Automated live visuals using vizzie (i'm new here)
Hi all,
This is my first post here. I'm looking into producing live visuals for a band I've begun working with and am wondering if max msp, jitter and particularly vizzie is going to allow me to do what I want to do.
I have a lot of questions but here are the main things I'm after knowing:
1. Can you control clips in vizzie using an audio input? Because I'm working with a live band (a jazz band) I'm looking to trigger clips using audio inputs from mics/mixing desk etc.
2. Can you do video transitions like 'Multiply' and 'screen' in max msp? This is fairly vital for what I want to do.
3. Can you alter the resolution of the vizzie output? 640 x 480 seems small for the quality of image I'm wanting to use.
4. I am not planning on using any additional effects to my video loops. I simply want to layer them up by multiplying them over each other. How many layers do you think are possible from a mid range computer?
I think that's it for now. Any advice at all would be really helpful. I guess I'm looking to see if the max msp system is the one to use before I start learning it.
Cheers,
Antony
Hello Antony,
You can do all those things, however if you've never done any Max before you might want to learn it a little before working with the software if you have a deadline...
Vizzie is easier because the hard work is done for you but it's less flexible than doing your own patches... You can also start with vizzie and modify the vizzie abstractions to add features you really need.
cheers.
that's good to hear.
i guess it's time to get learning..
Making Max patches is very rewarding, hope you will enjoy it !
You can certainly use Vizzie to control visuals even if you don't know much in the way of Max programming. I would suggest that the FOLLOWR module would give you a reasonable place to start - its data outputs are, like everything else in Vizzie, 0. - 1.0. Hacking it to use live audio input is um... really really simple....
Hi Antony,
When I first started with jitter I also tried things with Vizzie, i hit the same problems as you with the resolution being too small and I found that my cpu could go a bit crazy once in a while. After a few months I can say its far better just to dive into Jitter.
At first it can seem very daunting but using the jit.gl.objects is incredibly easy compared to doing everything with only jitter matrixes.
Heres a few tips:
- Check out jit.gl.slab object ! Theres a huge amount of example effects in the cycling 74 examples folder. Playing videos into a jit.gl.slab (converts the video to a texture) and then sending that to a jit.gl.videoplane is a very efficient way to play videos. jit.gl.slab can automatically adapt to the dimensions of the video coming in :)
- use jit.gl.pix alphablend to get two videos and blend them together and keep the alpha channel intact. Check the examples as theres a jit.gl.slab which allows you to use different modes like multiply and subtract,difference etc ...
- The basic objects to get open gl working are jit.gl.window and jit.gl.render. Use these objects combined with the above examples and you'll be going in no time.
- use the attrui object to easily play around with parameters and after you found what you like you can build those instructions into message objects.
- audio to trigger is very simple but it depends on what you want to do. What sounds do you use to trigger a video clip ? more than 2 is impossible if you want to have two video layers, percussive sounds work best as they have clear transients, check the z.scale external to scale your value from sound to the range that you want.
Just give it a month or two and use the forums. I learnt 80% of what I know from other peoples examples and tips ;-)