tranceNdance

Posted by DavidDC on Jan 31, 2012

tranceNdance is a digital kaleidoscope with a difference: it’s music reactive and you can zoom in – forever. If you are into kaleidoscopes, open eye meditation or psychedelic mysticism then you should be right at home here.

NB: If you have photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) you shouldn’t view this app. Some modes feature frequent, rhythmic, high contrast colour flashes and rapidly changing imagery. You can read more about PSE here.

Looking to get the most out of music response mode? Then click here.

Don’t know how to open the options window? Touch and hold on any part of the screen with the tip of your finger for at least 1 second. This is called a “long press” gesture. Then press the corner button that appears.

The video below is just one mode of tranceNdance. If you want something more dynamic, it can do that too.

Here are a few iPad screenshots (they make nice iPad wallpaper, feel free to use in any way you please):

Features

• Perpetual zoom. No matter how deeply you zoom into the image, fresh images always appear. It often reminds me of zooming into a fractal, or travelling down an endless kaleidoscope tunnel. Other times it feels like I’m making a landing onto some alien landscape. However you want to interpret it, it’s pretty cool.

• Sound reactivity. Turn on the microphone and the kaleidoscope will pulse in brightness according to the ambient audio spectrum. Clapping out a beat works best. But given the right context, it can also pick out the main contours of many songs. See here for tips on getting the best out of music response. This mode can be pretty intense at times – especially if projected onto a large screen.

• Gesture recognisers that allow you to:
• Zoom in/Zoom out and alter zoom speeds
• Generate a fresh kaleidoscope
• Apply colour pulses by tapping out a beat
• Smoothly alter image brightness
• Spin the kaleidoscope about its centre at varying speeds

Add all those together and a VJ can perform a visual interpretation of the music currently being played.

• Different visual modes. The exact differences between them all is bound to come up at some stage, so I’ll go through them here.
• α Cruise: Zooms into a static image at a constant velocity. Uses a random colour palette.
• β Classic: Uses a high saturation, split complementary colour palette. Doesn’t work with full colour mode.
• γ Cascade: A dynamic image using a split complementary colour palette.
• δ Chakra: A dynamic kaleidoscope that slowly scrolls through the entire colour spectrum. As each chakra corresponds to a colour, meditators can use the colour to assist in a progressive meditation that covers all chakra points.
• ε Contemplate: The perfect mode for open eye meditators. Low intensity visuals that change very subtly make this mode very easy to focus on for long periods of time. One of my favourites. Uses a random colour palette.
• ζ Cruisier. Is like “Cruise”, only “cruisier”. Meaning you don’t zoom in at a constant velocity, but rather meander your way into the kaleidoscope, pausing here, spinning there and then resuming your journey. Also great for meditation. Uses a triadic colour scheme.
• η Core. A simpler kaleidoscope with less complex imagery. Slightly easier on the CPU. Good if you are looking for a less busy image, on average.
• θ Chaos. Chaos is the kaleidoscope cutting loose with all options randomising on the fly. This mode easily has the most variation (which is saying something!) but there is a price to pay: some of the random choices will look a touch garish and there will be periodic image stutters as the next view is randomly generated (although this is barely noticeable in music response mode). Chaos is a good mode to turn to in music-response party mode.
• ι Hyperdrive. Presents the kaleidoscope in a completely different way – allowing extremely fast zoom in speeds.
• κ Hyperdrive2. An even more dynamic Hyperdrive with a split complementary palette.
• λ Shadow. A black and white mode that looks especially interesting in static mode and high contrasts.
• μ Inversion. Mixes colours in a different way to produce a really distinctive look. Can produce great results, especially with full colour turned on.

• User adjustable settings
• Full colour On/Off. When on, the image typically presents a larger range of brighter colours.
• Dynamic Visuals On/Off. When on, everything on screen moves at once. Like waves on a rolling ocean. Can be a bit intense, depending on your mood.
• Change Rate Slider allows you to adjust how quickly the imagery changes
• Contrast Slider allows you to shift from intense and very highly detailed, to gentle hazy/cloudy images.
• Microphone Slider so you can adjust the sound reactivity.
• iPod player controls. Includes playlist selector and volume slider.
• Music titles on/off switch. Displays track name, artist and album of the iPod song being played.