I’ve posted my first two videos for the Vixid@CDM Minisite. These cover both the ridiculously basic - how to get started with the VJX - and the reasonably advanced - using cameras, midi and Ableton Live to create a seamless-scrolling effect across two projectors:

Vixid 101 - The Basics: Inputs, Outputs, Routing, Blend Modes, Compositing
Multi-projector Spanning: Cameras, Cables, Midi and Ableton Live

Aside from the exciting possibilities this opens, I’m also happy about the Vixid 101 video as it uses a rather strange aspect resolution - 500×600px - which allowed me to display both the physical view of what’s being done to the mixer and the output.

This is all quite new for me, I don’t have much practice actually talking to cameras, so I’d love to hear your feedback. Is the format working for you? Does my trim-every-extraneous-second editing style scare you? Would you like to see more videos like this on CDMo?

We covered a source for cheap visualist miscellany last week. It included cheap NTSC CMOS cameras, but unfortunately DealExtreme doesn’t seem to stock much PAL gear.

I had gone looking and placed an order with another site, but didn’t want to recommend it until that order had arrived intact.

That order has arrived intact.

The source for these cameras is DHGate, which is a “marketplace” rather than a direct merchant. DHGate provide a database of products and act as an escrow for payment, it feels a little like eBay. Terms are set by the individual seller, so it’s not a free-shipping wonderland like DealExtreme, but the prices are still finger-tinglingly low. I ordered 16 of these little cameras, which seem to be the PAL version of the NTSC ones at DealExtreme. 16 cameras cost me US$219 including shipping ($13.70 each) and they arrived in about a week. I’ve unpacked and tested them, and they’re all working perfectly.

Cat hit up the Amoeba Dance comments with a link to Sanch TV’s work in vvvv.

Apart from some smooth motion and subtly textured shapes, Sanch is also collaborating on an AV act “Va”, with quad-screen visuals:

I’m sure I’m not the only visualist to have been inspired by Autechre’s Gantz Graf video, nor the only person to have watched it and though “some day, we will be able to do that in realtime”:

I think we’re still quite a way off, but the latest project to set my mind thinking along these lines is Amoeba Dance - Caliper Remote (and the followup, Amoeba Dance with Mad Girls,) by CDMo reader Memo:

This is created realtime in VDMX from a quartz composer generator, controlled by 9-band audio analysis, and topped off with a very nice little effects chain.

A few people have mentioned they don’t get the same look when they use the QTZ file, this is because the QTZ file renders with very basic shading and there is quite a bit of post done in VDMX. The Effects I’m using (from top to bottom) are:
Serpia Tone (100%, Source Atop)
Shaded Material (0-40% tied to audio analysis, Soft Light)
City Lights (100%, Source Atop)
Bloom (100%, Screen)

I’ve also got a 9-band audio analysis going on, with different frequencies driving all the parameters of QTZ. You can just setup the frequencies randomly and it will do pretty cool stuff to almost any song (see http://www.memo.tv/amoeba_dance_v1_5 for an example!!), but it is best to taylor the frequencies to the specific song…

Memo shares the GLSL code and the QTZ file on his site, which contains some interesting nuggets of QC, Actionscript, Processing and other codey goodness. PK: Because this uses GLSL which runs in any OpenGL environment, you could also port the geometry stuff to Processing, Max/MSP/Jitter, Pd/GEM, or (with some adjustments) even things like vvvv, etc. — no need for Quartz Composer per se.

He also maintains a VDMX and Quartz Composer repository: http://vdmx.memo.tv/.

Awesome work, and more to come it seems.

For all of the other CDMo readers who are doing cool things, don’t wait for us to find you: Hit the comments or the contact page and tell us what you’re up to!

