TouchDesigner: Smart Device Communication 01
I'm collaborating with a playwright friend, Trip Venturella, trying to establish communication to TouchDesigner through a private server using various kinds of input devices, namely Amazon's Echo devices through creating Alexa Skills.
This was our first test bringing in data from a server Trip set up using Node.js that was ingested into Touch with a Web DAT. I'm planning to explore alternative ways of ingesting information other than the web DAT, but we were happy to get things going this well on our first day of collaboration.
In the test, Trip is updating information going to the server, TouchDesigner is fetching that information 4 times a second and then translating text found in the information into commands that control Switch CHOPs, switching the output to different animation styles (tease, wave, turn) colors (red, green, blue) and shapes (circles, squares, triangles) and there was an extra little dumb input state if he wrote "Trip the lights fantastic" because I'm a dumb dumb.
Eventually, we hope to be using such communication workflows for integrating audience interactivity/reactivity in less traditional theatre settings. We have an idea brewing that has gotten us both a bit excited.
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Below is a video of Trip demonstrating a short play he wrote and programmed using Amazon Alexa as his counterpart. It's super worth checking out. He's a pretty rockin' playwright that can pluck a crazy original storyline seemingly out of thin air - though I'm guessing that's the result of discipline, practice, and dedication to the craft as opposed to everyday magic.
You can also download and act out his short play using your own Alexa enabled device at the below link.
