James Elliott

, a free, open-source live-coding environment for creating light shows using any interface compatible with the 

, entirely inside Max. It allows Max patchers to control the lighting cues, including adjusting their parameters as each frame of lighting control information is generated, so you can do things like using audio analysis or vizzie to create effects on a huge lighting grid.

The tool page describes the Max objects that the package offers, and explains how to install the Open Lighting Architecture. The afterglow-max package includes Help patchers and Reference pages to help you get your bearings, but you will also want to explore Afterglow's own extensive 

In addition to being designed to allow you to inject your own code right into the frame rendering process, there are other ways that Afterglow differs from other lighting control software you may have worked with. The early stages of its 

 can work with higher levels of abstraction than the typical DMX 

 (although those are well supported too):

This tool hosts Afterglow, a free, open-source live-coding environment for creating light shows using any interface compatible with the Open Lighting Architecture, entirely inside Max. It allows Max patchers to control the lighting cues, including adjusting their parameters as each frame of lighting control information is generated, so you can do things like using audio analysis or vizzie to create effects on a huge lighting grid.

The tool page describes the Max objects that the package offers, and explains how to install the Open Lighting Architecture. The afterglow-max package includes Help patchers and Reference pages to help you get your bearings, but you will also want to explore Afterglow's own extensive documentation.

In addition to being designed to allow you to inject your own code right into the frame rendering process, there are other ways that Afterglow differs from other lighting control software you may have worked with. The early stages of its rendering loop can work with higher levels of abstraction than the typical DMX channel value or fixture function (although those are well supported too):

You can express your desired results in terms of an abstract color, including support for the hue-saturation-lightness model, which is great for algorithmic looks, and have it translated to whatever color channels (or color wheel) your fixture supports.

Groups of moving heads can be told to aim in particular directions by specifying parameterized vectors, or to aim at a particular point in space, and Afterglow figures out how to translate that into DMX control values given its understanding of the fixture and where, and at what angle, you hung it.

There are a variety of oscillators which can efficiently drive effect parameters.

You can also create complex effects, with parameters that can be tweaked by Max, or through a rich binding to an Ableton Push controller.

The timing of effects is pervasively influenced by a deep notion of musical time, with support for synchronization via MIDI clock or Pioneer Pro DJ Link beat grids.


afterglow-max - Control light shows from Max