Free Tools for VJs??
Art of VJing is multi-faceted technological and artistic field. Most of us spend considerable time producing and developing content and establishing techniques for media manipulation. If you anything like me, then chances are that you’ll find yourself wondering about extending your favourite software as you grow through using it on a regular basis.  Year after year you master some of the techniques, and yet you see great deal of limitations that are in front of you due to the closed development process of the software itself which in most cases you cannot interfere.

Let me modify!
If you have followed some of my recent posts on the subject of Pure Data VJ software, then you find that Pure Data has opened up numerous possibilities of developing your own software while utilising numerous Plug-ins, Libraries and Patches that worldwide community has released to date.  These are very exciting times to be working in this field as knowledge and programs are at very healthy state.  One of such AMAZING tools that I have only recently came about is : Qeve. It really encompasses large majority of your “wish lists” while maintaining its flexibility and cost. Free.

Without further a due, please explore this unique and promising piece of Pure Data software for Vjing: Queve!

“In art production the tool you use determine result of your work in many ways. Only by using free software you will not reproduce closed mind”
- Luca Carrubba aka Husk

Queve is a free tool for live performance and vjing developed by Estereotips collective with economic support by Catalan independent video maker association Telenoika and Center of visual arts productions Hangar from Barcelona. This software try to obtain the same usability of similar commercial applications (resolume, modul8, vdmx) while adding some unique features.

Reference: https://piksel.no/ocs/index.php/piksel/piksel09/paper/view/210/24

Qeve Development:
It was principally developed for Gnu/linux Ubuntu operative system (7.04, 7.10, 8.04), but it will also work on Mac os X (Tiger, Leopard), using Puredata programing language, some Bash script and some Python script. We choose this Operative System because it is very easy to set and to admin. It does not require high technical knowledge; at the same time it guarantee typical Unix system stability and security with the support of an international community.
GNU/Linux Ubuntu Operative System is an open source system which most part is released under GPL license; this license let users modify and redistribute software.

PureData (PD) Approach:
Puredata (aka PD) is a visual programming language that make easy to design interactive environments, to synchronize audio and video with real world events; it is also freesoftware, each program create by PD can be modify through his clonekind behavior license.

Combination of Gnu/Linux and Puredata is perfect to develop an application that want to improve through user’s use.
A vjing application let user manipulate video contents in real time. With Qeve is it possible to mix different videos at the same time, control them by external devices (like Midi, Wiimote, iPod touch/Iphone, Nintendo DS, others computers or sound machines) and synchronize them with an external audio stream.

Download Qeve:

Qeve is a puredata patch that need some more software in order to run.
You need Puredata, pdvjtools, freeframe and (optionally) devilspie
You can install all this software by hands or try the install script you find in the package.

Qeve is developed on a ubuntu machine so the installer will work only on this system (8.04, 8.10, 9,04)

Here you can download Qeve package.

Mirror 1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JW7YBTUY
(This Mirror has been added after official site was noted to be down by readers of Create Digital Motion and vdmoKstati blogs. Link is added to fill this current gap and while the official site is down. No support on Installation or Modifications for Qeve is given at this point. Please use at your own discression. )

If you like to do it manually this is what you need to do:
1- install Pd-Extended for your system (downloading it here)
2- install pdvjtools for your system (downloading it from here)
3- decompress archive FreeFrame.tar.gz (included in the Qeve package)
4- copy FreeFrame dir in /usr/lib and give it permissions (sudo chmod -R +x /usr/lib/FreeFrame/*)
5- Decompress archive  Qeve.tar.gz and copy it in your $HOME
6- Copy qeve file in /usr/local/bin and give it permissions (sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/qeve)
7- optionaly install devilspie program from apt
Now you can lauch qeve from a terminal

N.B.In order to work install script needs universe and multiuniverse repository active.
So before run the script check it!

