Resolume Avenue 3 Introduction from Bart van der Ploeg on Vimeo.

With a new generation of visual apps, we’ll soon see if software innovation can help live visualism spread through the larger performance scene. One of the tools to watch has been Resolume 3, and it’s a secret no more.

We knew Resolume 3’s release would make a big splash, if for no other reason than its loyal (PC-only) audience. The older Resolume 2 was always a favorite for its streamlined interface and the ease with which it handled live gigs. It had its “legacy” downsides, too, like limited performance capabilities, a lack of 3D hardware support, and support for Windows only. Resolume 3 promised to fix that, but some loyalists wondered if the ground-up redesign – with a new engine and new interface – would live up to the name, or get lost in the avalanche of new VJ tools being developed this year.

Today, Resolume’s creators took the wraps off the new Resolume Avenue 3. The big news: this app could set itself apart with beat-matched, audiovisual mixing, not just video.

In short, think:

• 3D, multiple screens, OpenGL / FreeFrameGL effects
• Beat-synced everything, looping
• Audio in video clips, direct audio file triggering, VST audio effects

We’ve been playing with an early beta, and it’s been a blast — bringing over some of the basic principles we liked in the original Resolume interface, but with lots of fun newness added.

Joshue Ott/superDraw +Ezekiel Honig live at monkeytown from superdraw on Vimeo.

I’m very excited about the music lineup we have planned for this Friday in New York at the CDM-curated evening of live audio and visuals – but the visual lineup should be a big draw, too. If you’re in New York, come say hi (and if not, hope to have more details on these projects for the rest of the planet soon):

• Joshue Ott creates live visuals with his homemade superDraw generative illustration tool
• Paris (Voltage Controlled) and Don Miller (No Carrier) create glitchy, lo-fi visuals from custom-created 8-bit visual software on Nintendo and Commodore systems
• vade and Mary Ann Benedetto will visualize and reinterpret geeky things (possibly the Linux kernel, data packets, or both) using custom code and Quartz Composer stuff — we should even see a free release of some of those tools in time for the gig, so stay tuned to CDM
• Bill Jones creates live cinematic worlds inspired by sci-fi noir

Where: The Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City (map); head to the main door, on your left is the entrance to Penn Pavilion and you should see a table there.

When: Friday, July 18 2008 – performances run 11pm – 2am

Cost: US$10 at the door. First come, first served. (free if you have a conference badge)

We Are Hacks: Music and Visual Performance at HOPE, NYC – Preview

http://www.thelasthope.org/

Facebook event page (RSVP if you’re coming! Also on Going.com)

Above: one of my favorite videos from superDraw (Processing-based) by Joshue Ott above, though it’s even better to see it in person with the live drawing capabilities. Below: all-custom 8-bit-style software generates visuals, via Paris.

Function Field System - PureData/GEM from Paris/VoltageControlled on Vimeo.

It’s a small release number, but I expect Modul8 users will want to pay attention to this one. New in 2.5.5 are various fixes and improvements, most notably restoring Flash SWF support removed from QuickTime. I hope other VJ apps will be able to do the same.

Also in this update:

• Swatches, color picker for layer colorization
• Transformation knob for layer field of view
• Audio fading with layer opacity (neat idea!)
• Unlimited size for multi-output windows
• Media triggering by name
• Lots of other small fixes and features

Modul8 2.5.5 Feature Details

Read on in the forum, and you can find the fix that allowed GarageCUBE to restore Flash support: "Modul8 is using the Flash plugin of Safari, so you could load any file that loads in Safari. " Now, that sounds to me like even Java/Processing support could happen via the same hack. Any takers?

Let us know how the update works for you, ye Modul8 users.

3L has been in the wild for 2 weeks now, so I’m expecting to see some work from new users appearing online soon.

Since launch the artificialeyes crew have kept themselves busy. ExiledSurfer has been posting plenty of new content, example clips and screencast tutorials. I particularly enjoy the talking head screencast recorded from within 3L, using the Apple webcam to drop a little talking head into the preview window.

3LU Sophomore: Capture an Object + Feedback from professor thrill on Vimeo.

These videos have been collected into a Thrill University section of the site. This is being supplemented with live tutorials, the first of which happens 12 hours from now (GMT1300, Thursday) on the 3LU page (which will even remind you via email when the session is about to start). I’m going to be there to increase my 3L knowledge, it would be great to see some other CDMers as well.

