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We are delighted to be able to offer our MSc postgraduates the opportunity to take a pair of computer games programming modules developed in consultation with Sony as part of the Digital Media Kingston suite of courses. Low Level Games Programming and High Level Games Programming are two industry focussed modules which, through C++ the language of all AAA games, you will learn how to create fully working 3D games and at the same time improve your software development and graphics programming skills. Using the same tools and hardware as the professionals, you will create games for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles joining a group of students at currently only ten universities in the UK which have been granted access by Sony to their official PS3 development kit. Code developed in these modules will be shared with Sony who are interested in identifying the coders of the future and you could go on to develop a larger game in your final project as part of a team with other Digital Media Kingston students, should you wish and who knows what could happen from there !

This is the third year of the UPA international Student Design Competition. Similar competitions have motivated and energized students to work on meaningful projects and led to initiatives that positively impacted lives of real people. Developing an ISDC submission gives your students the opportunity to create a portfolio piece, and being one of the 3 winning teams allows participants to set themselves apart from the crowd in an increasingly competitive job market.

http://www.uphttp://www.upassoc.org/conference/2011/students/index.html assoc.org/conference/2011/students/index.html

Arjun Gupta is  doing a Masters in Digital Media from Drexel University, Philadelphia PA. His thesis is called ‘Music in Images’ and it is based on algorithmic music composition from digital images and allows visual art (or visual data) to be transformed into music art (or sound data) through the application of an algorithmic filter. This project presents a new approach towards algorithmic music composition where the music is composed using the pixel values of digital images. Arjun says ‘The application of my project is viewable online and I am looking to get feedback on it (link given at the bottom of this post). I am writing this email to request you for your viewpoint regarding the application of this project for exploring relationships between images, computer generated music and human emotional interpretation.
Please read through my project description and view my project. I would deeply appreciate your feedback on it.’

Application Info: The application makes use of image data, such as: pixel Color, Saturation, Brightness, and qualities like: Overall Image Brightness, Color Variation and Prominent Colors. Each of the above properties contribute towards composition of the music. The song attributes controlled by them include: Melody generation, Durations, Cord Generation, Chord Progression, Tempo,Scale and Transposition. The theory behind the translation of image attributes to music attributes is based on previous works done in the field of psychology, in the topic: perceptual associations of audio frequency and music modes with hue, saturation and brightness. In addition to this, there are certain translation techniques which are based on  my artistic sense.

The analogy for Image to Music translation used here is:
Pixels : Similar Color regions : Overall ImageNotes : Chords : Scale

This application works best for abstract images. It tends to produce calmer music with smoother images, or with less color/brightness variation, and more complex music with high variation images. The overall brightness also adds an effect on the music.

Please do check it out here and leave me some feedback :http://www.musicinimages.com

Dr Jane Harris has recently been appointed as Professor of Design in the School of Communication Design, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University. Her current practice includes working with 2D computer graphics (CG), 3D CG modelling and animation tools, including Photoshop, After Effects and Alias Wavefront Maya, VICON optical motion capture and data analysis, 3D Body scanning to develop ‘real time’ visualisation solutions for textile/dress and the body and 2&3D projection solutions. Jane  develops 3D computer graphic (CG) animation visualisation and installation works within research and visual art contexts and is a writer, curator, convenor and consultant on research practice.  Read the rest of this entry »