Qeve’s features:
Listed below are the Qeve’s features:

• 3 independent layers
• 5 kind of players (video, 3d, photos, text, paint)
• Mix 3d and 2d graphix in real time
• A video stepsequencer
• Live streaming through giss.tv servers
• Text animation path and draw tool
• Audio analysis in real time
• Simple midi configuration
• Totally controllable by OpenSoundControl
• Wiimote support to control 3d movements
• Support for Nintendo DS as Wifi controller
• Save and load your preferred videodeck
• Mouse control position for each layer
• Different transitions
• It’s Free

Qeve’s modules:

Master CLock
With BPM (beats per minutes) control is very easy to synchronize video behaviour to music tempo. User can connect
to master clock tempo every player’s property. He/she can selects to leave it at the same velocity or reduce it for equal fractions.

Channel type
Qeve has three different layers organized into a hierarchy relation from the first layer to the third. User can choose between five different players (called channel type) for each layer and switch them from one to another in real time:

Media Types:

1. Video
2. 3d
3. Text
4. Image
5. Paint

1. Video player is for regular footage content. During playback user can scratch video frames, select loop point, add color from a color palette GUI, play it in slow mode or in invert color mode, and he/she can add digital effect from freeframe effect gallery.

2. 3d player is for openGL contents. User can create until 200 cubes or Spheres, choose size and color, add movement behaviour to them from three different kind: rotation, random walking and explode. The first one is a circular rotation movement on Y and Z axis;  the second one is a random movement on X and Y axys with settable speed and object distance; the third is an explosion movement, like a bomb, from epicenter to outside. User can also choose to use some video as background texture of 3d object.

3. Text player is a concept shooter that let user put his/her own text in real time or read it from a file. In case of a textfile, Qeve will render one word for every BPM. User can choose font type, size, color, rotation angle and position in the screen.  Besides, user can animate text choosing until 10 key animation points, from which one text will move depending on master clock velocity or audio analysis.

4. Image player is for control static images. User can choose size, rotation angle, color background and add digital effects from freeframe gallery.

5. Paint player is a free paint tool. User can choose size of pencil, colour and create layer mask to apply on the layer below it.

MediaGrid
Qeve has a grid (resolume style) to visualise media contents. Media grid shows the first frame of video. It is possible to load until 25 videos or images, choose a single video or an entire directory. User can create and save his/her own desk with favourite videos/images and load it at anytime.

Sequencer
This is an 8 step sequencer with 8 different memories channels. User can put videos from mediagrid to one of the eight memories for reuse it later in sequencer mode. When sequencer is on it works like an audio stepsequencer
but video. At each step it sends to the output user’s selected memory, in one of four action’s mode: play, stop, random play, rewind. Sequencer also depend on Master clock tempo.

Audio Analysis
Qeve can analyze audio frequencies, dividing them in bass, middle and high. For each player user can connect one frequency to a property.

Midi
User can control all Qeve’s features by an external midi controller. By a specific window user can easily assign a rotary or button for every desired property.

OpenSoundControl
Qeve support OSC [1] communication protocol. Through this it could be controlled or can control others multimedia applications and works synchronized with them.

Video Streaming
This is a Qeve’s specific feature. It can stream over http his video sessions using free g.i.s.s. servers [2]

External Controls
Qeve let user to control part of visual editing by tree different kind of external controllers: Nintendo Wiimote, Apple Ipod touch/Iphone and Nintendo DS. The first one is a remote control that works with bluetooth. It has three accelerometers.

Through Wiimote movement user can move 3d camera in a 3d player; turn on or off texture; control alpha level; change size.
The second one is a palm wireless computer with a *nix like operative system. Through Ipod touch/iPhone user can change videos, move position setting and work on alpha channels. The third one is a portable game console that through a home made software[5] (that needs a special cartridge to run, not included in NDS), that let to create simple GUI element connected to a Pure Data program. These let the user the chance to control all player’s properties through a cheap wireless controller.

