Making a gameshow powered by VDMX and Quartz Composer by I Love QC

Our friends over at I Love QC reminded us that the tools we normally use for live visuals and installations can be used in ways we never really thought of before – for this project they made a gameshow for the iSellMobile Awards 2013. The system was powered by solely by VDMX and Quartz Composer along with a dozen Samsung tablets for the contestants to buzz in.

For more details and additional photos visit the I Love QC Blog, or check our recent guest tutorial with Shakinda for an introduction to using Quartz Composer.

New VDMX Update with “Waveclock” Automatic BPM Detection, MIDI / OSC Echo, and More!

Hey everyone, 

It's once again time for us to show off some of the awesome stuff we've been working on here in the VIDVOX labs with a new release to VDMX! There's quite a bit to go over in the latest update (ready to download and install), so let's get started..

Automatic BPM Detection by Wavesum:

The most exciting new feature in this update is a collaboration with Wavesum to bring one-click automatic BPM detection to the VDMX “Clock” plugin. If you've previously tried the Waveclock standalone application to send MIDI clock to a VJ application, you already know it's pretty tight clock sync, and with native support built directly in it's even more useful. Watch this video demonstration, then try running the example template alongside some of your favorite music.

Read more about BPM detection... 

MIDI / OSC Talkback, aka “Echo” mode:

For faster workflow when using of two way talkback of MIDI and OSC controllers, we've added a new “echo” option to all of the standard interface controls that can be used to relay the current slider / button / menu value back to your favorite hardware controller. This new feature can also be used to put together VDMX behaviors that were previously either not possible- such as lighting up button in sync with slider interesting marks- or time consuming to set up. To get a sense of some of the possibilities check out the new tutorials and templates explaining how to use “echo” with instruments like the Livid OhmRGB,  Akai APC40, and TouchOSC for iPad.

Read more about Echo mode... 

TouchOSC layout importing in the Control Surface:

In the “Control Surface” plugin we've added two new UI item options: multi-button and multi-slider which are especially useful for creating layouts that match up with MIDI and OSC controllers. To allow for an even closer mimicking of remote hardware interfaces, it is now also possible to include knob style controls by resizing sliders to be a square shape in its layout grid. Additionally, TouchOSC users can now directly import their template files to generate UI layout for the Control Surface plugin, including all the labels and addresses of each interface item.

Read more about TouchOSC import...

v002 Quartz Composer plugins and 14 new FX: 

 With this update we are now including an extra installer that adds an extra set of awesome “Glitch” and “Film” style image processing FX, highly optimized blurs (gaussian, motion and zoom) which can be used instead of their CoreImage counterparts, and the “Rutt Etra” analog synthesizer emulator. Thanks to Anton Marini (aka vade) and Bill Etra for this!

Also make sure to check out the GitHub page for the v002 plugins where you can find more useful objects to use in your custom QC compositions.

Read more about the v002 FX in VDMX... 

Apply Custom Math Expressions to Sliders:

Now each slider in VDMX has the ability to type in simple math expressions to pre-process incoming control data. Particularly useful when working with OSC numbers that aren't already ranged from 0.0 to 1.0 – for setup, "$VAL" is the passed val, "$MIN" and "$MAX" refer to the current slider min and max.

Behind The Scenes:

A few other noteworthy additions: support for 14-bit MIDI control values (for example from Serato controllers) can be enabled in the MIDI section of the preferences, a new option for assigning endless OSC rotary controls (for example the encoder TouchOSC control) to adjust slider values, 'continuous' and 'range' detect mode to local preset UI items, pop-up buttons, and slider marks.

On top of all this and the usual bug fixes, we've made a lot of back end optimizations that make switching between presets significantly faster- read the full list of changes for all of the details.

CandyStations live visuals for Sufjan Stevens Age of Adz and sneak peek at ‘Planetarium’

​Deborah Johnson, perhaps better known as CANDYSTATIONS, is a self described “ALL PURPOSE MEDIA ANIMAL. FULL ON SHOW DESIGNER," and there's really no better way to put it. Among the many noteworthy projects of her career, the last few years has included several close collaborations with musician Sufjan Stevens, making music videos, Christmas-themed comedy sketches, in addition to designing and performing the live projected visuals as part of the extravagant setup on the acclaimed Age of Adz tour during 2010-2011. The results of that project, some of which you can see in the trailer and photos below, are a pretty mind blowing combination of skillfully hand crafted images with a special level of pure digital insanity to match the equally intense music, stage and costume designs.

