[PD] basic questions by a beginner in Pd concerning a project using Pd

[Maureen Anderson]

Hello,

I'm completely new to Pd and trying to follow the Pd floss tutorial and
Johannes Kreider's "Loadbang" to learn the basics of Pd.  I have a project
goal/idea I would like to experiment with both for its own sake, but also as
a way to learn the program.  Below is a description of what I would like to
do followed by questions concerning developing it.

Project description
I would like to create a datafile of video and/or video files.  Audio files
would be a collection of speakers of languages other than English or
"speaking in tongues" which could be mixed in real time by either some other
group of people speaking English (or creating whatever sound) into a
microphone to "simulate" or be mixed as what the "real time
speaker/activator" is saying.  This has nothing to do with speech
recognition, but "sound recognition??"  The video idea is similar.  A camera
is set up stationary in a controlled room recording hours of dance footage
(same light, same space, same color, one figure in the same clothing moving
in space...the only variable being unchoreographed movements that get
habituized over time though not learned by rote).  With the same concept as
the audio (though with the same human figure/dancer and not a new
actor/activator), the movement in the space in individual frames per second
would be matched up with a similar frame in the datafile remixing individual
frames to simulate the real time action.  I have seen similar works to this
and would like to see if I could work with such a project and if so what
issues might pop up as a result (for example, what kind of control might I
be able to have over the fluidness/chopiness of snippets one after the
other).

Questions concerning project:

1.  What kind of credit/citation could/should one give for help given by
others?  For example, if a person uses patches developed or created by
someone/group/string of developers, what kind of credit do any of you think
a person could or should give?  I'm not necessarily talking about copyright
laws, licensing or legal matters per se, but what are people's thoughts
about the ability, right and/or responsibility to give credit where credit
is due with open source software?  This is a subjective/philosophical
question, any opinions are welcome.

2.  Based on my description, would such a project or set of projects
technically even be possible?  I've tried to be as clear as possible in my
description in its initial conception.  Would Pd be a good program to
execute it?  Which would be better, video or audio material, as a starting
point to begin with in trying to mix in the way I have described above in
real time?

3.  In the Pd floss manual, there is a link to dataflow tutorials as a .zip
from the flossmanuals website, but I can't seem to access it.  Any reason
why this might be?

4.  I'm trying to learn Pd from the ground up because that is all I have at
the moment...it feels like I'm mining metals to create pigment in order to
make paint in order to make a painting.  As a painter, I actually learned a
lot about creating pigments after years of painting with pre-given paint in
tubes.  How can one balance the user/programmer issue?  I think this relates
back to question one.

Thanks in advance for anyone who could address any of these questions!

Mo

-- 
maureenjolie at gmail.com
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