Qeve became a performance software that invite the user to not be linked to the machine. The vj can concentrate on the performance space.

Positions, Mouse Controls
Qeve has a set of transitions, connected to the master clock, that give more variety to video editing. It has also three position’s preset that position video layers in different way in the screen space. User can always control the position of a single layer by moving mouse cursor on the preview output.

Team:
Luca Carrubba: project maintainer, coder
Matteo Micalella: GUI designer, tester
Sergi Lario: media grid coder
Valentina Messeri: documentation
Gianluca Saporito: tester

Future prospects:
Looking towards the future we would like to create a free/open software hardware solution for video and audio editing in real time.
We started with an experiment prototype that could be the starting point of the next step. The project’s name is MesaQ, a tangible user interface that let many users to control audio/video contents at same time. Qeve is the audio/video render engine of the table. It is all created with free software. The hardware project, based on Reactable project, will be open, cheap and documented. It is possible to see a demo by entering the address below:

MesaQ Demo:
http://www.estereotips.net/?p=188

References:

OpenSoundControl (OSC) is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesisers, and other multimedia devices that are optimized for modern networking technology.

G.I.S.S – Global Independent Streaming Support is a free streaming services for free media http://www.giss.tv

Pure Data external, wiimote from Mike Woz, http://mikewoz.com/index.php?page=pdstuff

In order to use it you have to install MrMr application in your Ipod touch/iPhone. On other side Qeve use PdiPod patch to get OSC message from MrMr, http://pissypaws.tumblr.com/

KnobsAndSliderDS by Cris McCormik,
http://mccormick.cx/projects/KnobsAndSlidersDS/

(News via Piksel)The Annual Piksel conference is just around the corner for those that are not yet aware. This conference gathers leading developers and artists that work within Open Source Software which takes place in Bergen(Norway) between November 19-22, 2009. If you can make to this festival in person, then please,- do yourself a favour!!!

With festival schedule being announced, there is a plenty to see and discover (See Full Schedule). I will be doing my best to highlight some of the stand out projects that are likely to make a stand for years to come in the Open Source Visualism field. First up, – Milkymist.

The Milkymist™
The Milkymist™ project develops a stand-alone device in a small form factor that is capable of rendering MilkDrop-esque visuals effects in real time, with a high level of interaction with many sensors and using live audio or video streams as a base. Open source components and design tools have been developed or used as much as possible. A system-on-chip implemented in a FPGA has been chosen for meeting this goal at the IP core level.

The flexibility of the FPGA enables advanced users to modify the design, and also permits compact integration of many interfaces (MIDI, OSC, DMX512, analog sensors, video inputs), making Milkymist™ a platform of choice for the mobile VJ. The design is also highly modular and documented, making the code easy to re-use in other open source system-on-chips.

Milkymist™ is more than a visual synthesizer – it is also one of the leading open source system-on-chip designs. It is today the fastest open source system-on-chip capable of running Linux, and it comes with an extensive set of features and graphics accelerators.

The IP cores that make up the system-on-chip are entirely written in open source synthesizable Verilog HDL and come with test benches and documentation, which makes Milkymist™ a great library of re-usable logic cores to serve as a base for other open source hardware.

Technical Paper (Piksel09):
http://www.milkymist.org/doc/paper_overview.pdf

Piksel09 Presentation: 20th November 2009:
Milkymist, an open hardware VJ platform
Building: Bergen Kunstmuseum/Stenersen
Room: Auditoriet

Additional Resources:
Technical overview paper. A good introduction.
The blog is regularly updated with the latest project news.
The wiki contains, among other things, a “getting started” guide for the ML401, the roadmap, and the FAQ.
The “devel” mailing list for general discussions about development. See also public archives of the list.

This field is evolving and growing quite rapidly which is a good thing. Combination of open source technologies provide us with opportunityand ideas to push evolving scene to a new heights.