“When I designed the visuals for Sufjan Stevens’ the Age of Adz, Sufjan and I wanted parts of the show to feel very artificial and Tron-like, complementing the awkward, handmade brilliance of artist Royal Robertson and my own designs. I also wanted to be able to ‘play’ visual instruments along with the band. I asked Anton Marini to help me with the Quartz Composer elements for the set. I stipulated the design, motion and provided the graphic elements while we worked together to program the comps. It got a little loopy at times. There’s something called ‘Rainbow Control’ in one of the patches, for instance.”

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​Age of Adz: Distracted

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Age of Adz: "Get Real, Get Right"

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Age of Adz: VDMX Project Screenshot

“I now use VDMX when I am performing. It enables me to both cue and composite pre-rendered compositions while incorporating QC animations and real-time effects. Along with a MIDI controller, I often use audio-input to affect parameters and VDMX’s audio analysis is fantastic. All this allows me to keep an essential ‘live’ element in my visuals while retaining a substantial amount of control and intention. This is important to me as a visual performer – especially when I am working with musicians.”

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​Age of Adz: Spaceboy

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​Age of Adz: Vesuvius

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Seven Swans

In 2012, international venues Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, the Barbican London and Sydney Opera House commissioned composer Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner (The National), and Sufjan Stevens to create a collaborative song cycle. The musical exploration resulted in eleven intricately layered, metaphorical songs based on our solar system – appropriately entitled Planetarium (all the planets, including the Sun, Moon and even poor Pluto are represented). 

A complementary visual element for the live show was desired, so Deborah was charged with designing a set of interpretive, planetary inspired visuals to be projected onto a custom, 16' black orb (of her own design) that hangs ominously above the band.

After a series of "workshop" performances in Europe and Australia, Planetarium had its respective 2013 U.S. premieres at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in March and LA Philharmonic's Disney Concert Hall in April. An excerpt of the track titled ‘Saturn’ can be seen to the right, with some production photographs from the shows below (audience shots can be found on her tumblr).

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Planetarium - ​Earth

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​Planetarium - Jupiter

If you'd like to read more about her creative work there's also an great recent interview with Deborah over on the iLoveQC blog where she talks in detail about her history coming up as a visual artist, along with plenty of actual software discussion for the video nerds in the audience.

Her current production is for the New York-based string quartet ETHEL – entitled Documerica – based on the 1970's NEA archive of the same name. It will debut at BAM's Next Wave this fall. 

Glowing Pictures artist feature and free visual performance clip download

Download the Glowing Pictures 'Conception' video performance pack in Hap 720p or PhotoJPEG 720p.

There's so much to say about Benton-C Bainbridge and V Owen Bush of Glowing Pictures that I won't even try to scratch the surface here. We've known them personally — and they've been using VIDVOX software — since the very beginning of the company. Both of them have been working with video for longer than we've been on earth, so to call them pioneers in this field is a bit of an understatement. Over the years the two have worked together and separately on hundreds of live performances, installations, architectural spaces, music videos, Visual Performance workshops, and films for both dome and 3D projection, with a high profile client list that has included everyone in town from The Beastie Boys to Lincoln Center.​

As always the duo are involved in a number of projects at a time - they've kicked off 2013 with the 'Vision of the Week' series, 52 completely new video paintings and performances, one of which was the inspiration for the set of sample movies they've produced for todays Visual Performance pack download based on the Cell Shading Experiment presets and After Effects tutorials from designer Matt Trunks.

What we're most excited for is their new Visual Performance program being taught out of Dubspot in NYC where DJs and musicians are showing up to learn how to be visual performers.​​ Their website includes some video tutorials on using VDMX alongside Ableton Live and the APC40, so even if you don't live in the area of Dubspot headquarters they have some knowledge to share with you.

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V Owen Bush (left) and Benton-C Bainbridge (right)

Photo by Dave Pentecost, East Village Planetarium

If you'd like to see Glowing Pictures live this spring, they're the resident visual designers of the American Museum Of Natural History's monthly One Step Beyond series. The new 2013 season kicks off May 10th with James Blake, and if you miss that, the next OSB is on June 7th. You can also see them performing on May 17th and 18th alongside V Squared Labs at the Electric Daisy Carnival in NYC.

And this post would not be complete without a major shout out to Nalepa and TeamSupreme ​for usage of the audio track in the above trailer for the 'Conception' clips pack.