master29

how-far-can-max-msp-jitter-go

max can build guis. there are several prebuilt gui components you can choose from, or you can build your own in several different ways.

if you want to use opengl look at gl.sketch and gl.text2d/3d

patch scripting, javascript, and java are all tools you may want to try out. look at bpatchers as well.

mainly, do the tutorials, come up with some example of what you're trying to achieve, post it to the forum with specific questions, and you'll be on your way.

not sure what you want to hear.
max can build guis.  there are several prebuilt gui components you can choose from, or you can build your own in several different ways. 

patch scripting, javascript, and java are all tools you may want to try out.  look at bpatchers as well.

mainly, do the tutorials, come up with some example of what you're trying to achieve, post it to the forum with specific questions, and you'll be on your way.


thanks, i will look at all this patches. It just seems to me, that its not so easy to just say something like: 

create a red circle which moves acros the screen and stops when i click on it.

but i guess i have to dig in deeper to understand what can be done in Max

thanks, i will look at all this patches. It just seems to me, that its not so easy to just say something like: 
create a red circle which moves acros the screen and stops when i click on it.

but i guess i have to dig in deeper to understand what can be done in Max


i definitly not recomment creating complex ui Max / MSP & Jitter.

Max / MSP & Jitter has its advantages in realtime data processing and has a lot of effective uis to control the data.

it is very uncomfortable to creating your own interfaces.

preparing grafics, dealing with mousestates, hitdetection, render and format text etc. 

if you have a project, which needs a compex and good looking interface design with performant data output, you should think about doing the intrface in fash or processing and connect it via osc with max.

i definitly not recomment creating complex ui Max / MSP & Jitter.
Max / MSP & Jitter has its advantages in realtime data processing and has a lot of effective uis to control the data.
it is very uncomfortable to creating your own interfaces.
preparing grafics, dealing with mousestates, hitdetection, render and format text etc. 
if you have a project, which needs a compex and good looking interface design with performant data output, you should think about doing the intrface in fash or processing and connect it via osc with max.


Quote: videomasta wrote on Wed, 10 September 2008 17:04

----------------------------------------------------

> i definitly not recomment creating complex ui Max / MSP & Jitter.

> Max / MSP & Jitter has its advantages in realtime data processing and has a lot of effective uis to control the data.

> it is very uncomfortable to creating your own interfaces.

> preparing grafics, dealing with mousestates, hitdetection, render and format text etc. 

> if you have a project, which needs a compex and good looking interface design with performant data output, you should think about doing the intrface in fash or processing and connect it via osc with max.

i dont agree with the above statement, i would say that you need lots of programming experience to make a complex UI... dont expect to dive straight in and make really complex projects, start simple and build things up bit by bit.

but that's the same for flash / processing...

Quote: videomasta wrote on Wed, 10 September 2008 17:04
----------------------------------------------------
> i definitly not recomment creating complex ui Max / MSP & Jitter.
> Max / MSP & Jitter has its advantages in realtime data processing and has a lot of effective uis to control the data.
> it is very uncomfortable to creating your own interfaces.
> preparing grafics, dealing with mousestates, hitdetection, render and format text etc. 
> if you have a project, which needs a compex and good looking interface design with performant data output, you should think about doing the intrface in fash or processing and connect it via osc with max.
>
----------------------------------------------------

experience is not the point. of course, you have to learn :-)

in flash, for example you have hundreds of ui specific functions.

in max/msp, you have to do everything by youself.

you also have a very smal user community, who are specialized in

proffesional ui developement. in flash you have thousands of users and thousands of example files. i woud say you can develop a ui 10 times faster in flash than in max/msp an your code is much more stable. (same experience level assumed)

experience is not the point. of course, you have to learn :-)
what i mean is:
in flash, for example you have hundreds of ui specific functions.
in max/msp, you have to do everything by youself.
you also have a very smal user community, who are specialized in
proffesional ui developement. in flash you have thousands of users and thousands of example files. i woud say you can develop a ui 10 times faster in flash than in max/msp an your code is much more stable. (same experience level assumed) 

I also disagree with the UI statement. Max provides a ton of UI objects for you to mess with, plus the parameters and attributes of each are FAR more easily-controlled than in Flash or Processing. The "advantage" of Flash or Processing is that the code/logic is separated from the UI, which is great to avoid screen crowding, but also forces you to keep switching back and forth from the UI to the logic. Max has everything together, which admittedly can become cluttered, but that's not the fault of the program, it's up to the organization of the user... you can do everything in a single subpatch or .js if you want, then hide it. The advantage is with rapid prototyping of ideas and with the included objects that work intuitively, in which Max absolutely destroys Flash or Processing, in my experience.

