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2009: The Year You Learn Processing

by Peter Kirn

All is quiet as this week folks celebrate Christmas and Hanukah. But this is a quick note to say that we won’t be waiting until the ball drops to jump start one New Year’s Resolution a lot of readers have: learning Processing, the artist-friendly, multimedia-savvy, open-source coding platform. We’ll be kicking off a series of tutorials on Processing (and Java and related technologies) starting all next week. And for those of you who already know Processing, just substitute “get  even better at Processing” in the previous paragraph.

If you have other tutorial requests for ‘09 (vvvv, perhaps) or tutorials you’ve put together you’d like us to link to, do give us a shout. I’ll be editing through the weekend, so see you Monday!

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  • Ian

    fantastic timing! I was just considering opening the 500 page book on processing I bought 3 months ago, but this sounds very preferable.

  • http://createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

    Which book did you buy, Ian?

    We may have to do a "how to get the most of the books" feature, too, as there's plenty of content to navigate! (Shiffman's you can read almost cover to cover; the blue Fry/Reas MIT book is more of a reference.)

  • http://www.homem-arvore.com skimmas

    Excellent. :]

  • http://wileywiggins.com Wiley Wiggins

    Awesome! I'm halfway through Shiffman's processing book, and I'd love to have some additional help and a group of people to bounce stuff off.

  • http://dean-bags.blogspot.com Paco

    Yes! I had been promising to get myself into for while but didn't know where to start!

    I also second vvvv. Also, although it still seems kinda rare and perhaps difficult, and despite the name of the site, I would like to see some tutorials on DIY Analogue Vid Synthesis.

    Actually, and it is probably way too much work to ask of you guys, but while I love cdmotion (and cdmusic for that matter) I am hoping that one day you and various other experienced geeks and artists, could create some additional kind of educational site both for beginners and for more advanced people. It could also perhaps have a calander section with upcoming events like festivals and workshops.

    A good model for this could maybe be something like:
    http://www.movingimagesource.us/

    which is aimed at the regular film world, but with a little more "how-to" involved and perhaps open source.

    Maybe I'm talking to complicated, involved or costly, but I feel like it could really lead to some great things.

    But also I love this site, keep it up, and happy holidays! Look forward to the processing tutorials!

  • http://www.seanmccolgan.com Sean

    This is one of my big ones for 09 – learn processing! look forward to the the tutorials :D Great work on Create Digital – awesome blog!

  • Rubert

    I'm definitely excited for this! I just started learning last week and this can only help. Can't wait!

  • http://www.ahmedriaz.com Riaz

    The NYC resistor group does processing meetups. I was thinking that might be a great way to get together and learn for people in the Bay area. Getting together and going through examples and learning from each other. What do you guys think?

  • http://www.heart2beat.com vjwunderkind

    Yes, yes, yes!! The only plan I have for next year – apart from learning more of quartz composer… I can't seem to get into it as well as I had hoped…

  • http://zehfernando.com Zeh

    Another vote for vvvv, although Processing is obviously the priority.

    Good luck, Peter, and thanks.

  • http://www.miguelrafael.com Miguel

    Processing already has to much writen about it, I say wee need more VVVV documentation. Ok, maybe one can never have too much info on a subject, but VVVV sure needs it more :) Projection mapping still has no good tutorial

  • http://www.LawrieCape.co.uk Lawrie

    Brilliant! Like other's, I got the Reas/Fry book for Christmas and I'm keen to learn more. Cheers Peter.

  • http://www.tweakingknobs.com Tweaking Knobs

    YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH !!!

  • http://www.creativeapplications.net Filip

    That's great news! Looking forward to the tutorials..

  • eric

    vvvv would be nice, yes.

    and maybe some advanced jitter topics.

  • voxish

    Can't wait!!!

  • http://flickr.com/photos/lennyjpg lenny

    erm… learning processing is a nice plan for sure.
    however, i think there's more stuff around than you can look at, plenty of tutorials and books.
    so i'd vote against processingtutorials, hoping you make more of the highly interesting content you usually do over here.

  • http://www.youtube.com/Rasmussen27 John

    Yay!!!
    Processing is great have been really getting into it since a little before 1.0 came out. Please do a story on how to get GStreamer working under all platforms!!! And another on advanced shaders! Minim works great for making AV visualizers too and its easy to use.

  • http://www.valleylost.co.uk Alec

    Processing tutorials would be great. I've got the Ira Greenberg book. It's good, but I couldn't grasp the section on rotation/popMatrix, which is pretty fundamental, and I feel unable to progress any further. A whole series of tutorials, going from basic stuff like rotation to advanced stuff like other libraries would be fantastic (though I realise it's asking a lot!)

  • Josh

    is there any where you can go to uni to learn processing that any one knows about.

    can be any where in the world?

  • http://zehfernando.com Zeh

    Josh: I'd say the problem with Processing inside the academic field is the same as with any other designer-esque language: you just can't get an in-depth course, and the language evolves at a fast pace, colleges can't keep up – you may get the basics but if you can't learn for yourself, no university will teach you what you really need to know.

    For all it's worth, though, I'm quite sure some colleges use it, as it's usually mentioned when describing Processing – it was created inside MIT afterall. I know that *at least* my former college – Senac, in São Paulo, Brazil – does have Processing on their "Digital Interface Design" bachelor degree curriculum. I've taught a small (20hs) Processing course there while it still wasn't part of the curriculum and it worked great, several of the final thesis projects ended up using Processing. Also, I know the School of Visual Arts in NYC use Processing on their "Programming for Artists" and "Multimedia Programming" courses in their "Computer Art" MFA degree, but I think the focus is not so strong on the language.

