Resolume Video Training
Finally! Online video training for Resolume! We've worked with the wonderful Doc Optic and created 2 whole hours of in-depth video training.
[fold][/fold]
It's not a boring 'this-button-does-that' type of deal. We based it on the practical experience of some of the world's best VJ teams. We give you practical examples of *how* they use Resolume. More importantly, we explain *why* they do it like that.
We show you how you can make your compositions look slick and balanced, how to organize your files for easy access during long shows and how to set up your MIDI controller so you can get into a good flow.
It even has a few freebies to give you a taste of how things look and feel. Head over to the training page and see for yourself why we're so excited.
[fold][/fold]
It's not a boring 'this-button-does-that' type of deal. We based it on the practical experience of some of the world's best VJ teams. We give you practical examples of *how* they use Resolume. More importantly, we explain *why* they do it like that.
We show you how you can make your compositions look slick and balanced, how to organize your files for easy access during long shows and how to set up your MIDI controller so you can get into a good flow.
It even has a few freebies to give you a taste of how things look and feel. Head over to the training page and see for yourself why we're so excited.
Resolume Blog
This blog is about Resolume, VJ-ing and the inspiring things the Resolume users make. Do you have something interesting to show the community? Send in your work!
Highlights
Combining video, lights and laser: Rebel Overlay at Hydra
When we released Arena 5 with the added options for DMX output, we were expecting you guys to do amazing things with it. Still, Spencer Heron from Rebel Overlay recently sent us a video that exceeded our expectations and then some.
Their setup has video, lights and laser, all controlled by a single instance of Arena. Combined with Rebel Overlay's trademark minimal design, it looks downright amazing.
Read more about Rebel Overlay and how they made this happen below.
[fold][/fold]
Who and what is Rebel Overlay and where can we find you online?
Rebel Overlay is a London based visual design company, we specialize in live visuals, content creation and creative visual setups for events worldwide. We’re formed of three core members, Spencer Heron, Philip Rust and Ben Field.
You can find our work online at http://www.rebeloverlay.com, http://www.vimeo.com/rebeloverlay and http://www.facebook.com/reblovrla
How did you start VJ'ing?
Rebel Overlay started back in around 2005 while I was studying Film Production at the Bournemouth Screen Academy, UK. I needed more of a creative outlet for my ideas and video experimentations. Back then the VJ scene in the UK was building up some momentum, and the emphasis on experimenting with visualizing audio was a popular medium I had a lot of interest in. My first real love of visuals came when I would be glued to the television at 3am on the weekends watching a TV series on terrestrial television produced by Addictive TV, titled ‘Mixmasters’. It was a late night music show that featured audio-visual and DJ:VJ mixes produced by hundreds of different music labels and visual artists worldwide.
I wasn’t able to translate the audio and visual relationship too much in to my studies, and so I formed good relationships with event programmers and began doing projection and television displays at my friends events. Since then I moved to the city and the demand for visuals was enough that I could continue to grow the company and we’ve been working in the field ever since.
Can you tell us a bit more about your setup at Hydra?
In the video we’re using 70x RGB pixel battens, a 12mm LED screen, 24x green point lasers and 4x RGB sweeper beam moving head lights. Everything runs from inside the new Resolume Arena 5 software. We’re running the LED screen straight on DVI, while all the other fixtures are controlled using a Showjockey 16way Art-Net to DMX box on 16 lumiverses.
We create animation sequences, for e.g simple flashing boxes, and they are used to control the lighting fixtures. DMX works in values of 0 – 255. So, to translate that in to video, black is 0 and full brightness is 255, and that’s how we work with the ranges of each lighting fixture. The moving heads sweep beam lights only have one axis but split in to two sections per light, which is fairly simple to control in theory but was quite difficult to find a working solution without using more layers. For this, we used a gradient source so we have control of the brightness on 2 sides of a solid layer. We mapped the DMX value for the lights tilting to either side of this gradient, which meant we can use Resolume’s automation controls to sync in the movement, or map the movement to a fader on our midi controllers.
The lasers work on a matrix that any value over 250 switches them on, and the pixel battens act like a low resolution video screen so we can extend the content from the LED screen out over the heads of the audience.
What's Hydra? Does the name have any significance?
