Its been an opportune few weeks for visualists in Europe, with a spread of three festivals all with their own take on the field. Here’s a quick tour through the eyes and itinerary of one *spark.
Late at Tate: The AV Social; 4th April
NODE08: Forum for digital arts; 5-12th April
Mapping: VJing and Audio-Visual Festival; 10th-20th April
Vision’r: Festival VJ; 17th-20th April
Resolume 3 & Freeframe 1.5
On the horizon: Visual Berlin and Live Performer’s Meeting
Resolume 3 Breaking News: Mac Compatible, Freeframe OpenGL, More -
We will have more extensive coverage of this coming very soon as Toby*Spark brings us a write-up of the Node08, Mapping and Vision’R festivals.
However, for those who like their news to be the breakingest: Le Collagiste has some stills and video of Resolume 3 at Vision’R, running natively in OS X on a Macbook Pro! [Ed.: In case you're not clear why that's big news, this version goes cross-platform after a formerly Windows-only existence.] The next version of Resolume also includes audio playback and other tasty treats. No word yet on a release schedule, but this looks like an upgrade worth waiting for. (Thanks Jasper).
Ed.: Here’s a teaser video of Resolume 3 from our friends at Le Collagiste, with some fleeting glimpses of the new UI, as part of their French-language write-up of the presentation.
Resolume at work: Miki Grahame VJing. Photo by yoz.
Those of you not on the mailing list for Resolume missed a double bombshell coming this weekend at Paris’ Vision’r VJ festival.
Big story #1: open visual plug-in standard gets hardware savvy. the official release of FreeFrameGL 1.5 will happen, hosted by Resolume’s Edwin and Bart and VJamm’s Russel. FreeFrame is already a big deal; it’s an open plug-in format for visual effects, a bit like VST for visuals, except open-source instead of chained to, ahem, Steinberg. (Music folks know why that’s annoying.) With OpenGL support in FF 1.5, FreeFrame plug-ins get hardware-accelerated visuals.
Big story #2: a new Resolume will be revealed soon. This weekend we finally get to see what’s in the future for Resolume, the cult favorite VJ app on Windows. It’s a preview, but it’s good news, and it’s a year and a half in the making according to Resolume’s makers.
I was trying to explain to someone why Resolume is still important. "But it looks toy-like, like the rest of them," they said. "But there’s all this stuff hidden, this quick access to basic techniques," I said. I do believe that. Of course, I may be even happier with what Resolume 3 brings.
Hey, happiness is mixing visuals with a Mac in one hand and a PC in the other…
We hope to have more details on Resolume 3 and FreeFrameGL 1.5 for you soon.
Anyone in Paris at Vision’r? Take photos, take video, write some quick thoughts — we’d love to hear from you!
Lots of good stuff, from abstract to found. Of course, all of this raises some questions: will you be spotted using recognizable footage? (I’ve certainly been at parties where VJs picked up on this.) The rules here should be pretty simple: first, use footage effectively, rather than just looping it indefinitely. Second, share enough footage that VJs worldwide have a big pile upon which to draw. Third, shoot some of your own footage.
All that said, I’ll admit that having some stock footage around is really useful when learning VJ software, trying motion graphics effects, and so on, so even if you don’t use this in a set, it’s handy to have.
Perth VJ Kat (one third of VJzoo) at the helm of her Resolume rig.
We’ve said it before, but worth mentioning again: Resolume, with its super-clean interface, reliable performance, and support for extras like Flash files and open FreeFrame video effects, is bar-none our favorite Windows-based performance. It runs nicely even on my old Pentium M Toshiba laptop, and powers Jaymis’ globe-trotting tour with rockstar Bobby Flynn. If you’re looking to get into the program, Kat Black from visualist trio VJzoo has some good news:
Thought your readers might find this useful - we’ve released the handbook from our courses last year free for personal use. Covers the basics of PC-based VJing using Resolume, making loops etc. Linked off the forum at http://resolume.com or from our site http://VJzoo.com
Featured: Basic PC-based VJing techniques, VJzoo’s perspective on VJ-ing, Creating your own VJ loops, Formatting content for PC-based VJ-ing and using Resolume v2.3.
Here’s VJzoo setting up their rig and rocking Sevilla, Spain, because churches totally get me hot:
And even if you’re not on Windows, you can reap the benefits of the Resolume peoples’ generosity on free media treasure-trove Archive.org:
We’re in the process of uploading a bunch of clips to Archive.org, although geez it’s exhausting. I’ve been working constantly for three days to upload two new batches of clips. So far, only one works:
The other ones… Argh.. Maybe in another day or two, will let you know. None of them are as weird as our vintage CVI clips - although thanks for even being nice about those ;)
In case you missed them, you can catch the full set of CVI clips:
Hope Kat will forgive me for posting that whole email, but it brings up a good point — Archive.org is great, but maybe we need a new, faster service for uploading visuals. Would you be willing to pay for such a service, if you could pay a flat fee for uploads and then use bandwidth freely or cheaply?
Australians: If you happen to be in Perth, Australia — and, really, if you’re anybody, I’m sure you are — VJzoo is at the center of the Perth audiovisual scene. (The scene does sound genuinely awesome. How many hours does it take to fly from Melbourne or Brisbane to Perth again? Might have to drop by and see more of the continent.)
