All work
Dance of the Comets: Remote Music Visualization
MPI cluster music visualization — VIS 141A final
2025
- Role
- Student project — VIS 141A (MPI cluster)
- Tools
- Python, MPI, WAV audio
- Tags
- motion · experiment · sound
Overview
Dance of the Comets is a real-time audio and visual piece for a four-screen MPI cluster: comets move across the wall, with each rank enforcing outer boundaries that reset or bounce particles while the center seam helps hand comets off between screens.
Visuals are driven by a local WAV (e.g. `Music.wav` on the cluster): louder, more energetic passages make comets glow brighter, move faster, and feel more dynamic; softer audio slows motion and calms the scene. Green comets track bass (same speed, grows in size); purple tracks melody (speed shifts, size stays steady)—two independent readings of the same song.
- No external APIs — amplitude comes from the shared WAV on the cluster; all ranks read the same file and react in real time.
- Process — Started from the class `oneball.py` example, then iterated on speed, barriers, color, and two-tone behavior; added bloom, screen shake, trails, and a minimal background before tuning melody vs. bass mapping and bug fixes.