tagged: quartz composer

being asked to revive rbn_esc begged the question: will the software still run, can i even remember how to handle the complexity? it was an amazing milestone back in 2006 going from two laptops linked by midi to running the complete performance off one laptop. but there was a lot to that integration, and my license of ableton live was long expired. i wondered whether there might be a simpler way, now that resolume avenue effectively had ableton’s session view – in which rbn_esc’s basic structure and audio-visual links are laid out – and was built to be an audio-visual software from the ground up.

turns out, resolume does make this possible, and it’s great to perform from just one software. but, i needed to ‘outboard’ quite a lot of functionality. it’s great that’s possible – to the extent i was able to make my own render stack fed by the individual layers in resolume – but not all of it was me being fussy. the audio side has a long way to go: elastic audio, setting bpm from a column trigger, pre-fade / post-fade effect processing.

video: https://vimeo.com/148427383

diary | 10 dec 2015 | tagged: *spark · vj · rbn_esc · resolume · quartz composer

back in 2009, the d-fuser was conceived to mix ‘triplehead’ dvi. it was a direct need for d-fuse’s live shows, along with HD. that story is long told.

then in 2011, the datapath X4 was released. it’s a triplehead2go on steroids, coming from the pro-av market rather than gamers. still, surprisingly affordable for what you get, which is a 1-in, 4-out dual-link dvi box where each output is completely configurable. before even getting to running quad-head, you could take triplehead input, split that to three outputs, and then use the forth to scale that non-standard 12x3 input back to something you could display on a monitor on your desk. i like, a lot^[1].

it was a while until we got our hands on one at d-fuse HQ, but we did, and now the d-fuser can work with one too. of course, this has all happened since the firmware was commissioned and plans went to the factory, so the retail units don’t ship with this support. having just stepped through the process for the guildhall school of music and drama’s purchase of two d-fusers and an X4 for their scenography work^[2], i’ve packaged up and made good the resources necessary. it’s not quite ready for http://sparklive.net/dfuser/support yet — it involves a windows pc, amongst other things — but the process works, and i’ve even got a nice align grid and 4x1 to 2x2 pixel map and test movie rolled in there.

so - attached is a zip of files with the resources you need to configure 2048x1536@30Hz through your d-fuser and 2048x1536@30Hz to 4x 1024x768@60Hz through the X4.

SparkDFuser-DatapathX4Support-v1.zip
  Align Grids
    SPK Align 2048x1536.png
    SPK Align 4096x768.png
  D-Fuser Controller Setup
    _See support site for firmware v30 and above_
  D-Fuser Processor Setup
    Windows CorioTools SPK-DF-750 v423 with X4.zip
  Datapath X4 Setup
    spark dfuser - datapath X4 configure script
  Pixel Map
    Spark D-Fuser X4 4x1 to 2x2 Pixel Map.qtz
    SPK Align 4096x768 30fps Bar.mov 

i didn’t see many config scripts for the X4 when i wrote my first, so here’s the configure script from the zip in plain, google-searchable, text.

#!/bin/sh

echo '### Datapath X4 Configuration for *spark d-fuser'
echo '###'
echo '### http://sparklive.net/dfuser/support'
echo 

if [ ! -x '/usr/local/bin/vqscmd' ]
then
  echo 'Error: Missing Mac OSX software for X4'
  echo '       Download and install from www.datapath.co.uk'
  exit
fi

echo 'Setting input format to 2048x1536 30Hz'
/usr/local/bin/vqscmd -DeviceNumber=0 -InputEdid=1,2048,1536,30000

echo 'Setting output format to 2x2 grid of 1024x768 60Hz'
/usr/local/bin/vqscmd -DeviceNumber=0 -OutputMode=1,1024,768,60000,1
/usr/local/bin/vqscmd -DeviceNumber=0 -OutputSource=1
/usr/local/bin/vqscmd -DeviceNumber=0 -CaptureRegionDefault=0

echo 'Saving settings in X4'
/usr/local/bin/vqscmd -DeviceNumber=0 -Commit

diary | 23 mar 2014 | tagged: dvi-mixer · quartz composer · video-out | downloads: SparkDFuser-DatapathX4Support-v1.zip

james sheridan saw SPK-RectPack, and invited me to see the dome setup he develops the tech for: igloo, the company, could do with something like screenrunner running in the dome, and more generally james is a creative-coding guy keen to meet like-minds. well, i was impressed; it wasn’t long before screenrunner was running on the dome’s mac pro^[1], and not long after that james was organising a creative coding night in their mini demo dome.

as part of that he invited the london quartz composer group along, and invited me to show what quartz composer was doing in screenrunner. i was happy to talk about it^[2], i really like the mix of cocoa for the app, OpenGL + QCRenderer for the rendering engine and Quartz Composer.app to visually patch each client’s bespoke design and animation together. it’s not often i can show what lies underneath!