Wii Midi Control in Resolume with glovePIE: Full Instructions, Pictures and Settings Files -
I had hoped to have Wii Remote control over at least part of Resolume happening for my gig on Friday night, but didn’t have time to setup the various MIDI messages in glovePIE. If only I’d googled it first. Erm, so not an “I feel lucky” search, but the second result is this thread on the Resolume Forums in which VJNexus details his Wiimote Resolume control technique and shares his glovePIE script and Resolume MIDI preferences file (5th post from the bottom). Tasty!
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:
Flash file support, with audio-to-Flash animation features
Network streaming
DMX support (even in Flash)
Chaos mode (the “VJ goes to use drink tickets at the bar” feature)
Exceptional video card support
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).
I don’t know how I managed to miss the release of the CodaNova VMX VJ, but thanks to Grigori for bringing it to my attention:
Now this is more like it. The NuVJ is on the right track, but without having had a go my initial impression is that it doesn’t have quite enough controls and is too tied to the DJ-style layout. It may be perfect for Arkaos, the ReACT may be perfect for Resolume, but unfortunately I’m not buying my midi controllers to use in one single program.
The VMX VJ seems to be addressing these concerns: Plenty of trigger buttons, multiple jog wheels and cross faders (who decided that a single crossfader was enough for VJing?)
99 fully assignable controllers
Plug & Play Windows XP & MAC OS X, Linux support with USB drivers
2 jogs and 2 cross fader for live video scratching
8 tracks with soft touch fader
20 knobs
28 switches (loops, play, pause, replay etc …)
39 radio buttons (special FX…)
dim. 29×41 cm - same as a 17″ laptop
white steel
Has anyone managed to get their hands on one of them? A little steep at 500 euro, but the build quality looks great from those photos, if only the same thing could be said for the photos themselves. Perhaps the VMX guys could swing one my way in exchange for some extremely professional looking product shots.
Forget predictions. It’s hard enough just processing (or is that Processing) the powerful, new visual tools digital artists got in 2006. With that in mind, we, the Create Digital Motion co-editors Peter Kirn and Jaymis Loveday, take a fond look at our favorite tools and art for 2006. And you can bet that this list is as much a look forward at what we’ll be using in 2007 as it is a look backward. (Peter: Also, everything Jaymis says, I second. We really need to find something to disagree on. We’d make a terrible movie review duo.)
Check out our list, and submit your own nominations in comments. Predictions for 2007? I predict CDMo will drool over lots of new gear and DIY Arduino projects, get completely lost in Adobe software, waste a whole bunch of time on RSS and watching YouTube eye candy, and find new and innovative ways of slipping off to the bar for a drink while still controlling our live visual sets. (Wii remote, I’m looking at you!)
Most significant technology of 2006
Jaymis: Adobe Creative Suite 2: Adobe’s tight integration of After Effects, Premiere, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Flash is the killer app for visualists. This isn’t a new technology, but to me it’s the most exciting development of 2006. While HD format wars, increasing DRM and film studio funded political meddling are all making things more difficult, Adobe’s buyout of Macromedia and tighter integration of their existing products can only spell great things for 2007. [CDM Adobe tag]
Funny. That’s exactly the face I make when I’m looking over my Processing code. From a Processing-powered Nike campaign.
Peter: Code: No, I’m not crazy. Code is back for artists, and rather than choose any one technology, I think it’s easier to look at the collection of technologies that are bringing it back. Processing deserves special recognition, because it really has done a superb job of teaching non-programming artists the beauties of code, and it’s also something we’ll see a lot more of in 2007. But Flash and Flex are the surprise counterpart, and have an even more robust open source community behind them than Processing, despite being based on commercial projects. With the advent of ActionScript 3, these platforms have finally evolved into serious programming tools, and that means more muscle for processing images, animation, and video. Core Image from Apple’s Quartz makes it easier than ever to code custom 3D shaders for processing video and imagery on your graphics card, by taking care of a lot of the nasty guts for you (and CI integrates perfectly not only with Apple’s hard-core developer tools, but also Jitter and Quartz Composer). In 2007, I think we’ll see Microsoft feature prominently in this category, with their new 3D DirectX 10 API in Vista and their friendly game development environment XNA.
DJ Mag have posted their Tech Awards 2006, and while it’s not exactly bursting with surprises - They’re liking the Allen & Heath Xone:3D, Ableton Live is a good thing, Sennheiser ‘phones are great… - it’s great to see CDM favorites Resolume and the BCD2000 getting some recognition.
Resolume takes out the Beginner’s VJ Product award, which rankled me initially but: DJMag, so they can call it what they like really as I’m sure the DJs are too busy tweaking asses across crossfades to review Intermediate or Advanced VJ products. I don’t know about “glorious lap lightshow!”, that sounds like something a pervy Jedi Master would get up to, but the featured quotes are bang on:
Eclectic Method: For this category, Resolume is the most versatile and interesting piece of software.
Eserin: For £130 you get an expandable set-up, loads of effects to keep interest going and easily assignable clip banks, plus DMX control for lighting shows.
VJ Anyone: It also memorises setting, works in high definition (HD) and VJs can control clip speed by music beats.
Halliwell: There’s a vast differrence in the price and I think VJs will get bored quickly with the other software.
WestEnd DJ: Even after buying a controller it’s still better value for money than the rest and it’s a lot more versatile and well designed.
Slightly more interesting is the choice of the BCD2000 as Best Midi Controller. I definitely agree that it’s a great device, but its quirky non-customizable midi assignments, jog-wheel difficulties and complete lack of Mac support preclude this from best midi anything for me. It’s a great device, it could be brilliant, but Behringer need to put in the work first to finish it off.
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Comments 9
2008-Apr-21@20:24
DJ Mag
