Alternative for Quartz Composer

FFGL, OSC, GLSL. If you like abbreviations, this is the forum for you
User avatar
Zig-Zag
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 22:41
Location: Zurich

Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by Zig-Zag »

First off:
Thanks for v6. Just downloaded it and it looks like a source of joy for many days to come!

I have two related questions for this new release:
Now that Quartz Composer was waved a goodbye I'm a bit sad but also looking forward to getting into something new. May I ask if there is a recommended replacement for it (Touch Designer or Fusion or ...)? What I mean by 'recommended' are both what people think is a fun and capable software but also what the Resolume developers plan to support longer term. Like they did with Quartz Composer before.

Also, can we still use syphon to get things into v6 in real-time or is there a different recommended method?

Thanks!

Joris
Doesn't Know Jack about VJ'ing or Software Development and Mostly Just Gets Coffee for Everyone
Posts: 5185
Joined: Fri May 22, 2009 11:38

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by Joris »

Personally, I'd put my time in learning shaders: https://thebookofshaders.com/

User avatar
Zig-Zag
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 22:41
Location: Zurich

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by Zig-Zag »

Yes Sir!

Thanks Joris for the quick response.

While I cry a quiet tear for the GLSL shader patches in Quartz Composer does anyone have a recommended platform for continuing with GLSL? Touch Designer? Fusion? They both cost a buck or two (I know there is a free version of Fusion 9 but for GLSL you need a plug-in that only works with the Pro version).

User avatar
francoe
Is seriously in love with Resolume. Met the parents and everything
Posts: 378
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 23:30

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by francoe »

That's a strange answer.
I undestand ZigZag is asking for a visual programing enviroment that can be controlled inside resolume (I'm thinking in node based ones like magic, vuo, fugio, etc).
I think if you design a fragment needs to create your own ffgl, or use shaderloader. Or I'm missing something here?
Saw some guys creating content outside, feeding it through syphon and controlling it by osc/ffgl params, is that a false move?

Joris
Doesn't Know Jack about VJ'ing or Software Development and Mostly Just Gets Coffee for Everyone
Posts: 5185
Joined: Fri May 22, 2009 11:38

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by Joris »

The way I read the question is that Zigzag is asking for some insight on possible developments. Ie whether we have plans to support any creative coding environments like we did QC and Flash in the past.

We don't have any definite plans, but shader support is certainly on the table. Even when some opportunity pops up to support another coding environment, the chance that they don't support shaders is so small, it's pretty much non-existent. So learning shaders is always going to be a smart move.

You're asking about what's currently possible, which is a completely different question. Personally, the idea of syphoning a texture in while OSC'ing control data out feels so flaky and work-aroundy, I would rather spent a weekend learning Shaderloader than having to go through all that jazz. But that's my opinion.
does anyone have a recommended platform for continuing with GLSL?
Shaders are so common that you can even develop them in the browser. The site I linked even lets you re-compile their examples in realtime, so you can see the result of small changes immediately.

User avatar
drazkers
Wants to marry Resolume, and Resolume said "yes!"
Posts: 968
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 10:54
Location: Brady V up in Canada

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by drazkers »

I use touch designer for basiclly everything to fix things I want. For awhile it was controlling resolume and my controllers. But a lot of my tricks are redundant now with R6, lol.

User avatar
Zig-Zag
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 22:41
Location: Zurich

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by Zig-Zag »

Thanks for the above three comments. For now my own thoughts simmered down to this:
- stay with v5 when I want to incorporate QC compositions (and my own little GLSL experiments) into a performance
- step it up to v6 and beyond when I want to play with all the new goodies

To be clear I wasn't at all complaining about removing support for QC. It is indeed buggy. I'm happy to move on to something new and better. But I don't see a clear replacement and was asking for a bit of guidance. The last couple of days I've been messing with both Fusion 9 and Touch Designer and for what it's worth to others as a piece of advice my pick is Fusion 9.

Anyway, cheers!

sleepytom
Hasn't felt like this about software in a long time
Posts: 236
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:11
Location: sussex by the sea

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by sleepytom »

Fusion? what the node base compositor?

I'd suggest there is zero chance of Resolume integrating it ever. It is a useful standalone VFX platform but it is not ever designed as a realtime environment in the way that QC was. (Blackmagic are not a great company to deal with either so..)

I'm really disappointed that the Vuo team have not followed through with windows support. Their platform would be the logical progression from QC. I feel that their voting system for functionality requests really skews the data leading their development - only existing users get to vote on functions and as such the priorities of development don't favour expanding into new markets.

If you have some money and a decent windows machine to work on then get Notch. It's by far the most commercially successful node environment for event media servers. There is a big demand for freelance Notch programmers and the rates are very good. Resolume probably won't directly support it as it is windows only but

User avatar
drazkers
Wants to marry Resolume, and Resolume said "yes!"
Posts: 968
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 10:54
Location: Brady V up in Canada

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by drazkers »

sleepytom wrote:Fusion? what the node base compositor?

I'm really confused by the answer as well. Its node based but isn't real time or made for content creation. 100% compositing. I'd love to know what features your using and why to replace quartz.

User avatar
Zig-Zag
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 22:41
Location: Zurich

Re: Alternative for Quartz Composer

Post by Zig-Zag »

Sorry for the confusion @sleepytom and @drazkers.

What I should have said was "given that there seem to be no integration plans for any platform into Resolume I for myself decided on going with Fusion". I didn't intend to indicate that it's a replacement for QC.

As a side note, I was recently at LightFest in Moscow and one of the judges of the VJing competition made a remark regarding the differences in traditional (i think 'traditional was the word he used) videomixing and creative coding. I personally like dabbling in both and I thought the integration of QC was golden where you could publish parameters and manipulate them from Resolume real time. You could have a 100 QC composition in a Resolume composition. But QC otherwise can be very annoying many times. So I understand the discontinuation of support for it. But if I can't publish QC parameters to Resolume anymore then the door is open to all kinds of platforms. And so Fusion 9 is an attractive possibility for me.

Maybe Blackmagic is an annoying company to deal with but neither did Apple give me any support with QC.

You asked why I chose it. The reasons are subjective but here they come:
- Fusion 9 is free whereas Touch Designer costs a pretty penny as soon as you use it in a gig where you get paid.
- I don't know if Fusion 9 is simply a compositing machine. As far as I can tell I can do the things I could in QC. Or was QC also a compositing machine? The only missing bit is the node where you can write shader code. That was a very smooth intro to learning shaders for me. That's annoying. There seems to be a plug-in but that costs.
- I like the interface better, it has two monitors where you can see the output of any node
- My ayes are not great and the color scheme of Touch Designer I can hardly read.

There are more reasons but you get the idea. It's not a very professional choice. I just like it so I'm more motivated to invest time to learn it.

I hope this clarifies things. Thanks for the suggestion of Notch. it's intriguing but I'm on a Mac.

But anyway, beta 3 of Resolume 6 is out so let's go play! They even suggest to take it to a gig and here comes the weekend with two gigs!

Thanks for your input. Ciao!

Post Reply