Blender 2.5, - Got flexible? from Pablo Vazquez on Vimeo.

In case the last post didn’t give you enough Blender goodness, here’s more for your pleasure.

Version 2.5 is coming of the open source 3D suite that’s also a nodal compositing engine and a video editor and a real-time game engine — basically, a visual operating system in which you can make just about anything. 3D software in general hasn’t been gifted with especially slick interfaces. But 2.5 changes that: check out the elegant pop-up menus and Spotlight-style menu searching. Every little detail can be Python scripted, which sounds geeky but could be an easy way to just tell the software what it is you want to do - and Python is a lovely language to dip your toes into as a beginning coder, too.

All that’s well and good. But the real highlight of the video above is the fact that working in Blender now happens much more in real-time. For those of us used to working with visuals in performance, this means our “studio” workflow can be dynamic and live, too. Whether you render and remix video later, export 3D objects, or move to the Blender Game Engine to take your Blender work onstage, that is likely to appeal to visualists.

And if you’re just getting started, here’s a tutorial on using video textures in the Blender Game Engine, even if you’re new to the whole environment:
Beginner’s tutorial: Using video textures in the Blender Game Engine

Via comments from Samuel Gaehwiler - thanks!

At the moment (<2.5), Blender follows the “do everything in one window” paradigm.
As jeff clermont stated above: Blender 2.5 will be the first blender release which will allow multiple windows. Hopefully, one can show the output of the game engine on one monitor in full screen while manipulating it on the other screen. The new event system in 2.5 might allow some nice possibilities for visualists. Pablo Vazquez has done a nice of manipulating a running animation (in the 3d view), which isn’t possible in Blender <2.5.

Blender, the free and open source 3D modeling tool that’s also a real-time game engine, promises real-time visual performance possibilities, and is even a video editing tool, continues its march toward the long-promised, insanely powerful 2.5 milestone. (”Point five” doesn’t really begin to cover it.)

2.49 is now stable. And boy does it have a heck of a lot going on. There’s nodal texture editing, multiple streams of video playback in the Game Engine (making this especially appealing to visualists), 3D painting, real-time dome rendering in case you’ve got a planetarium gig, faster Game Engine performance, Bullet physics improvements for lots of physics-y goodness, real-time shape modification, and better game logic and Python control and included Python script extensions. And that’s just the start.

Blender 2.49

Basically, Blender has become a full-blown, real-time OpenGL video and graphics powerhouse inside an existing modeling tool. I’m still intrigued by dedicated game engines, but this means your modeling workflow and real-time workflow are one and the same.

And it’s capable, as a result, of some stunning visuals. The video above is from Martin Supitis, who describes it thusly on YouTube:

Few weeks of exploring the magic world of GLSL coding and few days of getting it all in this demo. Here is the result.
The thread in BlenderArtists forums that also contains download links and updates - here:
blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php? t=152343

Made for company Twilight 22 where i take part of creating adventure action game Fire Wire District 22 as concept artist, modeler, now also learning graphic coding.

here is seen final composite of GLSL scene + SSAO, Depth of Field, Light Scattering and Chromatic Aberration filters, captured 30fps in 1680X1050 resolution; 8xAnisotropic filtering and 16xQ Antialiasing.

For live visuals, of course, modeling tools do way more than we might actually want or need. But if you can dive into Blender and find a way to simplify the work to the point you might like for a visual performance, I think it could be an immensely powerful tool.

And then there’s hardware control. Marco Rapino aka Akta has been controlling Blender with the accelerometer in his Nokia N95 phone, as in the video seen here. (Oh yes, I do need to port this to Android, especially as I already have the sensors working.)

N95 acceleremoter in Blender from aktathelegend on Vimeo.

Full details:
N95 accelerometer with Blender [ Akta's Way Blog, via BlenderNation ]

Of course, I’d like to see standardized OpenSoundControl for this sort of application. (Accordingly, OSC may soon lose the “Sound” officially in its title, given its more generalized purpose. Open Systems Control, perhaps? Open Stuff Control? Open Smurf Control?)

There’s been at least one paper on the topic of combining Blender with Pd for sound (”Blendnik”):
http://porcaro.org/blendnik.html

I’m not sure of the preferred way to implement OSC inside Python inside Blender, but I’ll have to give this a try myself.

A huge thanks to Giorgio Martini aka Tweaking Knobs for these links. Giorgio is working on his own live project. Here’s a glimpse of what that looks like, in progress:

Untitled from TweakingKnobs on Vimeo.

You can go grab Blender for basically any operating system you can imagine.

Part of what makes Resolume Avenue so compelling as a live visual solution is that it can mix, mash, and loop audio alongside video, in ways often resembling Ableton Live. But that, of course, doesn’t make Resolume nearly as deep a live sonic tool as Ableton. So, to combine two great tastes – live video in Resolume Avenue, plus live audio and elaborate sequencing control in Ableton Live – the folks at Resolume have assembled a recipe that allows Resolume to be controlled via Live using MIDI.

