MQP Meeting 9/16 Notes

Here are the notes from our weekly meeting with Professors Rosenstock and Finkel.

• This was our first meeting at our new meeting time and location (4:00pm / FL 141)

• Spent time getting Professor Finkel up to speed on current progress; this included introductions, MQP related jobs, nature of the contract, previous research, and future milestones

• We went over the Team Contract and eventually signed it

• We continued to discuss and flush out the multiplayer component of the game

• Joey discussed his idea of using user composed music to fight monsters; this included monsters feeding on/causing disharmonies, playing correct harmonies would fight off the monsters

• This discussion evolved into a game mode where each monster provided the player with a pool of "musical resources" or restrictions which would serve as the framework for which they composed in

• A further evolution involved creating varied compositions out of battle, and then once in battle the monster would alter or disrupt what the player has composed, causing the player to have to adapt in real time

• We also discussed a potential format where playing certain notes or a in a certain style would attract audience members

• Professor Rosenstock brought up the topic of Performance vs. Composition; Rosenstock was concerned a computer would serve as a poor judge of creativity

• Professor Finkel elaborated that, if humans can't even come to a consensus about what is good music, then an AI would have even more difficulty

• We discussed possible methods of scoring, whether they be in-game based on the structure of the composition, or whether by other people

• This is an important decision because it directly influences the direction of the tech team (AI system vs. social networking platform)

• Professor Finkel suggested the tech team to try and come up with a design of a potential algorithm or method to implement a computer scoring system (may be impossible)

• We debated the nature of Creativity vs. making "good" sounding compositions

• Professor Finkel made an intriguing point that people today vastly prefer classical music over contemporary music, so what players would probably prefer would be more traditional styles, which would conceivably be easier to score

• Finkel referenced the game ElectroPlankton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElectroPlankton)

• The tech team briefly discussed possible Unity limitations; these included: the use of dropbox over SVN, the use of the web player has limitations in terms of how many and how fast assets can be loaded during the beginning, there is no video playback or streaming within Unity, the web player limits how much can be saved on a local machine, and debugging in the web player is cumbersome

• A potential limitation is the number of sounds Unity can support (simultaneously?)

• NEXT MILESTONE: putting together a art concept document (mock up of interface, concept art of monsters as well as the in-game world, text description of overall art style), putting on paper the concept document once the multiplayer mode has been finalized, and Professor Finkel's suggestion for the tech team