics number, something like this:

0,1
155,2
423,3

and so forth. Then create a handler that sends itself a message every 
few milliseconds. The handler would check the currentTime of the movie 
and if it matches an entry in the table, it sets the dancer to the 
graphic indicated by the second item in the line.

local myTable -- contains the numbers list

on andale
  get the currentTime of player "myMusic"
  put lineoffset(cr&it,cr&myTable) into theMatch
  if theMatch > 0 then
    setDancers (item 2 of line theMatch of cr&myTable)
  end if
  send "andale" to me in 100 milliseconds
end andale

The carriage returns are to make sure that only numbers at the 
beginnings of the lines match. The above is untested, so you may need to 
tweak it. You'd also have to write something that stops the messaging 
when the player stops.

Alternately, you could try the Shakobox for Windows file that Judy 
posted. The link still works and I was able to grab the file, but I 
haven't had time to test it yet.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com