diary | 10 feb 2014 | tagged: quartz composer · titler · video-out · dome · talk

a screenrunner client wanted an animating tiled layout. it’s surprisingly non-trivial to code, at least if you want to go beyond hard-coding a few grid layouts. thankfully, the problem is academically interesting too, and lo! there’s a paper on spatial packing of rectangles, complete with MaxBinRectPack algorithm and c++ implementation. respect to jukka jylänki.

getting this working for me was time worth investing, and i’ve released the results: a quartz composer patch and animation technique. it’s up on github, and is something best seen in action, so check the quick demo video on vimeo.

diary | 18 nov 2013 | tagged: code · mac os · quartz composer · titler · vj

watch, it’s really quite good. an online video is not the same as an installation, but put it full-screen, keep with it and you’ll get a real sense of the mounting intensity and serious subject.

diary | 19 oct 2013 | tagged: dfuse · quartz composer · video-out

friends who made a cinema camera out of industrial cameras are getting excited about gig-e vision for live video work. as am i.

more on this will come. in the meantime, hospitality at brixton academy was round the corner, had a friend running visuals, and i’d just got our plug-in running at 60fps.

• soak test with d’n’b frequencies: check.
• flexibility of just dropping in the tiny camera on it’s single cable: check.
• image quality: check, the cheap-ass lens i used was surprisingly good, and i have a high-quality prime lined up.

while i’m here, justin has done a fine job with the hospitality staging - the massive ‘h’ fixture is proper class, and the visuals were perfectly designed for a judicious minimum of LED panels.

diary | 27 sep 2013 | tagged: code · mac os · video-in · quartz composer · gev · vj

after a bout of yet more *spark screenrunner back-end building up – libPusher, ‘event’ document packages that encapsulate the media and graphic template, the all important enqueue new – it was onto what really set this gig apart.

visually, i’d always thought of the rendered output as 2d motion graphics, the made by movie re-working being the canonical example. but here the content wasn’t coming in from the virtual ether, or just signing who was in front of the screen, we were visualising the venue we were in, and it was laid out with yurts, with conversation threads and ideas coming from each of them. we needed a map, we needed a way of collating the ideas… and one-creative-process-later, i was loving the result: animating around a 3d tabletop diorama of post-its and plastic yurt board-game pieces, with polaroid snaps falling down on one side and A4 sheets sellotaped down on the other.

true 3d in quartz composer was a branch out into the unknown for me, and not without its developer terror moments finding out what it was happy with and what it wasn’t. bottom line, while there’s issues a-plenty with qc’s 3d rendering, couple it with sketchup for quick 3d modelling and globs of javascript to handle the data-scape, colour me impressed. it was captivating watching the animation unfold as the live content came in - and a proud moment.

diary | 09 feb 2012 | tagged: quartz composer · titler · *spark · vj · festival of ideas · engaging audiences

at the heart of the brain was the increasingly inappropriately named *spark titler, collating all the media and channelling it to the screen. it runs the screen, and gives just what you need to be responsive to the moment without breaking the visual illusion. so… *spark screenrunner?

whatever its grown-up name is, it monitored a fileshare for photos incoming from the caption-shot camera, illustrations and data-vis from ciaran and caroline’s laptops, listened to twitter accounts and hashtags, and, wonderfully, got updates in real-time from convotate, stef’s conversation annotation web-app. a technical shout-out here to pusher, the HTML5 websocket powered realtime messaging service, and to luke redpath’s objective-c library. and via the venue’s many-input HD vision mixer and a quartz composer patch or so more, we had treated feeds from above ciaran’s illustration pad, photoshop screen and whatnot.

it might be that you have to do this kind of job to grok the need, but i really think there’s something in *spark screenrunner, whether its just titling and transitioning between two presenters’ powerpoints or this kind of high-end craziness.

diary | 09 feb 2012 | tagged: code · mac os · quartz composer · titler · *spark · vj · festival of ideas · video-out · engaging audiences

sane control of the media and scenography needs to be partnered with the animation mechanics to handle it all gracefully. luckily, thats what i do – and what tools like quartz composer enable – and i had the best materials to work with in the form of made-by’s brand video. it’s great. watch it, and you’ll also see how perfect it was to be remade into a never-ending animation with dynamic content interspersed with the hand-animated elements.

best of all, now i have the interface and back-end largely worked out i can concentrate on creating bespoke animation for future gigs: everybody wins.

diary | 14 oct 2011 | tagged: code · mac os · quartz composer · titler · *spark · vj · MADE-BY

how did joanna run the screen? with *spark titler v3: no longer a now-and-next titler, more the means for a live brand video. into an animation template go tweets, titles and all sorts of media, and the user is presented with a sane way of wrangling that media and controlling the output.

the app as a whole is mac-native in the best of ways, with the behaviours a naive user might expect. i’m especially proud of the interface, which takes the standard elements and extends them where necessary^[1], all to be used without fear of killing the output or screwing up the content.

diary | 14 oct 2011 | tagged: code · mac os · quartz composer · titler · *spark · vj · MADE-BY