Mother (For Processing):
http://www.onar3d.com

In the last few months I had come by application called Mother (Previously mentioned on CDM and vdmoKstati.com) which was developed by developer from London – Illias Bergstorm . His vision was to put together an approach which would allow Processing Visual synths (Processing sketches exported to .jar through Processing export) to be controlled via likes of Max or PureData.

Pure Data sits much nicer with me as its Open Source as it doesn’t ask for purchase as it does from Max. Much more widely acceptable for educational purposes and sharing.  Note: At present this application is Windows only, and yet I’m positive that this project would eventually  spread to all other platforms as it matures and grow.

So.. what’s next?
Setting up Process…ing Mother (Windows Only)

Ok, lets get started.  Do one of the following.  Download  Mother 0.4 - (Aprogram that allows VJing with Processing.org sketches) .  Save and Extract onto you hard drive.

Presuming that you were on windows , you should be nearly all set.

Depending which way you will be choosing to try this out two options are available, Max and PuraData, Pure Data is the one I’ll highlight right now.  Max version is self contained example, yet for further editing and manipulation, you’d need full working trial or professional version.

For Pure Data control, you should install the software from http://puredata.info/downloads .  If PureData sounds like your game, also add GEM libray provides crutial number of externals to deal with video objects, etc. http://puredata.info/community/projects/software/gem/releases/0.92.0 (Current Version at the time of writing)

Anyway, when you extract your zip file, the directory structure will look something like this:

We’ll have to do little editing to adjust the system to your own environment. Click on ‘Mother with Java‘ folder and open mother.ini file. Editing is straight forward, simply change the path for the directory where you have your Synths examples folder. eg. SynthFolder=C:\\Mother0.4\Synth examples;   and Save.  The other preferences are self explanatory.

Now we are ready to open Mother. Click Mother.exe
(Blank window will open flashing from White to Black… thats Normal..)

For those that might be confused by this at first, Mother is space where all the action takes place which is controlled by external applications – examples For Max and Pure Data are provided.  Read on…

Launching Controlling Systems:

[Pure Data]

While your Mother App is still running, go to the Pure Data Controller  folder in the Mother Directory(eg. C:\Mother0.4\PureData controller ) and launch Pure Data controller example.pd file.

Note: This will require Pure Data to be fully installed.

You should get something like this >

Click Individual Bar for Creation and Or Removal of your synths in Pure Data that will be sending out signals to Mother application screen.1. Click to Add the Gradient >> [Mother/Add_synth ss Gradient Grad_02]. Underneath it really should say 2. Click to add the Waltz file (yet it says Gradient.. Fix this up for yourself  “Ctrl +E” if you like).

So… what you think?

Very interesting way of interfacing between Pure Data and Processing creation mechanisms. I think there is a lot of potential there.  My personal explorations will follow.

Engine Room Audition… from Kevin Atkinson on Vimeo.

http://methodart.blogspot.com/2009/0…-audition.html

The code will take some work to build. There are a few external dependencies which are explained in the readme.

It’s a node-based programming system, where effects are node types that you string together at run-time. No gui, though it could be the basis for a nice visual programming tool.

I also packaged a couple of them up as FF 1.0 plugins, and there are Visual Studio projects there.

I’ll prepare binary release sometime soon. I just moved to New Zealand to take a job at Weta Digital, so I’m busy for the next bit, so it may take a couple weeks to get to it.

The license is GPL, though I’m pondering using the LGPL if the GPL scares away too many people. I mostly just want to see the code used.

Cheers,

folly and GOTO10 are pleased to announce the latest articles to be added to the Digital Artists’ Handbook at www.digitalartistshandbook.org

The handbook is a reliable and accessible source of information that introduces artists to different tools, resources and ways of working related to digital art. With a focus on Free Software and Open Content, the handbook covers topics such as working with graphics, sound and digital video, software art, developing your own hardware, collaborative working and publishing your work.

The first of two new articles, “Video editing with open source tools”,has been written by Valentina Messeri and Eleonora Oreggia.

