kow6969

30th January 2003 19:36 UTC

AVS in Browser idea
i was just thinking after searching yahoo for the last 3 hours...

there should be a visualizer that will work on a browser, not just in winamp .. like say i go to a website and its playing music in the background, it would be cool to have a corner or something that the webmaster can dedicate to be a visualizer for the music. or perhaps there can be a way to implement it into flash ? that would rock. a flash file in a corner of a page that is a visualizer for live played music on a webpage.

forget about file size .. i just wanna know if it can be done =) and if so how or where can i find it.

:D

anubis2003

30th January 2003 21:15 UTC

It could be implemented, I believe. I would recommend just having winamp play the music from the web and run AVS. This shouldn't be too hard

dirkdeftly

30th January 2003 21:34 UTC

And it should NOT contain Spyware. But it should allow you to run vis of naked chix getting it on. And those vis should be free...or at least available somewhere as warez. (DAMN those nak3d people...)

Oh, sorry :D

kow6969

30th January 2003 22:18 UTC

thats not exactly what i meant...

im a webdesigner, not the best in the world, but i still work with flash, php and basic old HTML. i been looking for something that will display a visualizer like winamps AVS but in the location of the page i choose. and the visualizer would work for music i would be playing as page background, menu, or whatever (or any other uses for it). better yet would be to use it in flash.

about having it play from the web:
perhaps a plugin that will open winamp in a embeded state to play stuff like windows media player and realplayer do. and it would show the AVS with a tiny play/pause/next/(etc)under it.

i would even settle with at least haveing it load winamp in a invisible mode just with the visualizer in a chosen spot to hear the music.

anubis2003

30th January 2003 22:23 UTC

I don't know if this is possible. I don't know all of the limitations of winamp, but I think nullsoft would have to implement this feature in order for this to be able to happen.

kow6969

30th January 2003 22:30 UTC

yea thats what i was thinking after i posted it.

but then again not only am i not specialized in programming such as c++ or whatever they made winamp in, i just dont have time to tinker or write my own plugins (even if i knew how to write what i wanted):(

but ohh well thats what this message board category is for .. to state new ideas and hope they implement them.

along the way i hope i can keep replying and help ( and learn some myself)

UnConeD

31st January 2003 02:38 UTC

Nice, except for the fact that websites with sound for no particular reason suck like hell, especially if they don't have an immediately obvious button for turning it off. Nothing's more annoying than having a perfect song ruined by some crunchy 1-second sound loop in yet another lame flash-site.

Sorry, just had to mention that :rolleyes:

anubis2003

31st January 2003 02:56 UTC

I'm thinking that there might be a reason. Many personal web pages now have a music page, which, when opened, will continue to play songs. I think having AVS play in it too would be nice and could help spread AVS love, but I don't think it would be easy to get done.

kow6969

31st January 2003 18:02 UTC

unconed: ok first off as a webdesigner i know about the annoying music loops (i dont do that even if it had an off button,(unless i had diffrent loops i can mix together with images so its never the same IE: a presentation)).

Nothing's more annoying than having a perfect song ruined by some crunchy 1-second sound loop in yet another lame flash-site.

Sorry, just had to mention that

UnConeD

31st January 2003 19:05 UTC

Unless you have the source code to AVS, nope. But it wouldn't be that hard to make something similar to AVS as a java applet or something if you knew some image coding.

kow6969: about the music on websites, basically almost all (flash) websites with music are the kind that have the most impressive animations and intros, and the least interesting content.
For me, only websites about music (a band, a festival, etc) should have music on them.

I really hate sites that are done 100% in flash, because it eliminates almost all extra functionality offered by browsers (linking to a certain page, searching the content for text, using the back button, etc...), not to mention those websites that include halfly implemented widgets (scrollbars that don't react to the mouse wheel for example).
And the worst part is of course flash advertisements that pop out of nowhere.

Don't get me wrong, there are a few sites in which flash is used wonderfully and in a non-irritating manner, but today with DHTML and such, you can just as well do without it.

</rant>

kow6969

1st February 2003 00:18 UTC

heh its cool i cant blame you , there are a lot of programmers out there that dont take the time to do a fully decent job. and you do deserve your opinion in all case.

about the java though .. youve struck an interesting point. im gonna see if it can be done in java ... (heh now i wish ihad the AVS source) .. whats another name for AVS ? ..music visualizer comes to mind .. anything else? gonna do some internet searching =)

UnConeD

1st February 2003 06:53 UTC

Try looking in the demo scene for vector field and translation table stuff. It should get you started on how to make a Geiss clone.

Basically you need a way to play audio and get audio information at the same time. An oscilloscope signal is the absolute minimum, but having a spectrum is better for responsiveness (separates sound into bass, midtone, treble, ...). You could do an FFT (fast fourier transform) yourself though to go from osc to spec.

kow6969

1st February 2003 17:18 UTC

ok you kinda lost me there, i really know nearly nothing about sound.

ok lets see .. first off whats the demo scene, i did some searching on this site and on yahoo and found nothing ( then ran short on time and went to work). i also took some time to search for vector field, vector field translation, audio translation tables and geiss clone.. all the crap i found was mostly german on the geiss..

however after searching with "oscilloscope" and "spectrum" i tried "flash sound spectrum" on yahoo and i came up with this:
" http://mysite.freeserve.com/BBGorB/tutorial01.html " teaches you how to get the spectrum on a flash file by using a log of a spectrum generated off a wav file. one of the file links is broken but go to the site it links to and you can get the little program from there. also you will need a mp3 to wav converter and back if your gonna attempt this. i use goldwav.

