Summary

In this chapter, we start to explore interactivity by using the common interaction devices, the mouse and the keyboard. By using the gemmouse and gemkeyboard objects, we implemented graphical buttons, a controller for a video-jockey application, and a cross-fader for mixing videos. We also created interactive animations that demonstrate game-like features. To avoid being too complex in one single patch, we took advantage of the abstraction in Pure Data to use a separate patch file for commonly referenced objects. The interactive features we explored so far limit to the keyboard and mouse. In Chapter 5, Motion Detection, we start using the webcam to detect whole body interaction with motion tracking features in GEM.