Elliot Hogg

Was hoping to create a giant molecular cloud like visual world and then manipulate it using sound, however not sure as to what the best approach to this would be. Any help would be much appreciated.

how-to-create-and-manipulate-molecular-cloud-like-visuals-using-jitter

Have you done both the max and the jitter tutorials? I always recommend sticking through both to get to the juicy parts with a good solid understanding of the basics.

Once you've gotten there, I'd say jit.gl.mesh, as well as jit.gl.multiple, and their associated helpfiles. the little phrase "matrixoutput 1" will also come in handy!

Manipulating said universe using sound is obviously in a different realm altogether. I typically start with a bit of filtering, and something like this:

dead simple, but looks great, in my opinion.

Wetterberg, seems like that copy-compressed patch didn't come through entirely. Wes Smith has a nice particles example that might help: 

https://cycling74.com/forums/sharing-is-hairy-brains-gen-particles/

Wetterberg, seems like that copy-compressed patch didn't come through entirely. Wes Smith has a nice particles example that might help: https://cycling74.com/forums/sharing-is-hairy-brains-gen-particles/


@DTR: yeah it did, it was literally just those two objects. Pretty key, though.

Ah ok :) Probably a bit cryptic for beginners though.

I would suggest that a good place to start is to look at some examples of things that achieve a similar effect and start breaking down the parts. I don't really know what a "molecular cloud" looks like, but I'm going to guess it involves a bunch of little things floating around in space. This suggests 3 things:

1. Rendering the individual things. Are they spheres? little dots? Pictures of kittens? If you can't decide, just pick something to render.

2. Positioning and moving the things. Search term: "particle system". This is where it gets fun. Are the little things flocking? Flying randomly around? Clustering together around something? For every possible answer, there is an example somewhere of some similar behavior that you will probably want to modify somehow.

3. Sound input? Maybe wait on this until you've made some decisions/prototypes of the first 2 things. There are many, many ways to get sound to manipulate a particle system, and the choice you make will mostly be an aesthetic one, although the aesthetic choice will require a technical solution. Try a bunch of stuff. Look up the Jitter Recipes on this site for some inspiration. Lots of particle related stuff.

I would suggest that a good place to start is to look at some examples of things that achieve a similar effect and start breaking down the parts. I don't really know what a "molecular cloud" looks like, but I'm going to guess it involves a bunch of little things floating around in space. This suggests 3 things:
1. Rendering the individual things. Are they spheres? little dots? Pictures of kittens? If you can't decide, just pick something to render.

2. Positioning and moving the things. Search term: "particle system". This is where it gets fun.  Are the little things flocking? Flying randomly around? Clustering together around something? For every possible answer, there is an example somewhere of some similar behavior that you will probably want to modify somehow. 

3. Sound input? Maybe wait on this until you've made some decisions/prototypes of the first 2 things. There are many, many ways to get sound to manipulate a particle system, and the choice you make will mostly be an aesthetic one, although the aesthetic choice will require a technical solution.  Try a bunch of stuff. Look up the Jitter Recipes on this site for some inspiration. Lots of particle related stuff.


Wait a second... does matrixoutput work with jit.gl.multiple? It doesn't seem to work with jit.gl.mesh... If it does, then that is the answer to my "pulling my hair out" moment of the day!

Oh and holy handbag, how did I miss that particle system? That's the simplest, loveliest build I've seen in a while!

How to create and manipulate molecular cloud like visuals using Jitter