2 last notes ..
1) flash has no way to read music info on its own...so it has to read the data from a file.
2) i also found the same tutorial at flashkit.com .. its as close as ive been able to come to a AVS on the web. but i want better then a spectrum analizer .. i want an AVS.

fill me in on what you said above, it will help for sure. i also hope my info helps. id say were one step closer ..with this tutorial we can read the music at least as a spectrum. what next?

UnConeD

1st February 2003 17:58 UTC

The demo scene is the group of people that makes "demos". These have nothing to do with game demos or something but they are programs that attempt to show off near impossible things on your computer, usually as a visual show with music.

Back in the old 386, the limit on demos was mostly CPU speed, so doing stuff like 3D was totally awesome. Today there are contests like 64K (make the coolest demo in 64K).

What the more advanced AVS authors do (complicated 3D effects and such) can be considering similar to the old demo scene.

The demoscene today is still active, but there are a lot of crappy demos around.

The vector-field and translation table is basically what a movement in AVS does (and what the Geiss plug-in does): apply a distortion to a field of values. The movement of every pixel can be described as a vector (destination - source). Because every pixel has its own vector, you get a collection of vectors, i.e. a vectorfield.

kow6969

1st February 2003 19:09 UTC

ok ... so uhh ... duh ?

ok your pointing me in the right direction obviosly .. but i dont see what your pointing at .. i guess ill need to move in closer ..

ok you said earlier that i would need a way to play audio and get info at the same time .. since i plan on doing that with flash, ill have to point out the fact flash cant to that.. however .. i can use a program to get the info at intervals of my choice and write it into a text file ... and have flash read that and play it while the music plays and it comes out nearly accurate. but thats just a simple spectrum...


hmm .. let me see ... instead of reading the music data and showing as bars .. i wonder if flash could read it as one line. and if that works then ill have to find out a way to distort it, and finnaly color it i guess... thats a simple start.. ill try the line first.

UnConeD

1st February 2003 21:50 UTC

I took a quick glance at that tutorial, and basically it reads in the spectrum info into an array. So you can use actionscript to program some sort of visualiser. If only Flash weren't such a total pain to code for ;)

kow6969

2nd February 2003 02:14 UTC

yeah, and i have no clue how to make it into a oscilloscope, and then it hit me i dont know how warp the image afterwards, at least not to do some of the effects that AVS does in real time.. it will be super proccesor intensive just to load it. ill try non the less on my free time =)

anubis2003

2nd February 2003 02:31 UTC

Another thing you can do to make your page music responsive would be to make the num/caps/scroll lock LCD's on the keyboard light up on beat, although you would first have to figure out beats. Also, this could get on some people's nerves and/or make them think your page has a virus on it. So maybe it's not the greatest idea, but you could use it.

UnConeD

2nd February 2003 03:05 UTC

Keyboard light things are evil and don't work anymore..

In old AT keyboards, the status of the light was independent of the status of the key, but in modern keyboards it doesn't work anymore, so if your capslock is flashing on beat iT WIll maKE YOu tYPE LikE tHIS.

kow6969

2nd February 2003 03:08 UTC

LOL i wouldnt do that anyways .. its really annoying because it makes you unconciously focus on the music ..and if its a loop .. well, ill let you figure =)

anubis2003

2nd February 2003 03:16 UTC

Yeah, I said it's not the best idea, but I have seen it before. Can't remember where, I was probably just surfing the web.

Zevensoft

2nd February 2003 05:44 UTC

LOL UnConeD, my NumLock has a mind of it's own. After it's been on for a while, it switches off :igor:. Then again, it is an IBM keyboard, and IBM do make quality products (my mouse driver recognizes and supports just about any brand or sort of mouse) :D.

kow6969

2nd February 2003 16:29 UTC

umm ... mice and keyboards are all plug and play on windows

UnConeD

2nd February 2003 22:11 UTC

Plug and Play has nothing to do with the need for a driver, it's an old, misplaced term about how a card behaves and talks to your BIOS when it's plugged in.

kow6969

3rd February 2003 11:57 UTC

(my mouse driver recognizes and supports just about any brand or sort of mouse)

anubis2003

3rd February 2003 12:42 UTC

Most people can do that, though.

Zevensoft

4th February 2003 07:28 UTC

What I meant was, the driver automatically detects exactly what features the mouse supports, and allows configuration of those features.

The best one IMHO is universal scrolling. Not that crappy one where you have to 'click' and scroll, but 'point' and scroll. It even works in CRASHED PROGRAMS:D :D !! Yay for my mouse driver.

kow6969

4th February 2003 18:02 UTC

heh heh .. well anyways back to the subject .. i cant do the visuaizer as a line and i have no idea how to add realtime blurs or effects of any kind to the flash. and to top it all off i have barely enugh time to even answer in these forums. any and all help is apreciated .. note that this isnt a must do for me, just something id like to do one day =) (so no rush). i guess eventualy ill learn enough to do it, till then all i can rely on is this forums.

heck ill settle to find out how to add a motion blur in realtime to the bars and perhaps make it blur to the side.