Valentina Messeri studied Philosophy of Technology and has been living in Spain since 2002. She is an advanced GNU/Linux user and video-maker, an expert in video streaming, teaches multimedia and
works freelance in post production and live audio/video streaming.

Eleonora Oreggia is a media artist born in Milan and based in Amsterdam. She worked as editor and researcher at Netherlands Institute for Media Art (NIMK) in Amsterdam, and is currently Researcher in Design at Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and PhD in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The second new article is by UK-based Sumit Sarkar, a visual artist whose character based artwork takes the form of digital and canvas paintings, digital sculpture, and aerosol art.

Sumit was invited to write “Blender: working in 3d” having spent 2008 as artist in residence with folly and Lanternhouse International. During his residency he used Blender to create Ananta, a new exhibition expressing his vision of the Hindu religion and spirituality.

Read more here: http://goto10.org/two-new-articles

Processing
There is an obvious interests among many to pursuit the ropes of Processing.org which has risen in popularity due to its open source approach and fairly streamlined learning curve for many. The ongoing Processingblogs.org happens to be one of the most amazing blogs going on in regards of everything Processing with a serious dash of talent coming through in that direction and brilliant examples of its applications and motion. You won’t have to go far to discover many amazing opportunities this multi platform multimedia can bring as community involvement is strong, tutorials and code available is readily shared by many and libraries are plenty.

ContextFree
With this in mind sometimes you may seek additional features which can come handy such as direct Rendering or recording of your sketches. In my recent search for something of this nature I came across- this software coding visual tool environment called ContextFree.

“Context Free is a program that generates images from written instructions called a grammar. The program follows the instructions in a few seconds to create images that can contain millions of shapes.” While you can study numerous examples through its excellent Gallery, on top of that you may render your grammar into a full working motion clips which
are created with easy and to your preference. (* Note: I found ‘Animation’ to work best with Quicktime in Settings).

Fluxus 0.16
From piksel.no news blog. >> New Release: fluxus 0.16

And now for another Live Coding Visual tool: Fluxus!

Fluxus is a tool for rapid prototyping, livecoding and playing/learning environment for 3D graphics, sound and games. Extends PLT Scheme with graphical commands and can be used within it’s own livecoding environment or from within the DrScheme IDE.

“act of a flowing; a continuous moving on or passing by, as of a flowing
stream; a continuous succession of changes”

Chunky new stuff with its new release:

* New truetype font primitive, with 3D extruding and poly conversion
* Perlin and Simplex noise functions
* Tiled framedump for rendering insane resolutions
* New example games, space invaders and missile command!
* Lots of fixes and improvements, particularly in fluxa – the synth server.
* A new fluxus manual:
http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/files/fluxus-documentation.pdf
* A new website:
http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus

It’s still best to be oldskool and build it from source:
http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/files/fluxus-0.16rc1.tar.gz

But there are a few more packages and OSX apps available nowadays:
http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/packages/

For those who not familiar with pure:dyne, perhaps its time to turn your attention to this ever growing Open Source project which encompasses all wonderful things Open Source and directly applicable to Audio and Video artists who seek and choose to produce they own works using FLOSS software. My personal experience with this Operating System goes back for couple of years as I would frequently boot into it via USB or CD and primarily experiment with Pure Data as my tool of choice and generally learn about Linux the knowledge which I gradually climb.

Few days ago Marc Garrett had invited two team members of the GOTO10 collective (People behind pure: dyne), Heather Corcoran and Aymeric Mansoux to discuss pure:dyne on the Netbehaviour.org list and share the light on its history, side projects and future.

This interview provides an interesting insight into development and history of pure:dyne,- FLOSS open source Linux distribution OS by artists for artists. The interview took place between October 16th – 23rd Oct 08. An open discussion was joined by other list members of Netbehaviour result of which can be found on the link below.

To read it, please click on the link below:
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=322