Artist Statement

As someone who has traveled a lot, I have come to face a lot of loneliness while being apart from family, friends and anything familiar. I created an interactive virtual friend to address the theme of loneliness. I will focus on friendship and how just being with someone you know can make you happy and less lonely. My main visual component is an alien-esque being who want to be your friend that will demonstrate this concept.

I programmed a monster named is Leroy. Leroy is just a kid who seems to have the same response for everything. Despite being an annoying little kid, Leroy will listen to whatever you say no matter what. He loves your company and he will become someone you would want to talk to and be friends with. Leroy can always be there to listen to your problems and you will soon forget that he’s just a computer-generated creature.

He works by reading the volume level in the room so Leroy will know when you are talking, to be quiet. He knows when you are quiet; he is allowed to talk. When you yell at him, he will yell back just like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. These reactions are all displayed using videos. On top of the videos, there is a live feed from a webcam so that there is a more realistic feel of an online video chat.

I’ve always wanted to be able to talk and interact with the alien/monster characters I create and share them with other people. Leroy will be the first one who gets this chance. Everyone will be able to share experiences with him and find a friend in him. He is not a Tamagachi or any other virtual pet that you may have seen before. He is on the same level as you: a friend, not a pet. You don’t feed or bathe him. He is you’re true-life virtual friend.

Final Product

This is the final test for Leroy. He works okay. I added the live video window in the bottom right corner so it appears more Skype like.
However, I still wish I could have gotten the word recognition library to work, I think the interaction would have been a lot more personal. I still have problems with the 'Invalid memory access' error a bit so I was afraid to add more video clips giving him a bit of variety. But I guess my idea of an annoying little kid character gets across better with only the one response. I also couldn't figure out how to make the full clip of the scream play without overlapping the others.

Final Video Clips

These are the final video clips that I will be using for Leroy.

Quiet Leroy



Talking Leroy


Angry Leroy

Problems and Script

I have been encountering a serious problem that I'm not sure how to fix.
I keep getting a 'Invalid memory' error in Processing if I run the program for a while. I expanded the memory in Processing's preferences as well as making sure my computer wasn't using a lot of memory in other applications while I was trying to run Leroy. It hasn't helped very much so far. I might try some smaller sized videos or something. I'm not sure. I'm going to look on some forum to see how other people overcome it.




On a brighter note, I have figured out my script for Leroy. I knew I wanted something silly that could circle in on itself, so I took a line from Tweedledee and Tweedledum 'if it was so it might be, and if it were so it would be, but it ain't so it isn't'

More Images

Leroy is responsive to the volume in the room. So, I had to make more videos of him reacting to the different scenarios. This shows my tests of Leroy with the added videos of being quiet yet animated, and when he is angry. I had no problem with the angry sound playing for my prototype, but for some reason, the video doesn't act the same way and won't play the whole clip of him screaming if the noise drops lower for a second. I'm hoping I'll be able to figure this out for the final. I also need to still figure out a new script for Leroy, something that will make some kind of 'sense' no matter what someone might say to him. This is proving to be the hardest part.

Post-Prototype - Moving Image

After some feedback from my prototype, I started working on more detailed images for Leroy.
Ones that actually move and look like he's talking. This is the first tests I did with the moving image. I made him in Photoshop originally as an animated gif, but processing wasn't matching the sounds I already had to the gif very well, so I morphed the audio and images into a QuickTime video file that Processing liked better. This is what I did with the rest of the visuals for the project.

Minim to Sonia / Prototype Status

I orignially start to program with the Minim sound library in Processing. However, the volume level numbers were really unstable and didn't seem to follow anything that I could measure. If that wasn't difficult enough to work with, after about 20 seconds of running the program, Processing would freeze and I would have to restart my whole computer. I tried to restrict the number using the map function, but it still didn't help much and my computer still would freeze after a short time.
Looking through the "Learning Processing" book, I decided to try the other sound library they mentioned. Sonia seemed to restrict the sound more and it was easier to read the numbers I need and have actions triggered by them than with Minim (I computer also didn't freeze, which was VERY helpful).
The only issue I have run into is that Sonia only plays .wav sound files and all the recording I did was in .mp3 format. I went online to find alien speech samples in .wav format so I could make sure that the code works properly before going through the process of converting the sound files.
Thankfully, everything is working now. Since the prototype is due today (Nov. 1) and today is also the day I managed to figure out all the code so that it responds properly, I am still using the sample files from online.
For the final piece, I will have my original recordings as well as more options when interacting with Leroy.