Introducing ISF for Jitter

Today we are extra excited to announce an open source collaboration with the team over at Cycling74, creators of Max. Now all of the amazing ISF shaders that come with VDMX and on interactiveshaderformat.com can be used right alongside your other Jitter code using the jit.gl.isf object, available on Mac and Windows!

You can install jit.gl.isf directly from the Max package manager panel, accessible from the File menu. If you don’t already have any ISF shaders installed, also grab the free ISF Editor app for your appropriate platform. The free editor tool comes with the same standard set of 300+ generators, effects, and transitions we bundle with VDMX to get started with.

With this release Max joins the over a dozen apps and frameworks that support ISF as a standard for GLSL shaders. With ISF, there is no need to convert or translate code when moving between software. Write your generators and effects once, then use in Max, Motion, Final Cut Pro X, VDMX, on the web, and other video platforms. The specification includes conventions for working with multi-pass shaders with persistent frame buffers, allowing for the creation of complex compositions in a single easy to share file. The ISF documentation pages include detailed walkthroughs of the specification along with useful reference notes and a quick start for learning the basics of GLSL.

Want to learn more? Read more about it on the ISF for Jitter website, watch an introduction video tutorial, and visit the Max forums for more details from the Cycling74 crew. Developers curious to take a look under the hood can find the open source codebase in the jit.gl.isf repository. For the latest in ISF news, follow the @ISFVideo account on Twitter.

And don’t forget to check out some of our other tutorials describing techniques for using Max and VDMX together, such as using the OSCQuery Helper tool for simplifying OSC sync and sharing video streams via Syphon.

Introducing OSCQuery Protocol

One of the most useful techniques for artists working with audio and visual software is the OSC protocol for sending control information from one application to another. While MIDI is great for a lot of situation, OSC was designed to be more extensible and allow for a variety of different datatypes, greatly expanding the possibilities within the community of real-time digital art. Over the years the ecosystem of tools that support the protocol has grown and now we are excited to release a new extension to help the community take OSC to the next level.

The OSCQuery Protocol is an agreed upon specification that extends the base functionality of OSC to make it easier to construct impromptu or improvisational interfaces between different systems…

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ProjectMilkSyphon – Free MilkDrop Music Visualizer to Syphon App For VJs

ProjectMilkSyphon is a free app to create sound reactive visuals from an audio input to your computer such as a built-in microphone or line in and mixed into your favorite VJ software over Syphon.

This tool is possible thanks to the projectM community who did all the years of hard work that are behind this project and generously made it available under the terms of the LGPL.

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GifToSyphon: Free Giphy Search To Syphon Tool for Mac VJs

Download GifToSyphon (requires Mac OS X 10.9.5 or later)

GifToSyphon is a free Mac utility that combines two things that VJs love – Animated GIFs and Syphon.

Giphy + Syphon = Instant kittens in your VJ set

Powered by the awesome Giphy search engine, a Mac VJ with an Internet connection can now instantly pull tagged GIFs from a huge online library and use them directly in their favorite Syphon enabled video application.

When not connected to the net GifToSyphon can also still use images from its local cache or using any of your own animated GIF files. These downloaded GIFs can also be loaded into most VJ software for remixing alongside your other media files.

For a quick introduction to using GifToSyphon with VDMX watch this new video tutorial:

 
 

(using the 4 channel mixer example via the Templates menu if you're trying to reproduce at home)

Features:

Remix GIFs in VJ software.

Search the huge GIPHY library.

Caches downloaded GIFs.

For those who are interested in seeing how GifToSyphon works behind the scenes we've also open sourced the code on GitHub: https://github.com/dlublin/GifToSyphon

Lastly a huge thanks to Giphy team and community for letting us access their repository of GIFs!

“We're Live” – Blair Neal's TV Face Substitution

This is a long very overdue post on the work of Blair Neal, who after interning with us many many years ago has gone on to be a lead developer at the award winning fakelove creative agency where he makes totally sick interactive installations for some of the worlds top brands. Along with this he somehow still manages to find time to make music videos, live show visuals and share his tools for other artists in the field; no doubt many of you have already probably used his Canon To Syphon app or read his invaluable in depth Guide to Projectors for Interactive Installations or one of his other projects shared online.

Today Blair published a new project he's developing called “We're Live” which involves using real-time face replacement algorithms available in OpenFrameworks to insert his (or any other face) into a live television feed that he's watching at home. It's a crazy amount of fun.

 
 

Along with photos of himself “guest staring” on a variety of popular shows, the blog post includes the technical details and his open sourced, Syphon-enabled face replacing app for download should you want to try this at home with your VJ software of choice.

His blog post also goes into the inspiration and background of the project:

We’re Live allows a user to composite their face (or any face they choose) onto a live television stream. Essentially, anyone you watch on TV can finally look like you….or anyone you want. You could make everyone on TV look like Bill Murray if you really wanted to.

One of television’s greatest powers is in its ability to display very structured and edited views of reality. By watching the fabricated streams of the shows, viewers begin to wish for the interesting, exciting and impossible lives of the characters. They can subconsciously desire the smiles and trouble free lives enabled by buying the products in the advertisements. With this software, viewers can come one step closer to truly seeing themselves on screen.

We’re Live is a project involving live HD cable TV and face substitution software. It is a hardware and software method for doing a real time facial composite/replacement on live television. The original face substitution implementation and cloning shader was created by Kyle McDonald and Arturo Castro in 2012. The face tracking algorithm that enables this kind of high quality facial substitution was developed by Jason Saragih.