There’s also a 3L channel on CDMo’s favorite online video service, Vimeo. CDM makes a little appearance in the 3L channel, as I was able to finally edit the bulk of the “3L Sessions” videos we shot with Michael in Perth last year. There’s over an hour of video in the 3L Sessions album, covering the history of 3L, and an extensive tour through the interface and capabilities of the software. Through the magic of Vimeo, these are all downloadable, so you can use them to guide your first steps with Thrill.

The response to our 3L Giveaway was amazingly extensive, and also very exciting to see the names and websites of so many visualists from around the world.

So we’ve collated all of those email addresses, and with a little help from some atmospheric noise we chose the winners.

Grand Prize (3L Pro License)

Hiltmeyer

Runners-up (3L Student/Education License)

.lov.
sull
Toby Dixon
Korhan Erel

Comment Winners

The comments response was so overwhelming that artificialeyes offered to award an additional 5 education licenses to commenters, chosen semi-arbitrarily by artificialeyes:

Winner for BEST THRILL PUN: vj decoy - VL ONLY 3L!
honorable mention: LordBanjo - 3L = Luminous Lantern Lust!

Winner for BEING 1337: nausea - in case i win the license i will make it run on my linux box:)
honorable mention: dmos.tv - finally generative synthesized visuals at our fingertips, why not try that with a mo-cap suit

Winner for BEST SENSE OF HUMOUR: Willy - and on the 7th day God said. “Damn, tomorrow’s Monday.”
honorable mention: J.E JIM - Lets do this. I want to put this software to work at church!

Winner for DREAMING THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM: memo - another comment in the sea of comments…
honorable mention: PreyStereo - There would be only one thing I would want more than a free license to Thrill…a free license to Thrill AND a cookie. Nah, forget the cookie.

Winner for SWITCHING: vj bonk - Nice! I hope that I am picked, I have been anxiously awaiting this release for a long time, Arkaos just does not cut it anymore this seems like a step in the right direction!
honorable mention: Pao - Hi, I’m a VJ and normally using Modul8. Few days ago I managed to use this software with my ipod touch. Let’s rock!

All of the winners will receive an email with instructions directly from artificialeyes within the next 48 hours on how to register their copy of the demo version. Thanks to everyone who entered, and to those who missed out: you didn’t miss out at all, really, because the Thrill Store is now open! You can download the 3L demo and give it a spin. Congratulations to the artificialeyes team. They’ve been working their butts off, and it will be great to see what happens when 3L hits the wild.

I’m currently editing several hours of 3L footage we shot with Michael last year, so you’ll be able to have expert help when coming to terms with the software.

Enjoy, and when your 3L output starts hitting the web, please tell us about it!

We’ve been avidly following the development of Thrill for quite a while now, and are very excited to hear from Michael that the commercial release is this week. But first, a little housekeeping: As a grand opening for the 3L store, CreateDigitalMotion has 5 copies of the software to give away! Much like the Beta giveaway, the rules are simple.

Your machine will need to meet the 3L minimum specs:

2GHz or faster Intel Core processor
MacOS X 10.4.9 or later QuickTime 7.0.4 or later
2GB or more of RAM
CoreImage capable AGP, PCI Express or Intel graphics processor with at least 256MB of VRAM w/ OpenGL hardware acceleration.
Minimum Screen Resolution 1440 x 960 (which therefore excludes the macbook)

… and you’ll need to leave a comment on this post in the next 48 hours.

In return, 4 winners will receive a 3L Student - single-machine - license (worth €150) , and one will receive 3L Pro , which is a 3-machine license (worth €200) and includes native uDMX support, for controlling VMS or other DMX hardware.

After the competition closes, I have it on good authority that The Wait Is Over, and 3L will be available for all and sundry to try out and purchase with Much Abandon. I also have several hours of footage of Michael taking us on a detailed tour of Thrill at ByteMeFest in Perth last year, so I’ll be going on a mad editing binge in the hope of having this available to help out those who download the demo later this week.

In the meantime: Hit the comments, check out some samples from the 3L Loops series on archive.org, and visit the 3L site for more information.

Update: Entries are now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. The volume and quality of comments has been overwhelming! It’s really fantastic to see all of these readers come out of the woodwork. I think we’ll have to give more things away so we can hear from you all (Software and hardware developers, you know where to contact us…).