The basic process:

1. Route MIDI from Resolume to Ableton, using the IAC Driver on Mac and MIDI-Yoke on Windows.

2. Make a MIDI sequence in Ableton that controls clips in Resolume.

3. Add some audio clips and scenes in Live for some live audio goodness.

4. Link parameters and sync for effects and icing.

Controlling Resolume Avenue with Ableton Live

This does nothing to stop a fantasy I’ve heard other folks discussing of late: imagine if we had an OSC (OpenSoundControl) sequencer? OSC is by nature time-based as a protocol, and you could even still sequence MIDI events (using MIDI over OSC) – or arbitrary events that wouldn’t be restricted by overly rigid event types like the MIDI Note? Does anyone know if such a thing has been tried? (Maybe it’s time to write one.)

Live Plus…?

That’s not to take away from the beauties of Ableton Live in this sort of setup. Combining Live and visuals, whether to add audio or sequence visuals or both, has been an ongoing theme on this site.

Live + Resolume (like the above tutorial, but + Ethernet) Tutorial: Ableton Live + Resolume with MIDI Over Ethernet, Free on PC (Linux, Mac Soon)

Live + Isadora + Max + The Karate Kid: Karate Kid AV Remix – and a how-to using the awesome Lucifer plug-in (which could also be nice with Resolume): AV Cutup Secrets: Using Lucifer & Live

Live + Isadora: Ableton Live + Isadora: Slicing, Syncing Audiovisual Tutorials

Live + VDMX: Toby *spark and Live Cinema: Ableton and VDMX, Soundtrack and Narrative

Live + robotic mirrors on projectors: DMX For Dummies: Controlling iCue Robotic Mirrors with uDMX and Ableton Live

Live + Jitter: Christopher Willits on XLR8R with Live Jitter, Ableton Live Visual Setup

Live + robotic cameras: Interview: Josh Cardenas’ Robotic, Midi Controlled Cameras and tour with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist

And one instance of Live failing to be the tool for the job, only to be replaced by Max: Progress Report: 8 Cameras Plus Vixid Plus Patching Gives Craziness (Pd would work, too, which would be nice for a Linux netbook)

Now that Bart has gotten the ball rolling for Resolume, though, I suspect we’ll see a lot more ideas for combining Resolume Avenue with Ableton Live, or using Avenue as an audiovisual tool in itself; it just makes sense. If you work up your own setup or add your own twist after following this tutorial, let us know!

You know the ideal audiovisualist setup: two PCs, one running sound, one running visuals. But connecting those two machines can be less than ideal. Enter EthernetMidi, a completely free implementation of MIDI over Ethernet. It’s Windows-only for now – the Mac has its own free MIDI-over-IP implementation built into the OS. But there’s reason to root for EthernetMidi even if you’re not a Windows user primarily: the project is open source, and work on a Mac and Linux version means this could be the first tool to allow MIDI-over Ethernet between different platforms. (Pay no attention to the “LinuxSampler” name – they need a new moniker.)

Showing off how powerful this can be, pure_angles has put together a detailed tutorial for combining to favorite tools, Ableton Live and Resolume.

Add Max patch effects to DNA. from Livid Instruments on Vimeo.

Yesterday, we saw some splashy video distortion techniques applied to real-time video. You know what that means: it’s time to use these in live performance.

Liquidify Video, Live: Optical Flow GLSL Datamosh Technique

Here’s one start.Peter Nyboer, Max whiz and Livid developer, has run with the idea of squishing around video using optical flow analysis, and shows you how to add the effect to Livid’s Cell DNA VJ app. For Jitter users, this means you can rely on Cell for quick access to video taps and files, while adding unusual effects built in Jitter to get your custom processing on, not only with this example but any other patches you’ve created. One little detail of Cell DNA I missed – it requires Max 4 patches, not Max 5 patches. Peter has also posted a tutorial for working with that, after the jump.

And yes, if none of this is really making sense to you, you can go download the files and just try it out – no need to fully grasp all of the internals straight away.

Don’t want to use Jitter and/or Cell? The guts of Andrew Benson’s video datasplooshing technique is an OpenGL (GLSL) shader, so it doesn’t even rely on Jitter – Jitter can just be a convenient environment for playing around with such things. There’s word we may see a Quartz Composer wrapper around this shader, which would make it easy to use with software like VDMX.

Oh, by the way, I’m officially rescinding my editorial ban on the term “datamoshing.” Why? Because it means absolutely nothing, and therefore can be declared reasonably harmless. Also, unlike the term “glitch,” it comes without any baggage. We therefore have a nice, nonsense term for making video all mushy and unpredictable – a good thing.