Lucifer is a plug-in that does real-time audio slicing and repeats — as in for music. So what is this plug-in, running in Ableton Live as a host (hmm, music again), showing up on Create Digital Motion? Because our friend Momo used its MIDI output capabilities to trigger video — and got an unusual interaction between sound and visual as a result. Now, I’m in the camp that says Ableton Live should stay a music app; there are too many well-developed visual tools that Live would never equal. But this is the exception that proves that point: by thinking in a musical way when triggering visuals, you get a relationship between the two you wouldn’t otherwise. Momo shows us how in the latest VJ Kung Fu tutorial. -PK

If you’re not familiar with Lucifer, it’s a VST/AU plugin for realtime beat-based cutup/repeats of audio. What you’re going to do is route the MIDI from Lucifer out to another program that will do Video cutups. This is useful for more than just video - with the MIDI signals coming out of Lucifer, you can control and trigger and MIDI-capable software and hardware.

We figured out a way to control video using the awesome Lucifer plugin while working on our Karate Kid AV Remix. In response to a few inquiries about just how we made this work, I put together a video tutorial showing how to set up Lucifer to output MIDI.

Karate Kid AV Remix from momo_the_monster on Vimeo.

While this particular implementation is specific to the Lucifer plug-in, it’s a thought-provoking approach to doing AV Cutups. You could build a similar method by creating MIDI clips that output common/useful triggering patterns, and trigger those instead of mashing buttons to directly start your videos.

Also, this method involves looking at the MIDI Sync information coming from Live and using that to figure out a proper loop-length for your video. This way, you can use a longish video by simply adjusting the ‘play start’ point rather than cutting your videos down to 8 or 16 proper-length versions.

Hit VJ Kung Fu for the full article.

Today on the VJ-U netcast we’ll be interviewing Aleksej, director of Circus of Now, a large-scale multimedia event design company. Among other things, we’ll discuss their Intelligent Media Composer, a polymorphic HD projection system that can dynamically mix timelines of pre-produced content with live feeds. Join us in the studio to ask questions or watch in the player below.

Nov. 6, 2007, 5 PM EST - Big visuals for big events: the Circus of Now (interview)

Can the future of visualists really be a combination of programmers, VJs, DJs, filmmakers, animators, musicians, turntablists? Why not? In the meantime, given that menu of people and a tough market to crack, many manufacturers are betting on the DJs. Josh Randall points us to this demo video of the next version of Rane’s Serato Scratch Live:

(Video by MixRevolutionTV, via YouTube — thanks, Josh!)

Scratching video in and of itself is nothing new. Numark’s CUE pushes this, as well, and the whole Numark VJ approach seems to be pushing DJs to add visuals. Long before that, the Ms. Pinky vinyl system (see various CDMusic coverage) shipped out-of-the-box with video support for turntablists — and the ability to create custom systems, thanks to its Max/MSP/Jitter support.

But it’ll be interesting to see if Rane can do it right. And there is something to be said for hardware. More discussion over on VJForums:

Serato Scratch Live’s v1.8 video features…

I agree with the consensus there: great visualists and great footage make for great results using just about any controller or interface.

Will visual turntablism spread the planet, though, or just prove a niche crossover? We’ll be taking a closer look at Serato Live 1.8 (among other things) soon.

Down with laptops! Jaymis and I have both taken up SFF PCs as live tools, so we can bring some serious iron to gigs with multiple video outputs. Now, the only problem: laptops have these handy QWERTY keyboards attached. SFF PCs (and Mac minis and such) mean bringing your own keyboard and display.

I’ve been looking for the perfect keyboard to turn this into an advantage: why not a super-savvy QWERTY keyboard that’s a performance instrument in its own right? I think I’ve found it:

CES 2007: Luxeed Interactive Keyboard [Chip Chick]

Each key can be programmed with colors, interactively, to demarcate areas or individual keys. That should allow color feedback for keyboard shortcuts for your favorite programs (hello After Effects, Final Cut, etc.), but could also be programmed to make it easier to trigger video clips and effects using the keyboard in a performance. And responsive, live music skins could let you “pimp my VJ rig” to add a little bling to your next gig.

Most important for an SFF rig is having a basic mouse capability built into the keyboard; it looks like this keyboard (like many multimedia keyboards) sports cursor capabilities via a controller at the bottom right.

The Korean maker Luxeed hasn’t said anything yet about pricing or availability. Even if it doesn’t show up here in the US, maybe I can pick one up on my next Asian romp.

Any other tips for good QWERTY keyboards for live rigs? Must-have: some kind of mouse function. Nice to have: wireless, lighting.