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Index › Programming Questions & Help › Sound,  Music Libraries › VJing with Processing
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VJing with Processing (Read 2289 times)
chrisoshea
VJing with Processing
Jun 13th, 2006, 5:39pm  

I was discussing with Peter Kirn (www.createdigitalmusic.com) the pro's & con's of doing live visuals with Processing.

I saw flight404s earlier visual performance (and recent flickr photos). Has anyone else done any vjing style live performance (sound / gesture reactive)?
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watz
Re: VJing with Processing
Reply #1 - Jun 13th, 2006, 7:37pm  
Hi Chris, you pixelsumo (I'm a fan). I made a sound-responsive performance system for playing with Phonophani on the recent Generator.x tour. You can see documentation on Flickr:
Generator.x tour: Phonophani vs Watz

For this project I used Processing as a base framework, with OpenGL, Sonia and proMIDI as libraries. The visuals were all sound-responsive using FFT analysis, I wrote a new library to help make sense of the spectrum values. I used a MIDI controller with 15 sliders / knobs to control parameters live. Each performance lasted about 30 minutes.

The pros:
- Standard Java environment
- Support for MIDI, OSC, FFT analysis
- Hardware-accelerated graphics (I did double-VGA projection in realtime).

The cons:
- Performance system can't be rewired live like you can in Max, PD or VVVV.
- You have to create your own framework for multiple visual systems and event distribution.
- The system could be even faster if done in C++.
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marius watz // unlekker // code & form // Generator.x
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chrisoshea
Re: VJing with Processing
Reply #2 - Jun 14th, 2006, 1:36am  

hey Marius

yeah I should have mentioned you above after listing flight404.

I was actually at transmediale this year, although didn't know you were there until I recognised your style in club Maria. That old guy with the synths was crazy. Very heavy snow that night. I was very impressed by the UDK students on that visit too.

Anyway, back on topic, the soniahelper is definitely something I am going to look at.  Creating a framework seems most complicated, like switching between sets without an obvious jump.

I've not touched Processing in a long time, so feel like a noob. This is a chance to start to crawl back on this. The visual performance will be mid July, so dont have long.

Chris
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watz
Re: VJing with Processing
Reply #3 - Jun 14th, 2006, 10:40am  
Actually I wasn't at Transmediale myself, only my work was. I finished that piece two hours before going to Berlin Schönefeld airport for a 3 week holiday in Thailand. Lia and I did live visuals for the opening night there last year, but then I used VVVV and a mishmash of different systems.

Soniahelper (stupid name) is currently being integrated into the new version of Ess, it will also go into Sonia whenever that gets updated. Essentially it just enables you to interpret the FFT values so it makes more sense for visual representation.

A framework for performance obviously depends on how you work. Lia has a near-perfect solution for her style, but she deals with "painting" surfaces which are then treated with wipes and overlays. This system comes very close to being a true "visual synthesizer", but represents only one approach for generative visuals.

I work with objects and transformation of whole geometries, so I have defined a prototype "Drawing" class which represents a visual system that can draw to the main canvas. These Drawing systems have a standard interface with the main class for exchanging I/O events, as well as a "draw()" command which is used by the main loop. Then I switch them on or off via keyboard commands and change parameters dynamically using sliders on a MIDI controller.

This is quite simple, but works well for prepared performances. Systems can be mixed, but usually they are intended for use on their own. Mixing 2D and 3D systems can be a challenge, as both have to live in 3D space. The main issue is how to provide enough dynamic change in the system to allow for improvisation.
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marius watz // unlekker // code & form // Generator.x
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flight404
Re: VJing with Processing
Reply #4 - Jun 14th, 2006, 6:07pm  
Which performance did you see?  Did you say Hi?  Sorry, I am spacey.  Just woke up and no coffee in me yet.  Lets see...

Well, if you saw the performance at the Mighty Gallery, you probably noticed I switched out from each piece and had to show the desktop. I tried to make this transition as painless as possible by making applications with easy-on-the-eye icons and a dark desktop background, but this was far from ideal.

While I was prepping content for that show, I started to combine pieces so I could have a specific project play through 2 or 3 songs before needing to switch.  This ended up working really well because all of my pieces use the same 3D space pretty much.  I just needed to keep track what controls spawned what, and it went pretty well.  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flight404/158956031/

I have used 4 powermate knobs and I have used an m-audio trigger finger midi device, and of the two, the midi drumpad worked really well.  The music that I performed to was harsh electronica, very beat driven, so the sliders became fairly useless to me. I coded in a few camera presets that triggered on beat, a random camera rotation and position on beat, bg color strobe on beat, and had a few toggles and object spawners.  Ideally, I would like to do visuals for something much slower and possibly something with vocals. That ends up being more fun and has more possibilities for letting something like Sonia do all the hard work.

Oh, and if you are going to be working off a microphone for input, definitely put in an audio input control so you can adjust for the loudness of the performance on the fly. I also recommend the BlueBall snowball mic.  It is USB and does really well in loud venues.

What else...
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Robert Hodgin {flight404}&&
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chrisoshea
Re: VJing with Processing
Reply #5 - Jun 19th, 2006, 10:41pm  
flight404 wrote on Jun 14th, 2006, 6:07pm:
Which performance did you see  Did you say Hi  Sorry, I am spacey.  Just woke up and no coffee in me yet.


No, I've never met you or see you perform Smiley I meant your stuff as an example of live visuals.

When will you post a video of the recent bitforms performance
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chrisoshea
Re: VJing with Processing
Reply #6 - Jun 19th, 2006, 10:45pm  
I suppose the ideal setup would be to have two machines running and a video mixer between them. Switching to the desktop isn't really ideal.

Is this thread suited to the Sound forum by the way? Maybe there should be a live visuals section Smiley
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