One of the most frequently asked questions I get, be it in a workshop or through any other method people use to contact us, is “how can I send multiple layers of video from Modul8 to MadMapper?”
Frz made a nice clean tutorial for revealing the ‘secret’ technique for doing this. But maybe you want to display an even larger variety of layers? Or as I prefer to call them within the context of MadMaPPER, ‘textures.’ Here is pleasant demonstration by DJ K-Tel that expands on this concept.
MadMapper + Modul8 pipeline demo
Perlin noise module
In a bracingly quick follow up to their last tutorial the voice of its creator declares that she is ‘not a robot’ and delivers instructions on how to modify a newly uploaded module that will move your layers so that it will look less robotic when you are doing visuals.
Simple + Concise Modul8 + Python tutorial
Just returned from our MadMapping workshop in London for the onedotzero festival. Great group of people showed up and as it turned out the majority of them did not know Modul8, so Boris did a crash course for them while I assisted those who were ready to map.
Such a crash course, or for that matter any Modul8 workshop is never enough to jump into something like the tutorial above, that I found on our forums today posted by forum member migeulespada. And what a treat this is. If you are regular to the forums don’t hesitate to encourage for more of these. A great way to make your first steps in module creation.
Modul8 and Live linking
Andrew Nixon of the Novakcollective has made a nice little demo using Live to control Modul8 using a simple MIDI track. There a lot of different ways to do this. Here is one of them. Will be great to see more examples of this. It is definitely an engaging solution for sequencing your work even if you don’t have any audio playing back in Live.
Mapping, beauty and the quick and easy
Mille – Crysteena from Upper First on Vimeo.
In my last post I went on about the overwhelming amount of mapping projects out there. This time, I will go back to the subject of mapping, and mapping tools, of which at the moment there are far and few that are accessible and easy to use.
Until we have the Mad Mapper that is fully featured (and it is far from that for the moment) the old tried and true technique is using a combination of traditional graphics tools such as Photoshop and After Effects, or other graphics applications, to get really decent, customized results.
The above video was sent to me via Facebook message from Roland Linder, of the UK based Decollage TV and at the bottom is a thesis work of Visualicious (aka Chika Iijima). I worked with Chika for one day to teach her the the basic technique that produced the results of her work. I like the way she combined augmentation with the objects she built along with just allowing non-context elements to interact with the contextual ones.
The process is really not that difficult. Setup your projector in the space and position it, making sure that your projection covers all the areas that you will want to map features onto it. I use Photoshop.
- Open a new file set to the pixel size of what my output will be
- Name my file ‘petes play house’ or something else relevant
- Select from the main menu ‘Window > Arrange > New Window for Petes Play House’ , move the new window (that is identical to the new file I have created).
- Move the new view to the output of the projector
- Enable full screen by hitting the ‘F’ key
You may have to zoom in and then out of the document in order for the window to be perfectly positioned.
It helps a lot to quickly replace the background color of the file to black if you have not done so already when creating the file and then I will add a 3 or 4 pixel stroke to edges of the borders of the file so I can see the borders of my projection.
Once you have done this DO NOT MOVE THE VIEW of the duplicated window. Work in the original window.
I use the vector tools in Photoshop to create my outlines of all the features I want and then import that file into After Effects to make the animations. The famous ‘stroke the edge with light’ technique is done by creating a mask and making an outline of one of your features and then using the built in ‘stroke’ filter, offsetting the values of the draw on keyframes so that only a portion of the line is visible and animating along the curve.
Render your materials, drop them into Modul8, setup your Midi bindings, etc.
In a bit of a deadline crunch at the moment to deliver some ideas towards a module for a monome like device called the Octint.
I have been using the Monome for some time now along with the Monomal module from Iduun. Being able to get real feedback from the device has allowed me to almost never touch the laptop while I am performing. I am excited to have even more visual references in that the Octint uses color.
*** Update ***
At the request of David Harrow via facebook I have created a small example of using the stroke plug-in.