How To: Add Quartz-Composer Effects to MediaMaster
Aug/101
Since version 1.2, ArKaos MediaMaster supports Apple’s Quartz-Composer technology. Depending on its configuration, a Quartz composition can be either a Visual or an Effect in MediaMaster Pro.
In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to add your own Quartz-Composer Effects in MediaMaster.
Remark:
Check out the article “How to: Create audio-reactive effects for GrandVJ using Quartz-Composer” for more details about the creation of Quartz-Composer effects. You will also find lots of resources and how-to’s for Quartz Composer on the web or in the Reference Library from the Mac Dev Center.
Simple Mode (MediaMaster Express and Pro) and Fixture Mode (MediaMaster Pro)
It’s easy to add Quartz effects in MediaMaster 2.0 when in Simple Mode, but in Fixture Mode effect presets are defined within the layer fixture and these fixture files shouldn’t be modified in any circumstances. As a consequence, to make use of new effects we have to add a new custom layer fixture that will include new effect presets..
How To: Create audio-reactive effects for GrandVJ with Quartz Composer
Feb/104
In GrandVJ 1.2 we have introduced the support for Quartz Compositions, either as visual or as effect. Note that MediaMaster 1.2 will also support Quartz Compositions, so you can use this with MediaMaster 1.2 too (the beta can be found on our forums)
Quartz Composer is a free graphics and imaging tool on the Mac platform which is available as an optional install that can be found on your Mac OS X DVD since version 10.4.
It allows very easy creation of complex audio-reactive animations or effects which can now be played in GrandVJ (read the previous article about GrandVJ and Quartz Composer). As I’m writing these lines, the last version of Quartz-Composer is 4.0 on Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
In this article we will demonstrate how to quickly create a bass-reactive Zoom/Blur effect like the one you can see below:
Important: This tutorial requires that you have some basic knowledge of Quartz Composer: if you have never used it, you really should first go through the “Getting Started”. You will also find some helpful readings at the Apple Developer Connection web site about Quartz Composer.
To create our effect we will simply edit Quartz-Composer’s default template named “Image Filter” to make it audio reactive. Basically, we will connect bass levels of the computer’s audio input signal to the “Amount” parameter of our Zoom/Blur filter. (Read more below..)
How To: Master output fade in GrandVJ
Sep/091
Some users have asked on the forum how to do a master output fade or a blackout button in GrandVJ.
In mixer mode, you could always assign a black image and assign it to layer 8 but people using the synth mode (or if you simply don’t wanna waste an additional layer) have to use some tricks to acheive it.
The key is to use the master brightness and contrast on the master: If you pull the brightness to zero and the contrast to the maximum, all output will be blackened.
So we want to go from the “normal state”:
To the “black out state”:
Using a single controller or key.
How To: Create audio-reactive Flash for GrandVJ
Sep/099
Author: ECIN
About: Ben Guerrette is an interactive motion graphics designer and founder of triggermotion.comWeb: http://www.triggermotion.com
A post by Guest Author VJ Ecin (Ben Guerrette), find more about him at the end of this article..
As promised, here’s the first in a series of tutorials showing how to take advantage of the Flash capabilities within ArKaos GrandVJ. Note that it will also work for NuVJ and MediaMaster since the variables are the same.
In this tutorial I’ll explain how to tap into the EQ data to create some simple audio-reactive animations. We’ll be using some basic ActionScript 2.0 for the inexperienced Flash programmer. I won’t go into much detail on the how the code works but it should be enough of an introduction to allow some experimentation in creating new content for your VJ arsenal.
You can download the final .fla and .swf files here or follow along the video tutorial below.
MediaMaster driven by grandMA through eDMX
Aug/091
We’ve been working hard since 3 months on the next upgrade of MediaMaster: the version 1.1 which will be released in a few days.
All the new features will be announced with the release but here’s already a video tutorial demonstrating the new support in MediaMaster 1.1 for grandMA’s MA-eDMX protocol. This allows a much better networking between grandMA lighting consoles and a media server running MediaMaster.
Showing the extreme…
Aug/091
There’s a certain point where it becomes very hard to demonstrate to a large audience what you do. As we strive towards the limits of the extreme, it becomes more and more difficult to demonstrate in a simple way the results of our work.
Last couple of month, we’ve been working very intensively on the new release of MediaMaster (version 1.1 – which should be out very soon). One of our goals for this release was to improve radically our engine to be able to run a couple of movies at monitor rate with no frame drops.
60 fps that is.
And we did it.
This means that you will be able – of course depending on the computer and the movies you are displaying – to run movies perfectly locked to the monitor sync.
The result is brilliant – even for movies at 30 fps – because your eye directly catches the smoothness of the playback.
But let’s go back to the beginning of our article. How do you show that ? If we want to show you a smooth 60fps stream, every step of the chain needs to be perfect.
ArKaos LED Mapper on Schnick-Schnack C100
Aug/090
Here’s a quick tutorial on how to use the LED Mapper extension to map the output from ArKaos MediaMaster to a wall of 6 Schnick-Schnack C100 LED Panels. As you will see, it’s pretty self-explanatory and really easy to achieve..
There is no specific hardware necessary to convert the video signal for the LED Panels, ArKaos MediaMaster outputs the signal in ArtNet through an Ethernet cable that goes to a network switch connecting the 6 C100 panels together.
The total surface is 6 sq. meters (3x2m) and 18 DMX universes are used to drive the 2400 LEDs.
Using QuickTime or FFMPEG on a PC?
Jul/090
Here’s a quick tip for PC users: if you use a multi-core/multi-processor machine with GrandVJ or MediaMaster, you will benefit a lot to use codecs that are played through our FFMPEG player rather than through QuickTime.
This is due to the fact that on a PC, the internal QuickTime decoding routines are not capable of multi-threading, which makes it impossible to decode frames in parallel. So even if one layer can run properly using QuickTime libraries, the more layer you pile up, the more the decoding bottleneck will show up.
On Mac OSX, QuickTime is now mostly multi-threaded decoding so it’s not such an issue but we recommend to try to use codec supported by our FFMPEG player in any case.
Important: make sure you understand we refer to the internal QuickTime player and NOT to QuickTime files in general. Some QuickTime files (for example, files based on mpeg/mpeg2/mpeg4/PhotoJPEG/Motion JPEG/H.264 codec) are played through the FFMPEG player.
To know what internal player is used for what file, use the information shown in the visual library:
Visuals library
In this case, both movies are QuickTime files. The first one is read through QuickTime because the Cinepak Codec is not handled by FFMPEG.It will play but it is not optimal.
The second is read through FFMPEG because it’s using H.264 codec, it is therefore better for performances.
GrandVJ, Ableton Live and Akai MPD24
Jun/092
Note: This is an un-edited post originally written by Modemasters (G’day Adelaide!) on VJ Forums, but we thought it might be worth having a copy here. Although focused on the MPD24, it’s a good general overwiew of using GrandVJ with Ableton Live and MIDI controllers.
Huge thanks to Modemasters for having done such a clear Tutorial!
Find us on
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Check this out!
