hello, i teach multimedia and web design at an art school as part of a curriculum that includes neon, kinetics, holography, microcontrollers, digital imaging and video, and pretty much anything else that involves technology. a lot of the problems our students run across require programming of one kind or another, and this trend seems to be increasing. my courses concentrate on programming a good deal, using javascript, flash/actionscript, or director/lingo for websites, cd-roms, gallery installations, etc. however, a good part of every semester is taken up with basic programming concepts before we can get to the "good stuff". i'd like to introduce a solid programming class at the foundation level, and python seems like an interesting possibility. i haven't learned it yet, but have been working in c++, java, perl, etc. for a while so hopefully i can get a handle on it by september <g>. the problem with the approach we've been using (javascript, lingo, or actionscript as an introduction) is that each of these languages has a lot of features and quirks which are very unique, which gets in the way of teaching general programming concepts. i'd like to use something that will let me teach core concepts quickly without getting stuck on too many language- specific details. at the same time, whatever i use will have to be something that students can use to produce interesting results quickly as well - since this is an art school, we're really interested in artistic applications of programming rather than, say, calculating compound interest or the traveling salesman problem. so, my question is - has anyone used python for teaching art students? does this sound like a reasonable thing to do? oh, one problem - it won't even be a full semester course, but just 5 weeks - the foundation class also spends 5 weeks on sound and 5 on electronics. not my choice, just the way the curriculum is structured. so what i'd want to be able to do is get students going with python, understand some basic programming concepts like variables, math, strings, functions, and hopefully events, and be able to make something simple but visually pleasing. does that sound possible? thanks, Ben Chang bchang@artic.edu Department of Art and Technology Studies School of the Art Institute Chicago, IL
Sounds like you have some lucky students :-) Among the multimedia Python goodies I recommend: -Blender -LightFlow -PyGame -Snack -Poser4ProPack The first four are free. -Blender has lots of nice Python API. And some good tutorials. Even if you dont directly do much with it, it would be worth 1 class well spent to just see what you can do and discuss the Python aspects. http://www.blender.nl http://www.janw.gothere.uk.com/documentation.html http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/index_prog_python.h tm http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script00.htm http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script05.htm http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blender/plugins/python.cgi http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~strubi/3d/python/ -Lightflow is an incredibly beautiful radiosity toolkit. This is directly modelling light in an object-oriented fashion. A few lines of python are enough to nake some breathtaking magic. See the examples and tutorial. http://www.lightflowtech.com/ -PyGame lets you talk to the and do all sort of othre direcit soudn and sprite stuff. Probably not enough time but again may good for one class http://pygame.seul.org/ http://pygame.seul.org/docs/index.html || CD || Channel || Font || Joystick || Rect || Sound || Surface || || pygame || UserRect || cdrom || constants || cursors || display || draw || || event || font || image || joystick || key || mixer || mixer_music || || mouse || surfarray || time || transform || -Snack lets you do for Sound what Lightflow does for Light+Space http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/ http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/websnack.html <quote> The Snack Sound Toolkit is designed to be used with a scripting language such as Tcl/Tk or Python. Using Snack you can create powerful multi-platform audio applications with just a few lines of code. Snack has commands for basic sound handling, e.g. sound card and disk I/O. Snack also has primitives for sound visualization, e.g. waveforms and spectrograms. It was developed mainly to handle digital recordings of speech, but is just as useful for general audio. Snack has also successfully been applied to other one-dimensional signals. The combination of Snack and a scripting language makes it possible to create sound tools and applications with a minimum of effort. This is due to the rapid development nature of scripting languages. As a bonus you get an application that is cross-platform from start. It is also easy to integrate Snack based applications with existing sound analysis software. <quote> -Poser4ProPack is alas not free. But the good news is the new python API. Your class would probably really enjoy this - Full pyhon control of choreography puppets, human motion files, props, poses, lights camera action.. http://www.curiouslabs.com/products/proPack/ http://www.curiouslabs.com/products/proPack/python/index.html http://techweb.techreviews.com/printableArticle?doc_id=TT20010118S0023 http://poseworks.8m.com/ <quote> The Poser® Pro Pack is an essential extension to Poser® 4, the Premier 3D-Character Animation Tool. The Pro Pack offers a combination of robust plug-ins that enable the hosting of Poser scene files inside of 3DstudioMax® and LightWave®, exporters to generate 2D Flash animation, and web deployable 3D characters via Viewpoint output, and delivers added core functionality such as Motion Blur, Multi-pane Views, and fully scriptable application control through a Python Interface. New Figure Set-Up tools make it easy to create new characters from any geometry. From creating 2D Flash and streaming 3D for the web, or integrating Poser scenes into powerful 3D tools, the Pro Pack transforms Poser 4 into a character animation powerhouse. To see a tour of the Pro Pack, click here. The Pro Pack is available as a Hybrid CD with both Macintosh and Windows versions on the same CD. It includes a full-color Introduction Guide and an electronic User's Guide in PDF and HTML formats. </quote> I have more detailed urls for all the above, but not on hand. Thse are quicke\ies from my IE favorites. See my previous posts to edu-sig and/or ask me for more. Other artist/programmers using Python: Disney Imagineering Larry Cuba http://www.well.com/user/cuba/ Why Does an Artist Need Python? http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/w/python_presentations.html Also - could be useful to scan the growing Python Job postings: http://www.python.org/Jobs.html {Disney job posted last September } good luck ./JASON
participants (2)
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bchang＠artic.edu -
Jason Cunliffe