  • voxish

    @Josh
    I took a nice intro to programming course with Jason Lewis at Concordia University in Montreal where he used Processing.

  • http://www.dr-leech.com.ar/ Leandro

    Awesome! I'm wating for that! :)

  • intellijel

    Processing is great but I keep hitting walls with it's slow speed with more serious 3d/realtime designs.

    I see Processing as training wheels for OpenFrameworks and it would be nice to see more support for transitioning to OF.

  • leaf

    I’ve been checking out the fist-thick processing book for several times, without finishing it; yup, definitely that’d be the next year’s big resolution.

  • http://www.tweakingknobs.com Tweaking Knobs

    PLease make this tutorialds , video tutorials.

  • http://www.myspace.com/brunopapas Brunopapas

    Thanks Peter! This site is such a valuable source of information and knowledge. Keep up with it for 2009 :)

  • Jonny Pez

    Awesome! I'm not sure which book to get, so I've been trying to learn on my own using the resources available on Processing.org's website. Coming from ActionScript, I'm picking it up fairly quickly, though I would be nice to see how to apply all of this to real-world visualization applications.

    I'm ready to learn!

  • http://www.titojimenez.net tj

    I can't believe it's not butter…

    I just recived a present from my Secret Santa and got the Daniel Shiffman "Learning Processing"

    This tutorial will be a great supplement, thanks guys! and Happy new year!

  • http://ocp.pt.vu ocp

    Great initiative! I'd also like to see some Quartz Composer tutorials.

  • http://www.andybest.net Andy Best

    Perhaps I will write an Open Frameworks tutorial in the future, perhaps on how to move from Processing to OpenFrameworks? Does that interest anyone?

  • Josh

    thanks for the feedback guys, i realize ill have to do alot of learning on my own but im really keen to do some sort of digital art degree and was just wondering about my options. Am somewhat new to the visual side of things but have done a degree in music already.

    Processing is definitely on the agenda next year though

  • Tracy

    Great idea. I am looking forward to some guidance in my learning.

  • http://snarehangar.org Mike

    I've mentioned this before, but I'd like to see some tutorials on the math behind the art.

  • Eoin Rossney

    Delighted about this, Peter! I was hoping to get to Processing in '08 and it never happened – at this stage I'm itching to get going and had booked some time for Processing this week… what timing!

  • http://PRICKIMAGE.com PRICKIMAGE

    looking fwd to it!!

  • nobbystylus

    yes i'm looking forward to this and i'd also love to see more quartz composer tutorials.. plus an overview of OSC.

  • http://www.charleslooker.com charles

    Definately, definately! – I dabbled in it a little several months ago, even made a tiny little app (so quick to learn!) I was reading the visualizing data book, which is a good book to get started. Im pretty busy with game developement currently, and want to use processing as a way to r&d my ideas (current a physics 2d system idea)

    processing/python & possibly cSharp next things to learn.

  • http://elevated.tv elevated.tv

    lookin' forward to it-thanks guys!!!!

  • omenviz

    Great!!!!!!

  • davide

    isn't it monday?

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  • http://www.metamindvisual.com metamind

    Excellent. We just got Shiffman's book. These tutorials sound like a great complement of it. We'd also like to see more of VVVV please, specially about mapping. Have a nice holidays everyone.

  • http://wileywiggins.com Wiley Wiggins

    I keep posting this everywhere, but I might as well post it here too, is anyone else in Austin TX and interested in starting a processing meetup?

  • http://www.myspace.com/3lab_vj VJ 3lab

    nice to read – great idea. i look forward to see good and helping tutorials for processing, but i also hope to come closer to vvvv this year…

    miguel is right there is still no good tutorial of projection mapping outthere. deepvisual published a good beginner tutorial for mapping with modul8, but it shows only some basic features. i would like to read more about 3D mapping (masking with vvvv or another tool?!).

    great site – keep on with the good working!
    all the best in the year 2009

  • javafxnut

    That's a resolution worth striving to achieve!! My uni in Sweden teaches processing in the programing fundamentals paper before oop principles and java. Its the coolest course, we did mobile and arduino stuff too. Next year we move to full java but im having a blast with processing and javafx at the moment. Tutorials please!!!!

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  • http://an.itchybit.org/wordpress chaosdroid

    ok, this is divine sign for me:]] I have been wanting so long to come back to p55 and learn ..
    looking forward!!

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  • sabre

    Processing got ported to javascript!! This means you get the power of processing in browsers without loading java. Wait, there’s more – it also got ported to flash – yes, it seems actionscript3 isint the only player there anymore……last one – it’s been ported to ruby. Ruby is easy as pie. So now artists can use whatever suits them. 2009 is the year of wiimote games in browsers!!!!

  • Louis

    Projection mapping for dummies! PLEASE! And by dummies i mean a tutorial aimed at those with absolutely zero background knowledge.
    There is nothing out there for those of us who want to get involved in this but dont have the knowledge. (I've downloaded video projection tool 2.1 but it seems very limited, and I'd prefer to learn to to it the proper way)
    As an artist I'd simply love to experiment with it, and i'm sure many others from areas outside of digital arts would love to too!
    Who knows, maybe some of us less tech-savvy people might come up with some crazy new applications for it even with a basic knowledge, if only we had a chance.

  • http://www.raisecain.net Magda O!

    2009 is the year I will learn Processing. I have to!

    I can't wait for the tutorials.
    Wish there was workshops in Toronto, Canada…

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