click image to play movie [movie]

___

Spatial session tool

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1. Download the file for Windows or Macintosh.

   REg200.rar (10MB) for Windows

   REg200.zip (12MB) for Windows

   REg200.sit (10MB) for Macintosh

2. Unzip to a suitable directory. | WinRAR | WinZIP | StuffIt Expander |
3. Double-click "REg" or "REg.exe" in the generated [REg200e] folder.

   

• RhythmEngine 2.0e+ ReleaseNote(July 23, 2003)
  1. Performance improved by limiting flame-rate(15fps).
  2. DirectX is available.
  3. "RhythmEngine" system does not work offline. Please be sure you are only when you play.
     Recommendation : Broadband connection (>512kbps)
  4. Supposing some problems occur, please give mail to us.

(webmaster) derin@photon01.co.jp

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News

August 12,2003
REg will be carried by exhibition and the trilingual catalog at a www.art-action.org-sponsored international .net-art festival "Paris/Berlin 2003."

July 23,2003
RhythmEngine is updated.(2.0e+)

March 12,2003
[RhythmForest] has started!

November 24,2002
[The Australia-Japan New Media Gallery ]

October 11,2002
[WORLD PC EXPO] Oct.16 14:00-16:30
[The 8th Visualization conference] Oct.25 10:00�`17:00
(Presentation by Akio Fukano)

July 26,2002
The presentation of RhythmEngine and RhythmForest in SIGGRAPH2002 was completed.The handout distributed on the presentation is here.
[PAGE1][PAGE2]

July 20,2002
The official site of [RhythmForest] is opened.

July 19,2002
[REg Workshop] (Asagaya Collage of Art and Design) is uploaded.

July 16,2002
[REg forum] is now available. Thanks again for Matt Horn @ IceDragon.com!

July 14,2002
RhythmEngine 2.0e is now available.

July 07,2002
REg's mirror site : [RhythmEngine @ IceDragon.com] is opened. Thanks for Matt Horn @ IceDragon.com!

July 04,2002
Development of RhythmEngine ver.3.0 is started. We will make a presentation of next version in SIGGRAPH2002 on July 25. Presenters list is here.

July 03,2002
[urbanraw](boredomresearch)

June 20,2002
[AudioVisualizers.com],[Internet Product Watch],[SoundToys]

June 04,2002
[All the 2002 educational musical instrument study group symposium],
"The present condition of the music collaboration using the Internet, and the possibility" (Taro Yoshiwara / Yamanashi University).

June 01,2002
[SHIFT 067] - NEXT02 issue

April 21,2002
We will make performance in [NEXT02] (japanese site) at Tokyo Photo Museum.

April 13,2002
[RhythmEngine] was added to the [Rhizome.org] ArtBase.
[COSMOWORLDS],[Neural]

April 09,2002
We will make presentation in [SIGGRAPH2002] (San Antonio,23-25 July).

March 16,2002
[RhythmEngine] ver.2.00 (for public presentation) was uploaded.

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In Japan, we discover or give stories within the trees, shrubs, the roadside stones and so on�c to recall or visualize the past, and also leaves the sentiment to someone in the future. The culture, which uses "the material such as stones" as a catalyst to tell "the sentimental emotion" at interval of times, has been cultivated from ancient times. Encounters of the human and conversations could be happened in heart even across time and place.

Endless pursuing of convenience conceives some risks of producing a savage world. We now should re-appraise furthermore about the potential of the web, which gives us the connection with others and succession of emotion even over time and location.

Moreover, looking back in the history of communication, message only could tell by verbal, songs or gesture at ancient times and the message exceeds times and generation with this way. Development of the printing technology made carving messages on material possible. However, on the other hand, we wonder if the rich expressiveness and emotional feeling from "sound" and "gesture" are not impaired.

Through the "RhythmEnginne", we suggest, "the session which is inherited from the past to the future using place as an agent" and "music and image communication which has rich emotion" to the Web-world.

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How to play in the RhythmEngine sphere

1. Select a charactor and fill in the blank; handle-name(you cannot use "@"), location(Please input it so that you are pleased.ex:your room,your town,your country,and so on.) and e-mail address for logging in the "REg" world.