In the meantime, winners will be announced this time tomorrow, to coincide with the 3L store launch. So if you don’t win you’ll be able to try out the demo and even buy a copy!

The successor to ArKaos VJ, a staple in early VJ application history, is nearly here. GrandVJ just hit public beta.

GrandVJ is a complete, from-scratch rewrite of the app, with some new features — but still a nod to the simple, one-screen interface that made the original popular. You can now download a working demo, beta build (with some watermarks on output and other limitations) for both Mac and Windows. I have to say, I like the music keyboard interface and drag-and-drop-everywhere philosophy. At the very least, this could become the beginner-friendly VJ app a lot of people have been looking for. (That is, if it’s successful, I may have an answer for the "where should I start with VJing for something simple — and I don’t have a lot of time" question I get a lot, particularly on the music side.) It’s also got some generative and Flash-playing tricks I’ll be looking into. At the same time, I think it will be worth some constructive criticism. This field is also getting crowded — and users more demanding.

Watch for a more detailed preview from us soon, but in the meantime, you can go ahead and give it a spin and let us know what you think:

ArKaos GrandVJ Public Beta 1 [ArKaos Users Forum]

Previously:

ArKaos Rebuilds VJ Software From Ground Up: GrandVJ

eMotion - Basic particles tool example from Adrien Mondot on Vimeo.

We saw eMotion last year — it’s a Mac OS-based 3D tool for particles and visual effects, with physics modeling, Wacom tablet control, input from sensors and OpenSoundControl, a text engine, and integrated Quartz Composer support. In other words: it’s a friendly tool for making pretty motion imagery, designed to be usable by performers.

Creator Adrien Mondot has new videos up and a beta available for download. (An Intel Mac running Leopard is required.)

eMotion on stage from eMotion for Animation on Vimeo.

More videos, including screencasts on features like forces and Quartz Composer:

Vimeo screencasts

Details on the software and a download link:

eMotion

The description is a bit hyperbolic ("a new way to define movement"?) given that a lot of this is indebted to 1970s "augmented reality" research by Myron Krueger and physics simulations by, well, a lot of people. (Particle systems were specifically invented by Bill Reeves of Pixar in the early 80s. Ahem — Khaaaaaaaaaan!) I don’t think that takes away from the coolness of this — on the contrary, I think acknowledging historical lineage helps demonstrate why the new, accessible, personal rendition of that is valuable. But there is a lot here that’s done very well. It’ll be fantastic to watch it develop.

Likewise, it’s interesting to see these tools (and vvvv, also mentioned today) working with proprietary, platform-specific technologies. There are certainly some advantages to hooking into the Mac’s Core Image and other app development tools (see Quartz Composer, VDMX, etc.), or Windows’ DirectX (as with vvvv). I think the challenge for people interested in open, cross-platform development is to make things just as usable and visually consistent with OpenGL and cross-platform APIs.

Beatesthesia Custom Visulizer from olly gore on Vimeo.

Beatesthesia is a new open-source, cross-platform VJing/music visualizer application programmed in Processing. It sports some interesting design decisions, including an audio-reactive user interface. Its an interesting idea, and is certainly pretty and definitely novel. At first glance, I didn’t like the blinking UI; it struck me as being far too distracting, but, after second thought, it’s a pretty decent way of conveying content and disambiguating a UI elements purpose. Well done. Check out the Vimeo video and home page to get a feel for its capabilities.

Beatesthesia strikes me as being more of a music visualizer than a fully featured VJ application, but it’s open source, which means it will grow as it pulls in a dedicated user base. Beatesthesia’s website also hosts shared projects, so you can explore other users visualizations. [Ed. For what it's worth, it looks like more than just a visualizer to me -- especially as you start to edit the ways in which it works and make more elements "performable" -- and if you don't like this specific implementation, you could certainly code your own in Processing! Anyone performing with this or building something similar, let us know. -PK]

This just in from pixel-burninators and soon-to-be-purveyors of fine realtime 3D visual performance software, artificialeyes: VJ Loop Century seem to be claiming that 3L is their “home made realtime visual software”, which is “available as a freeware for unlimited downloads !”.

They then go on to, erm, reproduce without attribution, Peter’s “How awesome is 2008 (3L! Whoo!)” post, even though it explicitly names artificialeyes as the creators of 3L.

I’m not sure what else to say about this. Michael has plenty more though.