Mashups. Sampling a President named Bush. Bah. In the early 90s, life was better. Multimedia collective Emergency Broadcast Network was sampling found footage in truly clever ways — using VHS, artifacts and all. And driving around in massive projection assault vehicles with rotating satellite dishes. And building rockets into golf bags. Really. Now that’s my kind of visualist. Robokid hooks us up with this “documercial” explaining their work (contrats on having a Wikipedia page, Josh!):

If you enjoyed the DJ/VJ grand piano, from EBN’s Gardner Post, you’ve only just seen the beginning. EBN were legendary in their time, but since there was no YouTube in 1992, it was tricky getting hold of their videos. Now, no such problem. Here’s one example of their work, which wins extra points for featuring a piano-playing pigeon:

It’s a huge disappointment: the best eye candy on earth causes blindness. And it’s a little hard to see, even as our closest star. Enter NASA, with the solution: the first-ever stereo three-dimensional images of the sun.

STEREO: First 3-D Images of the Sun

NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. For the first time, scientists will be able to see structures in the sun’s atmosphere in three dimensions. The new view will greatly aid scientists’ ability to understand solar physics and there by improve space weather forecasting.

STEREO, baby!

You’ll need red-and-cyan glasses, which you can buy or make. (See NASA’s great guide to how this works and where to buy / how to make.) The good news: in addition to still images, there’s video, too. I dare you to make an all 3D set. And, clearly, if you do, you’ll need some NASA sun imagery in there. I mean, come on.

Has anyone tried the red-and-cyan approach with tools like Jitter and Processing? I’m working now with a system that doesn’t require the dual image, instead using 3D color mapping, which should be easier to apply to shaders. More soon. For now, enjoy the great hyrogen-helium fusion reactor that is the engine that gives us life.

Let’s cut through the marketing. Adobe has a new, giant box of software. It’s a giant box of software you’re probably going to get if you do visual work. It’s finally a box of software that runs on Intel Macs at speeds that don’t make you feel like your Mac Pro is a blue&white G3. And it does a bunch of stuff that you’ll have to, well, learn.

We’ve got enough of a preview, though, to see that there’s a lot to be truly excited about. Most importantly, Photoshop finally understands time and animation, enabling all kinds of artistic effects working directly with animations and video and painting on frames. And After Effects finally eases some animation tasks, opening up some unique effects with vectors and 2D. For visualists wanting to build better materials for live and interactive production by creating more original footage, all of this opens up some interesting new possibilities. (Disclaimer: what looks great on paper means nothing until you’ve tested this. So consider this a preview until we get out review copy.)

So, getting straight to it, what’s cool for visualists in CS3? We’ll be answering that question over the coming months, but here’s the shortened version, plus the arcane and bizarre ways CDMotioners intend to warp Adobe’s tools beyond their PR firm’s wildest expectations:

Flash, All Integrated Up

1. Native Photoshop and Illustrator import. Finally, you’ll be able to work with full-fidelity, seamlessly-imported files from other tools. Some people love Flash’s own vector tools, of course, but no one won’t love the ability to link up with Photoshop and import, complete with layers. CDMo is excited about: insane, multi-layered graphics for VJing in Flash.


2. Edit audio cues easily. Part of why I’m excited about Soundbooth CS3, Adobe’s new audio app, is that it’s perfectly-suited for editing audio for Flash (and, other marketing ideas beside, I’m fairly certain that’s how the tool came about in the first place). More on Soundbooth over at Create Digital Music.

After Effects, Now Better at Animation

1. Shape Layers. Draw and animate vector shapes in After Effects, without leaving the program. CDMo angle: I could see doing a whole gig’s footage with this feature alone.
2. Puppet. Manipulates and warps 2D images for animation. CDMo angle: Your challenge is to use this without looking like all the other motion graphics artists who are about to overuse it. I’m sure it can be done; I love the impact of manipulating 2D and quasi-3D After Effects.
3. Brainstorm. Generate and preview “animation variations.” Again, AE goes to better animation.

The good folks at Resolume have a traditional change log, but they’ve tried a different approach to describing why you should leap for their new 2.41 update:

Sometimes you just need to enjoy the finer things in life, like listening to Ricardo Villalobos instead of Jeff Mills or to Belle & Sebastian instead of Body Count. Drink a nice Merlot instead of cheap Lambrusco. Subtle differences make all the difference.

And there you have it. In the actual changelog, you’ll see stuff like bug fixes and speed improvements. In other news, Resolume is selling some lovely new footage called Line Dancers, pictured here, continuing the “dancing lines and particles” meme of 2007. (Bet you could have fun improving upon this with Processing.) Gives me some thoughts on more fun stuff to use as footage, which is ultimately what I like about apps like Resolume — it really begs for some great-quality material for mixing and layering.

In review, the reason we love Resolume on our PCs — even though we’ve fallen in love with VDMX5 on the Mac (more on that later this week) — boils down to stuff like this:

1. Flash file support, with audio-to-Flash animation features
2. Network streaming
3. DMX support (even in Flash)
4. Chaos mode (the “VJ goes to use drink tickets at the bar” feature)


5. Exceptional video card support


6. Lots of powerful custom layer/mask features

Resolume users, what’s your take on the app?

These are a unique combination, short of building something custom in Jitter (and Jitter lacks the extensive Flash support).