Sure there are a lot of elements of Flash that Max doesn't include by default: tweening, dragging, non-rectangular hotspots, etc. But for most things I've wanted to work with (dj, vj, visualizers, data analysis, sound synthesis, video capture, etc.), Flash is way more cumbersome. Yes, you can make a red ball go across the screen in a matter of seconds, and it takes more time to do that in Max. But going much further with that will take way more time in Flash... having the ball's size and color react to where the mouse is, complete with controllable fade time? respond to the volume of a soundfile you're playing? render itself as a 3D sphere which you can texturize with a movie and rotate automatically? run through a set of user-recorded parameter changes? change its shape and color according to a series of user-saved presets?

As an example, anyone ever try to record user-changing parameters in Flash, then play them back or save the automation? Like how a DAW such as Reason does with track parameters? Good luck with that! In Max it's super easy with mtr. How about a step sequencer for MIDI notes or for triggering images/videos/GL shapes? Matrixctrl is your friend. Would you really want to build one of these in Flash? Not to mention all the math functions like line and counter which makes so much automation easy and useful, and provides a ton of possibilities which would take way too long to create using code.

I'm kind of puzzled when I hear "max is bad for creating UI's", actually... it's a UI-creation program! In my experience, it's one of the best ones out there for getting things up and running in a hurry... if you want the UI really pretty and slick, this will take time, but it would take time in *any* environment, and in something like Processing it would take eons, as you have to create all the UI objects from scratch. Plus, performance in Processing leaves a lot to be desired, thus far. Flash is a lot better in this regard, and does have a much broader user base. However, when you want to really get into detailed control of your parameters and be able to manipulate them in real-time, it's severely limited without a *ton* of work.

Sure there are a lot of elements of Flash that Max doesn't include by default: tweening, dragging, non-rectangular hotspots, etc. But for most things I've wanted to work with (dj, vj, visualizers, data analysis, sound synthesis, video capture, etc.), Flash is way more cumbersome. Yes, you can make a red ball go across the screen in a matter of seconds, and it takes more time to do that in Max. But going much further with that will take way more time in Flash... having the ball's size and color react to where the mouse is, complete with controllable fade time? respond to the volume of a soundfile you're playing? render itself as a 3D sphere which you can texturize with a movie and rotate automatically? run through a set of user-recorded parameter changes? change its shape and color according to a series of user-saved presets? 

OK, upon rereading that sounded like a rant. My apologies. I stand by what I said, but it sounded too harsh. Time for a beer. :)

OK, upon rereading that sounded like a rant. My apologies. I stand by what I said, but it sounded too harsh. Time for a beer.  :)


Actually, I came to Max a couple of years after Flash, and perhaps 

because of this, for a long time I found building UIs far more 

straightforward in Flash than Max. As always, mileage varies. 

Nowadays however I'm not going to reach for Flash at all... But I 

still have a tendency to want to organize the higher level control 

aspects of patching with a scripting language rather than dataflow 

(the addition of js to Max was a lovely treat, and then jit.gl.lua 

On Sep 20, 2008, at 6:36 PM, Seejay James wrote:

> I also disagree with the UI statement. Max provides a ton of UI 

> objects for you to mess with, plus the parameters and attributes of 

> each are FAR more easily-controlled than in Flash or Processing. 

> The "advantage" of Flash or Processing is that the code/logic is 

In fact the learning curve with Flash was a lot easier because the 

code was actually embedded into the timelines of movie clips (+ the 

code snippets could modify the playback of this timeline), and these 

clips/timelines are nestable and can be created on the fly. I think 

this is a pretty novel and powerful idea - haven't seen much of 

anything interesting in that way in music software (especially not in 

Not sure if this is still how people are using Flash these days, this 

> ... run through a set of user-recorded parameter changes? 

