Wednesday, December 21, 2005

God damn.

This project has been a challenge in every sense of the word. In a "one step forward, ten steps back sort of way." I can't wait to have it done.

Getting the patch to fade between files correctly took the better part of a day. I finally came across an older version of the Tap Tools [tap.crossfade~] object, made by the fine people at Electrotap. It's helpful. I've still been having problems getting the assignments right (i.e. when you click on a particular stop on the subway, I want a switch to direct that sound to selector~, a crossfade to that sound, and a tag that will tell the player to use the other selector~/sample loadup set for the next stop you travel to -- that's a lot with one mouse click, after all). That's what tonight's dedicated to.

I also have been having freak problems like all of a sudden, loop function on sfplay~ not working. It also took some considerable time and some help from Jonathan to get it to unlock with the 5 necessary keys: 2 coord range operators (< >) each for X and Y, and the bang from mouse-click.

I've kind of felt all semester that there's no substitute for sitting and doing work in MAX regularly -- it is a language, and it's not learned easily. You begin to have objects and concepts at hand more when you've put that time in. That's not to say I haven't worked hard, but if I had my way it would be hours daily put into learning and using this, at least for awhile, rather than sitting at it on the weekends and trying to remember what I lost last week. Work schedules and holiday commitments and all that stuff kind of conspire against that possibility, though.

Alright, back to work.

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