Welcome to Just the Best Parts: Kinect for Artists!

This is reasonably compact, to-the-point guide to using Micorosoft’s Kinect game controller to drive audio/visual applications.

This is a work-in-progress. When completed it will be available as an E-book in assorted formats. In the meantime it is viewable online here.

Reader comments are encouraged. Feedback is important.

Who is this for?

Artists and musicians. People who want to make fun, interesting, artistic work. People who want to use newtechonologyin novel ways but don’t think they’re geeky nerdy enough to do it.

There are some technical parts but they are explained clearly, with specific instructions for installing andrunningall the needed software. You don’t need to know how to program. If you do know know how to program you’ll be able to expand on what’s in the book.

What’s in the book?

The book starts off with some background on Microsoft’s XBox Kinect, and how it came to be available for personal hacking. It then explains how to prepare your computer to make use of the Kinect. And from there it goes on with a mix ofspecific examples and some general observations.

When you’re done you’ll be able to use the Kinect to control MIDI and animation software, create videos using motion capture, and interact with 3D rendering tools.

You’l also get an understanding of how you can use the tools and techniques in the book to getalmostanycontroller (be it your mobile device or any number of game controllers) and practically anysoftware to play nice together.

Will there be programming?

Yes. Some. You can ignore it if you like, but you should really give it a try. The book gives you ready-to-run programs, but to get the most value for them you will want to modify them. You will learn how to do this, and so you will (if you don;t already know) some amount of programming. But this is not a programming book, and you can just use the programs as they are presented. Hopefully, though, your interest will be piqued.

Overall the book is intended to get non-techies up and running with an XBox Kinect controller, attached to a computer, doing fun and useful things.