   

2. You will notice that some characters have been already floating freely in the "REg public sphere".
   

   These characters are not been operating by computer program or also not been controlling by someone who stays in front of their PC accessing at the same time=real time.

   Conduct log of the ex-player's character (= log records of the operation of measuring the key-insert timing) of the character has been recorded in the host server and all those logs are playing back simultaneously in the "REg" space. It means that one of the characters floating in the " RhythmEngine space " could be someone who played in New York a year ago, or could be someone who played in Tokyo of three minutes ago.

   

   There is also a possibility of being yourself of several hours ago. There exist different space-time as many as characters at the same time in the "REg public sphere".

   
   

SESSION = To encounter with other character

1. Key controls;
   • cursor keys -- control charactor
   • the top row of keys (1 to 0,etc.) -- flying-speed and timbre condition (12 or 13 levels)
   • all other keys -- sound keys
2. First, let's catch up with someone. In the case you cannot encounter anyone, nothing would be happened how hard you hit the keyboard. You can perform after touching someone.
3. When the session begins (= encount with anyother charactor), the partner character hums with blowing out colorful letters.

   

4. The player makes own music to communicate with others by typing keyboard.

   Sounds correspond to each key. You will see letter objects blowing out over your own character. For example, when you type "HELLO", the letter objects of "H" "E" "L" "L" "O" appear overhead of the character as "visual effect" and you hear the sounds that corresponds to each key. It means that you play "the phrase"of "HELLO". The music and visual effect that the partner playing are just replaying the record, which is on the server, of someone who played with " RhythmEngine" before. In other words,a communication beyond the space and time using music and image is occurred. It is also able to describe that the player can leave his sound and image (could be message) to the future. All players inherit a melody from the past, and leave it for the future, and those melody lines spin forever.

5. user interface;

   

   1. session partners -- chara icon / name / location
   2. flying-speed and timbre condition -- 12 or 13 levels
   3. the remaining time
6. For the sounds;
   A variety of sounds of those the gradation of phrase in a certain famous movies, which has theme of "communication with Extraterrestrials", was analyzed are allotted to each key. Moreover, each character has different timbre of musical instruments. Percussion instrumental sound is for the octopus or synthesizer sound is for the doggy, etc�c

   Start a session with one person/character (duo), you continue moving then you encounter to the other character accidentally or intentionally, the session will be with two people (trio). In this way, steadily the session member keeps increasing as trio, quartet & the quintet, finally up to 10 (Windows version) or 6 (Macintosh version) members possible to increase as session partners.

   You can move freely in the sphere while music is playing. Therefore the session member expands, the sound and the visual effects will increase in the " REg public sphere ".

   Try to speed up to maximum so that you can spring out from the earth and voyage to the other planet.

   For 120 seconds from the first session begins, the player floats and plays music freely to enjoy the session. When 120 seconds elapse, it logs off automatically.

Logoff and session log = quit

Before the logging off, the recorded log of session will be shown like a score.
Session log = the letter cord of typing

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Development as a composition tool

The "RhythmEngine" could be a composition tool to create music with yourself in the future or past or with someone on the net in the future or past wherever the person be. When the program system would be possible outsourcing the session log to score or making notes automatically indicated at the time of typing, there is a potential of new composition method opens.

Conversion to the actual space

It is possible to superpose "RhythmEngine world" on real world using portable terminal like PDA that has the position information system such as the GPS (the Global Positioning System). In this case, the player is not to operate the character with the cursor keys but to walkout and move outside and uses the button of the portable terminal to play music and image. You can enjoy the session with anyone at anytime on the road, which always you pass, and with someone who has been passing by the place in the past.

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Development team

Team Photon / Photon,Inc.
| mail | web |

Team Photon / Photon,Inc. +
tomoyoshi "tom" saito (from Most-Music) | web |
hiroya "tagnya" tanaka (from Space-Time-Designs) | web |
shingo noguchi (from daifukuya.com)
atsuhiko "natsuo" kawaguchi (from Angelweep)
hiroshi "mory" moriyama

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RhythmEngine,REg,Original articles,translations and other portions:Copyright(c)2002 Photon,Inc.
Using it for a duplicate, change, and the commercial purpose without notice is forbidden.