2008/5/9 Ray Evans :

>
> Hi, can anyone suggest a tutorial for creating rotary controls in max – I
> have experimented with Pict but am having little success (most of my
> controls end up two knobs wide and will not rotate).
> I am a newbie (is it obvious?) and have read all the max help files but am
> still not quite grasping the procedure for creating these.
> BTW the reason I want to do this is I hope to create a Matrix 12 emulation
> as a vst.
> Any help will be greatly recieved.
> Thanks
>
>

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Ray Evans wrote:

>
> Hi, can anyone suggest a tutorial for creating rotary controls in max – I
> have experimented with Pict but am having little success (most of my
> controls end up two knobs wide and will not rotate).
> I am a newbie (is it obvious?) and have read all the max help files but am
> still not quite grasping the procedure for creating these.
> BTW the reason I want to do this is I hope to create a Matrix 12 emulation
> as a vst.
> Any help will be greatly recieved.
> Thanks
>
>

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 1:37 PM, Ray Evans wrote:

>
> Thanks for the swift response Yair, I have just looked at cartoplo and
> although it sort of does what I need what I am looking for is a way of
> recreating dial but with my own images instead of the preset image. Is the
> image for dial replaceable?
> Cheers
> Ray
>

I don’t know tutorials but think what you want is the [pictctrl] object. You have to supply an image in a certain format that contains all the images for each of your knob positions. Then set the parameters of [pictctrl] to match your values and images. You find the picture formats in the Max help.

A simple example:
If your knob has 8 positions for example, you make 8 knob pictures in a graphics application, combine them into a single horizontal row and use this image in [pictctrl]. In this case you set the [pictctrl] “Control Type” to “Dial”, the “Dial Maximum” to 8 and then “Dial Number of Images” also to 8. Look at the various other settings if you need something else.

Sorry, perhaps you cannot use the [pictctrl] at the moment. Seems to be broken in Max5, at least for me. If you have a [pictctrl] with a picture, regardless if it works or not, try first to save, close (or quit Max5) and reopen the patch. If everything is ok, then ok …

Did I say that hate software updates?

In order to make the proper format (the help file for pictctrl is rather vague) you are going to need MSpaint, Photoshop, Pixelmator, etc. a image editor with somewhat-decent control.
Either take a picture of another software program and use the dials, toggles, etc. from that (I used Reason because it has a fun GUI) or make your own. The more important thing than the images is the layout- you want a 1 pixel border around the whole set (either 6 or 4 images: On,Off,Depressed from On,Depressed from off,Optional Active, and Optional Inactive) which you will have to do by hand using a pencil or line tool. Don’t have a border around each picture, but have a border around each set, i. e. side-by-side images (the top line on and off for example) share a border. It’s quite fun, actually. I had a couple that were pictures of my face-happy face for on, sad face for off, angry face for being pressed. ( :

brad

http://music.columbia.edu/~brad

Thanks for the reply
Ray

Andreas

If you can please provide a zip archive with patch(es) / image(s) and details on the problem you are seeing then we would be happy to look at it. With a general complaint such as “it does not work” it is hard for us to help.

Thanks,
Rob

Sounds like you have missed the message I sent almost immediately after I wrote the warning above. The subject is “[pictctrl] broken?” and here is the URL:

http://www.cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=33551&start=0&rid=7037&S=e446529ade7b10ef6f10bdcf3376daae

> With a general complaint such as “it does not work” it is hard for us to help.

I did neither complain nor did I say that “it does not work”. I warned the person who might follow my suggestion and might run into the same problem. Actually I said “perhaps” and “seems to be broken”.

Please let us continue in the other thread.

Why anyone would consider the mouse as a controller at all is beyond my
comprehension. Touchpads of laptops could be fine if they are not linked
to any visual part of the patch.
But rotary dials on screen are perfect if you have rotary controls for
them…
Fortunately the default mouse tracking in Max 5 is now vertical…

It’s also beyond my comprehension why Doepfer discontinued their pocket
series. The pocket dial is just a perfect companion for Max…

Stefan

–
Stefan Tiedje————x——-
–_____———–|————–
–(_|_ —-|—–|—–()——-
– _|_)—-|—–()————–
———-()——–www.ccmix.com

Screen estate is an argument. For the usabilitay it does not make a difference. You start at one point and drag up and down. I don’t think that many people work with the circular mode, which is almost unusable. But who knows, some people try hard to follow the path of a long fader with their mouse as if they could lose it. Ironically, this happens only on high-tec interfaces like Lemur and Dexter.

Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Mon, 12 May 2008 16:14
—————————————————-
> It’s also beyond my comprehension why Doepfer discontinued their pocket
> series. The pocket dial is just a perfect companion for Max…

And not only for Max. Maybe too many customers wanted another case or complained that it doesn’t fit for them or whatever. The Pocket Dial itself is not dead, it lives in the “Dial Electronic”. Without a case and the encoders are optional.

Btw, what I would like is a row of encoders on my keyboard but the Pocket Dial case does not fit and I want USB for that :-)

There are always Pocket Dials on ebay (2 at the moment in .de), which might also be a cause that Doepfer doesn’t sell enough. And he links to a Polish distributor who has still some devices in stock.

http://www.olilarkin.co.uk/index.php?p=max#pk

oli

Or perhaps the “Pocket electronic” or “USB64″-kit?

I am quite interested in using potentiometers next to my monome in max. The 64knob Dial Electronic would be a great companion i would think. Any opinions on the 3 Doepfer devices above?

“Why anyone would consider the mouse as a controller at all is beyond my
comprehension.”

and why anyone would suggest “try poltocar” when the question was how
to load custom images into picturecontrol is also beyond a lot of things.

“It’s also beyond my comprehension why Doepfer discontinued their pocket
series. The pocket dial is just a perfect companion for Max…”

i use them too, and mainly with max.

but i guess that dieter that sooner or later has to accept that he has to do something
with computers when he wants to survive …

-110

----------begin_max5_patcher----------
399.3ockSssbBBCD8Y3qfIOqNHnH1ekNNchIK3pgDlPrisN9uWR3hAacZ6KK
IKm8rWNatFFP1qt.MjnWhdMJH3ZXPfyk0QP+8.RE8BSPabvHbjJHy59QC9IX
cluHt2i7bk5rQ.FG3k8d4PoF5RSZ1.zNblOpgtzSJDJpgDsafJ.3BfoDJcGf
3EYYIaVsd1SNEOFJSf01X7SEJmx0l73zsIydxo6bUT5E1x1F0y3iqsyQ4iMd
M0vNfxx2z.yzQQ5pM1PSS1Z+jkNXGIZe4j5Ler+9oS2CC4N4Qs+37UqIVe2B
CslY+QgsFYFlQOJt+CoTRqfdNNJLGglE0xxAdzTYY2VxfZTTz.tow7kwK2NT
+kRU6TRfrS946aaInzaGoP2l4FexMZJ6T6D2miJE2Ecxv8yBCVKPP6ixE46f
1fr1Mbue7iJqlZP0uJ0YcRctSjW4rqehlk4qYNDD6N6CuMcYw5epP1nNqYCS
n9Uf10iwDwgFCJskrzGT1DPGPNGj9uapPdspcf2WDQ6lThg2B+hHgTub
-----------end_max5_patcher-----------

it’s basicly a pictctrl underneath an invisible (all alpha to zero) dial with “clip dial values” turned off, connected to each other.
I thought maybe it’s useful information for someone….

I’d like to look at this, but you forgot to include the “pijltjes.png” file….

Brendan