[ANSWERED] Creating an Interactive Video Booth – Pre-recorded Questions & Response Capture

ignitesomerset

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation and all the great options you’ve provided! On reflection, I think I’d like to keep this project simple for now, as my initial question may have been a bit more complicated than necessary. For now, I’m aiming to create a straightforward video booth in Isadora where a random question video plays when triggered, and the participant records their answer. I’ll focus on expanding functionality later once the basics are solid.

To clarify:

Triggering the question: Instead of using a sensor, I’d like the trigger to be a big red MIDI button. When the button is pressed, the system should pick a random question and play the corresponding video.
Random question playback: I’d like the system to shuffle and pick a random question video to play each time the button is pressed. The Shuffle actor sounds like it’ll work great for this.
Next steps: Once the question video is played, the participant records their answer, and the system saves the video. I’m not planning any advanced playback logic at the moment—just keeping things simple.

Woland

@ignitesomerset

How does the recording of the answer stop?
- Is a countdown timer shown so they know how long they have to talk?

- Does sound play or is the Speak Text actor used to indicate that the recording is done?

- Do they hold down the button to record and release it when done

- Do they press once to start recording and again to stop recording?

Another question: Do you already have the button or would you like hardware recommendations?

Final question: What is your deadline?

If I have some spare time this weekend I could spend 45 minutes throwing together a prototype for you to start from (though I don’t want to rob you of the experience if you wanted to do it yourself).

ignitesomerset

@woland

Do they press once to start recording and again to stop recording? Yes, that’s exactly how I’d like it to work.

Hardware recommendations: I’d love some suggestions for hardware—anything you think would be reliable and suitable for this setup.

Deadlines: The deadline is pretty open, but the sooner the better!

Prototype offer: If you have time this weekend to throw together a prototype, that would be amazing and super helpful!

Thank you so much!

dbini

@ignitesomerset

hardware:

i've made interactive booths using a midi keyboard built into a wooden box, with big, satisfying wooden buttons that simply press down on one of the keys of the midi keyboard. Use a Control Watcher actor to listen for data from the Midi controller (once you've added your mdi controller in the midi setup menu)
i'm sure these days there are out-of-the-box midi buttons. you could also use a Makey Makey with a Keyboard Watcher.

Maybe it would be useful to have a system with separate Rec and Stop buttons. if the one-button system gets out of sync, you could end up with long recordings of silence and not recording when someone speaks.

Woland

@ignitesomerset Sorry, I didn't get a chance to dig into this over the weekend. Here's what I think should be a solid starting point: play-random-question-video-record-answer-2025-01-27-4.0.7.izz

I did preliminary testing but didn't test it extensively. Feel free to let me know if there's anything that seems wildly broken.

The section at the top left of the Scene Editor is a legend that explains the color-coding I used.

Orange comments are used for things you really need to read and understand about the patch in order to use it successfully.

@dbini said:

if the one-button system gets out of sync, you could end up with long recordings of silence and not recording when someone speaks.

I addressed this in my example file.

If you start recording and don't stop the recording within 5 min (300 seconds) the end recording trigger is hit automatically.

Also in my file, if you play a question video, it ends, and then you don't start recording an answer within 90 seconds, the system resets itself back to being ready to play a new question video the next time someone presses the button.

The length of both these timeout functions can be adjusted at the bottom of the Control Panel.

Other things I addressed:

Used the Text Draw actor to ensure participants know what to do.
Proposed a naming scheme for the question video files so that when a video file is selected, its name is used to show its question with a Text Draw actor.
Implemented an automated naming mechanism for the answer files that standardizes their names and ensures that the answer file names include the name of the question video they were answering. (Otherwise, since the order of the question videos is random, you'd have no quick way to tell what question was being answered by any given answer video and would have to go through and watch then rename/sort them one by one.)
Automatically show Stages and start Live Capture upon entering the Scene.

If you want to go more bare-bones, I tried to make the patch well-annotated enough that it'd be clear what everything does so that it's easier to trim down or build upon as you see fit.

RIL

@woland super !!!!

ignitesomerset

@woland This is incredible! Thank you for all your time and knowledge, I really appreciate it. It works really really well, i've had a lot of fun creating and answering questions during my tests.

ignitesomerset

@woland

Hi Woland,
I’m working with the existing Isadora patch for an interactive video booth. Right now, a MIDI button triggers a random pre-recorded question video, and then the participant records an answer.

I’ve been asked to expand the system, and I’m wondering if this is possible:
Can I add a new option that lets participants record their own question video, and have that video automatically added to the pool of question videos used for random playback?

