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Degree Project - Week 21

 

Semester B: Week 21
Student: Tai Ser Yeet (22064351)
Programme: BA (Hons)(SW) Digital Media Design


WEEK 21

Limitations

I’ve been doing some work in the A234 room to get my TouchDesigner setup sorted. After checking a bunch of the i9 PC systems, it turns out Machine 16 is the only one in that row that actually has the software installed, currently running an Educational license. Steve gave me a heads-up that the uni is locked into Build 2023.12000. This is a bit of a "one-way street" because while you can move work forward to newer versions, you generally can't go back to an older one once it's saved. Since I'm running the free version on my laptop, I have to be extra careful to make sure my build matches the uni's exactly, so nothing breaks when I switch machines. I will be using the 2023 12000 version of Touch Designer when doing work on my laptop from now on. 

A few things to note for my workflow:

  • I can do the vast majority of my project on my laptop's free version and then just transfer the file to the uni's PC when I'm ready for the final export. 
  • It’s safer not to make major changes on the school PC; saving a file in a paid version can sometimes cause headaches when you try to open it back up in a free version.
  • If I absolutely have to make a change at school, I need to remember to duplicate the file rather than overwriting the one on OneDrive because relying on a single cloud-synced file between two different versions is just asking for a corrupted project.

Exporting Work
I wanted to see if the work that I had created using the free version of the software could be played on the university's PC with the educational license, but for some reason, the software became so laggy and slow. I couldn't even make changes to the viewport to reduce the GPU load. Without losing hope, I tried exporting my work, and as expected, it was taking forever. It could be because my movie file was 400MB, but considering the processing power of the i9, it shouldn't be an issue.

Exporting Work

In the end, the exported video was entirely black. I decided to abandon this.


Testing the Kinect Sensor On i9 PC

Hand Tracking
While I have the machine to myself, I connected the Kinect v2 motion sensor to the i9 machines just to ensure there were no hiccups there. I followed a tutorial on basic hand tracking. For context, the movement of my hand controls the direction and speed of the distortion. The tutorial taught me a lot about CHOPs and TOPs and how they can be used together.

As you can see, this one was a success. The network was also easy to understand, although I realised that sometimes the Kinect goes into shutdown mode, and it was difficult to get it started back up again. To solve this issue, I created a new project file, copied and pasted everything into it, and it worked.

Crucial Part of the Network


Interactive Lines + Hand Tracking
Taking what I have learned from the previous tutorial on hand tracking, I made minor adjustments to the making of this particular concept of interactive lines. Instead of using mouse tracking to move the lines, I used hand tracking, and the operators were exactly the same.

Interactive Lines Workspace

At this point, I have already spent 7 hours in A234, and I was beginning to feel restless. I could have expanded the interactive range of the 3D sphere to reach the edges of the screen, but I figured that this was enough for today. 



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