RESEARCH / MIDI Driven Animation

This is just going to be a really wordy post, just a summary note on my research on "Audio Driven Animation".

Researching on Audio Driven Animation, eventually brought me back to:

Andrew Lowell's Houdini Audio Driven Animation Book:
http://www.andrew-lowell-productions.com/andrew-lowell-productions/resources.html

For Blender, there is apparently this MIDI Driver Add-On (not yet available for Blender 2.5x?)
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?195434-MIDI-Driver-music-driven-animation-creator
http://blendit.xaa.pl/index.php?p=middrv&l=eng#faq

And also stumbled into this one (will take a look)
http://kwnetzwelt.net/wordpress/archives/1022

MIDI VS WAV
So, MIDI is definitely a more precise way to control animation compared to just WAV Audio Samples.

And for MIDI to be useful to control and automate animation, apparently is not that simple. Firstly the F-Curves generated by MIDI need to be manipulated somewhat so it became more useful to use for animation. And it is also depending on the animation. Whether it is going to be a simple loop or with variety of animations.

It is quite interesting area but also pretty ... deep.

ACTION MODIFIER
So far, the furthest setup I can do is by connecting Baked Sound F-Curves into Action Modifier for Pose Armature. Action Modifier is quite interesting in itself (I just found out about it by studying Nathan's HUMANE RIGGING DVD), probably that is one key that I have been looking for.

In fact, with Action Modifier, I could go back to triggering animation using Dynamic Paint. Although I am still thinking for the most efficient way to do so. Maybe just a couple Constraints and Drivers will do it, without Dynamic Paint.

Actions driven by Dynamic Paint.

I am also looking into BGE (Blender Game Engine) way to trigger or automate actions. But then again, that is another huge area.