I’m a bit unsure about the cleanest way to integrate this. If anyone has suggestions about the best approach (e.g., duplicating the current recording chain, adding a new folder to the randomizer, or recommended actors), I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks so much!

dbini

@ignitesomerset
I've made a few interactive video booth patches, although I can't find an example at the moment. There is an actor called Capture Stage to Movie that is pretty straightforward and will do what you need. You will have to set up user-activated triggers to Start and Stop the recording, and you may need to limit the recording time (have a Trigger Delay that hits the Stop after a certain time so that you don't end up filling your hard drive if somebody forgets to hit Stop) Maybe the triggers could be from a MIDI CC with Start triggered by pushing the button and Stop by releasing it?

You will probably need on-screen instructions, and the possibility to delete or re-record the movie file, but this can be achieved with a bit of logic.

Woland

@ignitesomerset said:

Hi Woland,
I’m working with the existing Isadora patch for an interactive video booth. Right now, a MIDI button triggers a random pre-recorded question video, and then the participant records an answer.

I’ve been asked to expand the system, and I’m wondering if this is possible:
Can I add a new option that lets participants record their own question video, and have that video automatically added to the pool of question videos used for random playback?

I’m a bit unsure about the cleanest way to integrate this. If anyone has suggestions about the best approach (e.g., duplicating the current recording chain, adding a new folder to the randomizer, or recommended actors), I’d really appreciate it.

Yes, what you’re asking for is definitely possible in Isadora. Generally I'd do it by using the Text Formatter to give specific name formats to question and answer videos so they can be told apart. Another approach is to write the list of media numbers for user-made question videos and user-made answer videos (as they are created) to two different text files using Data Array actors and then using Shuffle actors to handle randomization. The ideas that @dbini shared are great too, and a form of the timeout feature he mentioned is actually already included in the version of the patch I posted earlier this year.

If you’d like me to continue developing this for you, I’m happy to, though I’d need to do that as freelance work outside of my regular TroikaTronix hours since my TroikaTronix work hours are quite busy with other tasks at the moment. If you'd like to go that direction, feel free to send me a message via forum DM.

We’re planning to roll out a more formal professional services system next year, which will allow people to hire Ryan or me through the company as expert consultants or to commission us for complex Isadora builds.

Best wishes,

Woland

ignitesomerset

@dbini said:

I've made a few interactive video booth patches, although I can't find an example at the moment. There is an actor called Capture Stage to Movie that is pretty straightforward and will do what you need. You will have to set up user-activated triggers to Start and Stop the recording, and you may need to limit the recording time (have a Trigger Delay that hits the Stop after a certain time so that you don't end up filling your hard drive if somebody forgets to hit Stop) Maybe the triggers could be from a MIDI CC with Start triggered by pushing the button and Stop by releasing it?You will probably need on-screen instructions, and the possibility to delete or re-record the movie file, but this can be achieved with a bit of logic.

Thanks so much for the reply! Really appreciate the tips. The Capture Stage to Movie actor sounds like a solid way to go, and the MIDI start/stop idea is super handy. I’ll have a play with the trigger setup and the timing bit you mentioned.

Also good call on adding instructions and a re-record option — I’ll work that in. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction!

ignitesomerset

@woland said:

Yes, what you’re asking for is definitely possible in Isadora. Generally I'd do it by using the Text Formatter to give specific name formats to question and answer videos so they can be told apart. Another approach is to write the list of media numbers for user-made question videos and user-made answer videos (as they are created) to two different text files using Data Array actors and then using Shuffle actors to handle randomization. The ideas that @dbini shared are great too, and a form of the timeout feature he mentioned is actually already included in the version of the patch I posted earlier this year.If you’d like me to continue developing this for you, I’m happy to, though I’d need to do that as freelance work outside of my regular TroikaTronix hours since my TroikaTronix work hours are quite busy with other tasks at the moment. If you'd like to go that direction, feel free to send me a message via forum DM.We’re planning to roll out a more formal professional services system next year, which will allow people to hire Ryan or me through the company as expert consultants or to commission us for complex Isadora builds.Best wishes,Woland

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation — really helpful! I love the idea of using the Text Formatter and the text-file approach to keep things organized, and it's great to know this kind of setup is totally doable in Isadora. I’ll dig into those methods and see how far I get.

And thanks as well for the offer to develop it further. I might take you up on that once I get a bit deeper into the build — really appreciate you being open to it, especially with your schedule being packed.

Best wishes, and thanks again for all the guidance!