> change its shape and color according to a series of user-saved 

> presets? As an example, anyone ever try to record user-changing 

> parameters in Flash, then play them back or save the automation?

Yeah, did some of that in actionscript. Made a really nice flash file 

in which I could draw animations by hand, and they'd be recorded and 

playback accordingly, then I could muck around with the way they 

played back, different kinds of tweening, spawning new gestures, edit 

them, etc. Made for much more organic and expressive animations that 

the typical easing/tween combo. Also made a graphical sequencer that 

spat out controls to control Max using Flosc. Well, it worked, but it 

Most of that kind of code was portable to JS in Max (this was when 

actionscript was basically ecmascript), except that replacing 

NewMovieClip and on(MouseOver) kinds of things were a bit trickier... 

maybe a valid contribution would be an Flash-AS -> Jitter-JS 

compatibility library... or maybe that would have been valid three 

> Would you really want to build one of these in Flash?

Not these days, I admit. But I guess my point is that it will depend 

on your background. Max offers an enormous range of different 

approaches to work, which might be daunting to a beginner (the 

tutorials are wonderful but I remember the first time I saw them I 

didn't think I'd actually read them all... but as the Max universe 

expands...). Maybe an entry guide to Max/Jitter for the Flash/ 

Processing-centric would be a good thing?

> Not to mention all the math functions like line and counter which 

> makes so much automation easy and useful, and provides a ton of 

> possibilities which would take way too long to create using code.

OK line I can sort of understand, but counter too long to create 

using code? "mod(count++, maximum);"? Sorry, couldn't help it.

Actually, I came to Max a couple of years after Flash, and perhaps  
because of this, for a long time I found building UIs far more  
straightforward in Flash than Max. As always, mileage varies.  
Nowadays however I'm not going to reach for Flash at all... But I  
still have a tendency to want to organize the higher level control  
aspects of patching with a scripting language rather than dataflow  
(the addition of js to Max was a lovely treat, and then jit.gl.lua  
even nicer).

> I also disagree with the UI statement. Max provides a ton of UI  
> objects for you to mess with, plus the parameters and attributes of  
> each are FAR more easily-controlled than in Flash or Processing.  
> The "advantage" of Flash or Processing is that the code/logic is  
> separated from the UI,

In fact the learning curve with Flash was a lot easier because the  
code was actually embedded into the timelines of movie clips (+ the  
code snippets could modify the playback of this timeline), and these  
clips/timelines are nestable and can be created on the fly. I think  
this is a pretty novel and powerful idea - haven't seen much of  
anything interesting in that way in music software (especially not in  
DAWs!)

Not sure if this is still how people are using Flash these days, this  
was quite a few years back.

> ... run through a set of user-recorded parameter changes?  
> change its shape and color according to a series of user-saved  
> presets? As an example, anyone ever try to record user-changing  
> parameters in Flash, then play them back or save the automation?

Yeah, did some of that in actionscript. Made a really nice flash file  
in which I could draw animations by hand, and they'd be recorded and  
playback accordingly, then I could muck around with the way they  
played back, different kinds of tweening, spawning new gestures, edit  
them, etc. Made for much more organic and expressive animations that  
the typical easing/tween combo. Also made a graphical sequencer that  
spat out controls to control Max using Flosc. Well, it worked, but it  
was dead slow.

Most of that kind of code was portable to JS in Max (this was when  
actionscript was basically ecmascript), except that replacing  
NewMovieClip and on(MouseOver) kinds of things were a bit trickier...  
maybe a valid contribution would be an Flash-AS -> Jitter-JS  
compatibility library... or maybe that would have been valid three  
years ago...

Not these days, I admit. But I guess my point is that it will depend  
on your background. Max offers an enormous range of different  
approaches to work, which might be daunting to a beginner (the  
tutorials are wonderful but I remember the first time I saw them I  
didn't think I'd actually read them all... but as the Max universe  
expands...).  Maybe an entry guide to Max/Jitter for the Flash/ 
Processing-centric would be a good thing?

> Not to mention all the math functions like line and counter which  
> makes so much automation easy and useful, and provides a ton of  
> possibilities which would take way too long to create using code.

OK line I can sort of understand, but counter too long to create  
using code? "mod(count++, maximum);"? Sorry, couldn't help it.


How far can Max / MSP & Jitter go?