Loops – Performance, Production, and Progression

The heart of almost every VJ / Visualist performance is the loop. There are lots of techniques and training for the production of loops, but there are some common approaches and methodology of creating a “pack” that are explored in this guest tutorial by Colin Evoy Sebestyen. To demonstrate these ideas Colin breaks down a project he created with musician Nonagon for a performance series at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.

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Setting A Movie to Resume Last Playback Position

When preparing movie files for a performance, one of the more subtle controls you may want to customize on a per clip basis is the start point of individual clips when they are triggered. While the default behavior is to playback from the first frame of the video, it may be necessary to have a clip resume playing from the last time it was used. This is accomplished in VDMX by using the Files section of the Workspace Inspector where you can specify custom playback behaviors of individual clips.

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Creating a multi-channel live camera video sampler

For this technique video tutorial we'll be looking at how to use VDMX to create a multi-camera video sampler setup with the ability to record movie clips from a live feed to be immediately remixed and saved for later editing. As movie clips are sampled they will be automatically added to the bin page where they can be triggered for output making this simple example useful either on its own, or added on to an existing project.

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Syncing the playback of multiple movies in VDMX over a network using OSC

One of the data-sources available within VDMX for controlling playback, FX, and composition parameters, is the current playhead position of each movie playing on a layer. Like an LFO or audio analysis value, you can assign this to any slider, button, or other UI item by using the UI Inspector or from the right-click contextual menu.

In this tutorial the movie “normalized time” parameter (time as a percentage, ranged 0.0 to 1.0) will specifically be used to synchronize the playback of multiple movie files – this can be a useful technique for working with batches of clips that have the same duration, and high-end projects that involve powering more displays or projectors than can be connected a single Mac.

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Remixing Seamless 360 Degree Panoramic Movies Shot with the Kōgeto Dot in VDMX

As part of our series on different techniques for VJs and visual artists to create their own content for performances and installations, today we are featuring the “Dot” camera attachment from Kogeto which lets you easily shoot panoramic video from an iPhone that can be loaded into a VDMX for real-time cropping and panning for adjusting the point of view as the movie plays back or is remixed during a live performance.

In this video tutorial we'll look at some tips for working with movie clips shot using the Dot in VDMX, including setting up seamless 360 rotational loops, syncing the POV angle to the movie time, and how to fade between two different panorama clips.

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Receiving MIDI SMPTE Time Code (MTC) in VDMX

​MIDI Time Code (MTC) is a specification for sending SMPTE values from a master playback application such as QLab or Apple Logic to keep the play time of other real-time music and visuals software in sync over MIDI.​ While MTC has a few drawbacks it can be very useful when setting up live performances where VDMX is being used alongside audio software that can send it.

In this tutorial we'll look at how to receive MTC ​in VDMX in two ways: First, the classic example of syncing the time position of a QuickTime movie to the incoming timecode. In the second case instead of a traditional movie, a simple Quartz Composer patch will receive the MTC and render a real-time animated read out of the values in standard SMPTE format.

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Converting movies to the Hap video codec

Hap is a new video codec for Mac OS X that performs image decompression on a computer's video card, substantially reducing the CPU usage necessary to play back a movie- this is useful in situations where CPU power is a limiting factor, such as when working with high resolution movies.

In this tutorial we'll look at when it is appropriate to use Hap encoded files and how to convert movie files using the free Vidvox batch exporter utility, or your other favorite QuickTime enabled applications.

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