During the first class of Diva200 I found myself listening to our first instructor Julie telling us about our projects this semester. Being versed in Photoshop I was not ecstatic about our first project but, I honestly awakened at the thought of making my vinyl cut and learning maxMSP. Fast forward a 2 months and we are on maxMSP. Once we had hit maxMSP the lack of “if, and, then, else” statements had left me unable to grasp this bizzare concept of “bang” and “metro”. After finally coming to terms that I wasn’t going to get to do any traditional programming. What little programming I did do would eventually devolve into ripping and butchering tutorials for their working parts and repackaging them for functionality. Now I suppose spending ALOT more time to learn all the functionality and potential that max offers I might grow to like it. As it stands though, I could butcher a together a patch for most of my needs but never truly make something from scratch, except a few jit.matrix and jit.movie based actions. After a long collaborative effort with others in the class we all managed to get our patches done on time and in working order(with work arounds). It was an enjoyable experience when my problem solving was working but not so much when it wasn’t haha. A learning experience with alot of inside jokes about max resulting from it. Will I ever use maxMSP again? No, I’m sticking to my GML and syntax I understand and can logically simulate in my head.
Also a word of Caution to those of you using a [> 0. ] when dropping mathematical equations into them don’t forget your decimal places. Ex: [ 50 ] — [ / 100.00]—[> .05 ] otherwise it just rounds down to 0 or rounds up to 1.
maxMSP has if then statements. in a patcher just type “if $i1 > $i2 then bang” or “if $i1 > $i2 then set out1 $i1 out2 56″ etc. $i1 means input one. I used to program a lot of actionscript, now my brain works in patchcords, I’m afraid to go back to traditional scripting! right now i’m coordinating a motion tracking video wall that spans three hi-def screens… deadline two more weeks. shit.
-v
I eventually did find the if then statements and used them in my final patch. It would have been nice if something like that was taught to us in the first few classes instead of me gutting tutorials for the working part I wanted and barely getting my patch working by the last class.
It was good learning experience but it caused alot of confusion and I am quite disenfranchised by maxMSP now but, if I ever find myself in a situation where I would need it atleast I know how to get some things done in it.