Free Plug-ins for a Free Visual App: Flash-Based Onyx VJ Plugs Get a Blog -

Batchass has added a new blog which will feature new plug-ins for Onyx VJ, the free and open source VJ app built in Flash / Flex / AIR. With the possibility of support for Adobe’s new Pixel Bender, this is all getting pretty interesting. (And because of the Adobe architectures beneath, that means creations can have a life on the Web, as with Processing and Java.)

Batchass Code

I also like Batchass’ tagline, “electro-rock VJ.” Oh, yeah.

Ask CDM: What Do You Use for Rear Projection Screen Material? -

I have a project coming up which requires some non-rectangular rear projection screens installed on windows. We’ve been investigating specialist rear-projection films and have found the options to be thrillingly expensive. 3M’s Vikuiti seems to be the byword in high-end rear projection films, but I couldn’t find any local distributors, and a 10m x 1.2m roll of GlassVu will set you back AU$5,000-8,000+. Not the kind of thing I’d be keen to cut in to weird shapes and install for a single evening.

Mememamo’s recent Visual Space Music installation brought up a considerably less expensive solution: Ikea’s vinyl SAXÅN curtains.

I’m going to be picking up a supply of these curtains soon to give them a try, but as more CDM readers are putting together installations these days, I think it would be beneficial to have this information available for the community.

What are people using for cost-effective or temporary rear-projection?

NetLag: Vapour Trails Live Now -

After an afternoon of testing, NetLag is now going live, kicking off from Melbourne right now. Tune in at http://mogulus.com/netlag/ over the next 5 hours to see artists from Australia, Japan and the USA!

Update: Net Lag is over, but you can watch the streams on demand. Ed.: Sound didn’t seem to work for me when I tried this, but let us know … we’ll have some archived video footage and more on how it went — and what you can learn for doing your own streaming events — very soon. And expect more events in future, as well. -PK

Several Processing Updates This Week: Latest = 147 -

Processing [site | CDM tag] has been updating quite regularly. JOGL (site | onCDM) support has been updated to 1.1.1. Other changes are in the changelog. You can download from Processing.org, and check out CDM Labs to follow along with what Peter’s been doing in Processing recently.

Ed.: The JOGL changes are a big deal; I’m curious to see what improvements this may cause in render quality via the OpenGL renderer. Processing is nearing its real (non-beta!) 1.0 release, so expect a full-blown update on the progress of the tool soon; see Ben Fry’s recently-posted status report. -PK

Processing to C++ Code: Memo’s Fluids and Particles released -

Memo has released the source code for his optical flow/psychadelic fluids project, used at the Glastonbury Pi Installation.

Seeing as a lot of what I’m doing is based on open-source software and the good intention of others, I think its fair that I release some source code too… So I’ve tried to clean and comment a bit of the code I used on the psychedelic interactive fluid and particles demo (also used on the Glastonbury 2008 PI Installation.

This is built in C++ for speed and efficiency, but Memo has previously produced similarly psychedelic fluids in Processing.

CDMo In Your Box: Sign Up for our Newsletter -

I spent time with some digital luminaries over the weekend at X|Media|Lab Melbourne, and a criticism which came up a lot went along the lines of:

“Where’s your mailing list?”
“Umm, well…”
“You don’t have a mailing list? How can you give your readers a weekly dose of CDM love to their inbox without a mailing list?”
“Well, you know, now that you put it that way. There is no way we can give them a weekly dose of CDM love to their inbox if we don’t have a mailing list.”

So. As of next week we’ll be sending a weekly CDM Newsletter. We’re absolutely certain that it will be fantastic. We have no idea what will be in it yet, but I’d expect a mix of Music, Motion, and other CDM Lovely things we can get together.

Video History Lesson: Consumer Video and DRM at Dansdata -

I think we’ve probably got a couple of years of tape-based video cameras left, but it’s starting to look like solid state is becoming a serious option for consumer use. So while we wait, Dansdata has a great history of home video, with a dose of DRM thrown in. Tivo is finally about to launch in Australia, which is great, though I’m happy with my XBox Media Centre. What are the web’s finest video geeks using for their media consumption?

Weekend Reader Link Roundup: Global VJ Map, Australian AV DVD, VJ Publication -

Here’s a couple of links which were sent in by CDMo readers over the weekend:

Zac pointed out the Frappr VJ Map, showing visualists from all around the planet.

Kat sent through an email from Timon, who is working on a VJ publication entitled VisualJockey (and is looking for submissions).

Finally, Mitchell is sending through a copy of the Synchresis DVD, although considering it’s a Creative Commons project, perhaps it could be posted on a nice online video hosting service. Physical media aside, Mitchell has a lot to say about the project.

Add Mac Quicktime Support for FLV: Perian -

I’m sure this is one of those tools which almost everyone knows about, but it’s useful enough that I’d post it if only a single person benefited: Perian is a component for which adds native Quicktime support for, notably, FLV (and a bunch of other formats nobody really cares about).

This means you can play those downloaded FLV files in VDMX, 3L… any software which uses the Quicktime framework for playing video (feel free to chime in with the ones I’ve missed). So now you can youtube VJ in your favorite software.

B&H Interviews Steadicam Inventor: Shooting is Like Dancing -

B&H, my favorite electronics store here in Manhattan, got to talk to Garrett Brown, the man who invented the Steadicam (and contributed some ground-breaking shots to the history of film himself). I love this quote, in terms of encapsulating the importance of movement inside shots:

“You have to get the physical ‘corpus’ . . . through the move and control this thing and not mess it up—it’s a delicate balance,” Brown says. “It’s hanging out there on a gimbal, it’s floating out on an arm, sticking out in some odd ways, and you’re tearing through the scene. That’s why it is so incredibly much fun to shoot Steadicam, because you have the artistic bit, you have the continuity of a move that does something, that has an emotional whack to it. And then you have the dancer’s tasks of navigating and not falling down, and the more gracefully you can do it, the better the shot looks.”

Of course, this makes me even more interested in DIY steadicams, not necessarily because I can duplicate his products but as a way of learning about the technology. Anyone built a camera mount yourself?

The Steady Approach: An Interview with Steadicam Inventor Garrett Brown