New Features : Mother 0.6:

• Small mistakes fixed from previous 0.5 release: Waltz synth example was not working, and I failed to mention in the documentation that you also need the Shapetween library to develop new synths. Note: Shapetween is a library for Processing that provides an easy way of animating elements within a sketch in a variety of ways.
• More comprehensive secondary screen support introduced.
• pre(), draw(), post() and dispose() methods are now called properly in synth libraries.
• It is no longer necessary to put an Init() method in sketches intended as Synths for Mother (Finally!).

Download:
As always, you can download the latest version from the Google code repository!

Version 6.0.1 has been added with minor tweaks!
http://code.google.com/p/processing-mother/downloads/list

To Download Mother version 0.5.0, visit from Google code repository and grab your preferred version (PC/OSX).

Onar3D – Triton Leaves – Festival Version – HD from Onar3D on Vimeo.

About Mother
A library & host by Ilias Bergstrom for the programming environment processing.org, with contributions by Krzysztof Goliński and Alice Lottini. Last update, 06-Oct-2009.

From the colour organs of past centuries, to todays VJing and new media art performances, artists and scientists have shown perpetual interest in the live performance of visual imagery.

The limited aesthetic flexibility permitted by existing tools however has meant that artists striving to differentiate their work have most often been the inventors and creators of the tools they use.

To address this obstacle, we have developed a set of tools, that make use of and extend the popular Processing open-source multimedia programming environment.

Together they will enable artists without the skills of computer programming to significantly influence the content of their visual performance, while also keeping the programming of new graphics algorithms accessible to those seeking greater creative freedom.

Installation

Unzip “Mother 0.5 for Processing 1.0.7 – Windows.zip” or “Mother 0.5 for Processing 1.0.7 – OSX.zip” archive, depending on your platform.

In the folder “Foetus library” you will find Foetus.zip; extract this and put the extracted Foetus folder into the libraries folder of your processing sketches. Reference and examples are included in the Foetus folder.

For instructions on using Mother, read included “GETTING STARTED.TXT” file.

Tested

Platforms Windows, OSX
Processing 1.0.7

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:\Mother0.4Synth 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:Mother0.4PureData 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.

Well, that’s until Mother came to the scene. -A program that allows VJing with Processing.org sketches.

The lead developer Ilias Bergstrom has been working through developing this invaluable tool which in my opinion can launch Processing as source of visual performance to another level.
The current development version (Mother 0.3 in Development) has been announced just under a month ago and what now seemingly its coming to a near launch stage with followed up post from Ilias on Onar3d- Maria Louiza.

I will take some time in next few days to give much more detailed review of my personal experience, yet in the mean time, check out provided links for more info on the subject.