The ‘Compendium’ video object.
For this guest tutorial we are joined by Will Reardon, a motion designer and artist, currently developing video based art objects. As an extension of this next project Will is using VDMX and the x-OSC I/O board to create a device similar to his previous ‘Compendium’ object but with added interactive functionality for controlling its animations.
We'll begin by making a basic test connection between the software and hardware over WiFi, then start to add a series of sliders and knobs to VDMX that will receive our values from the I/O board analog inputs.
The goal for the finished controller object will have knobs, switches and sliders connected to VDMX via x-OSC which will control various aspects of an animation on the screen, along with a custom housing or box.
Notes and tips:
Hardware used for this tutorial: an old potentiometer (pot) connected to x-OSC with 3 jumper wires and 3 crocodile clips.
Switches, sliders and pots generally have 3 connectors on the back. The middle one is typically the variable output. The other two are power and ground.
x-OSC connects wirelessly to the computer over a router or ad-hoc computer wifi network. The device can be can be powered by USB or battery pack.
In the VDMX OSC preferences add an input to receive messages on port 8000.
x-OSC also features on-board gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer sensors. Device settings can be configured from any web browser.
Each input from your custom controller can be connected to any slider, button, or other interface item in VDMX using the Interface Inspector.
Once again a special thanks to Will Reardon for preparing this lesson and be sure to check out the x-OSC website for more information and additional tutorial on using it with other software.