The Hydra is an expertly curated series of parties in London, running primarily throughout autumn each year. Created in 2012 from the brainchild of former head of programming at The End Club, Ajay Jayaram, and off-location event pioneer Dolan Bergin, The Hydra has built up an inimitable reputation in the UK and further afield. Hence the name from Greek Mythology, meaning a “beast with many heads”. The Hydra also rears its head at other events across the year in London and overseas.
The Hydra’s uncompromising mission is to collaborate with the finest artists, record labels and collectives from around the world, representing them against a backdrop of superlative sound and production and bringing the very best underground music to London’s doorstep.
How does Resolume fit into all this?
I began using Resolume software around the launch of Avenue, I was drawn to the simplicity of it all and the linear layout where I could have the option of loading all my usable media in to a single composition. The ability to add effects and manipulate a clip, then duplicate it and add more manipulation and still be able to call that content up when required was an extremely valuable asset for us.
The latest Resolume 5.0 release is the backbone of the production we do for The Hydra. We’ve invested a lot in equipment, displays and lighting fixtures over the last year with the idea that we can control most elements of a show live, with all the lighting and video elements working together in synchronicity, in perfect time with Resolume’s BPM tracker and all running from a single laptop. It’s a fairly new and unique approach to controlling fixtures, using an animated composition as the triggers. We simply design our show layouts in 3D, and export image masks to work from and animate on top of. In Resolume we then map all our fixtures in the advanced output of Arena, sending our DMX over Art-Net and the video via DVI.
It’s the scenography element that most interests us today, we want to design shows that aren’t just focused on the screens and visual / VJ element, but how everything else from lasers to moving heads is incorporated in to the design.
Why did you choose Res over a regular lighting desk? Don't you like endless rows of faders and illegible touchscreens?
Being solely from a video background, DMX is still very new to us and we started with absolutely no experience with DMX at all so it was quite a learning curve to get our head around. Lighting desks confuse the life out of me, I don’t really know where to start. On many international events I would work closely with an incredibly good lighting designer named Ross Chapple, (who now works with the likes of Eric Prydz) and he gave some invaluable assistance in the DMX world.
Lighting desks and operators will obviously be the right way to do things, and we’re not trying to over look their use, it’s just for what we are doing on the smaller scale, it makes a lot of sense to keep everything self contained, which is kind of the same thing we’re seeing in opposite with lighting desks now incorporating more elements of video. Only, that our preferred approach to things is from a video background and using the Arena servers to push the pixels.
You're one of the first to push the DMX integration this far. How is it being an early adopter?
The DMX integration has really stepped up our game, having just one software application running keeps the processing down and means a single machine can handle what we’re throwing at it. It’s been a fairly simple process getting to grips with the advanced pixel mapping features, being used to video and pixel mapping with previous versions of Arena, the addition of DMX follows the same principles in the advanced output and that’s made the transition an easy one. The latest release of 5.0.2 is almost there with all the features we will ever need, we’re regularly running a full 16 universes alongside up to five DVI outputs on dual and triplehead2go’s on a single machine, and Arena is handling things very well!
How was the lead-up / tech setup? Smooth sailing or does it still give you nightmares?
The tech setup for the Hydra was initially a difficult process, the animation, layout and processing of things is fairly straightforward with the main difficulty coming from creating a show that can be setup in a short amount of time and be taken down the next morning. The Hydra venue is a photography studio by day and event space by night and that’s where things have become more time consuming, building a system that can be installed and taken down quickly and efficiently. This also limits our creativity, as we have so many ideas to make large scale impressive setups but the budgets and time constraints mean we have to work in a more realistic manner.
Anything else?
The next Hydra show happens on April 29th and will see the Dutch heavyweight festival Dekmantel come to London and showcase the likes of Joy Orbison, Kyle Hall and Marcellus Pittman.
Their setup has video, lights and laser, all controlled by a single instance of Arena. Combined with Rebel Overlay's trademark minimal design, it looks downright amazing.
Read more about Rebel Overlay and how they made this happen below.
[fold][/fold]
Who and what is Rebel Overlay and where can we find you online?
Rebel Overlay is a London based visual design company, we specialize in live visuals, content creation and creative visual setups for events worldwide. We’re formed of three core members, Spencer Heron, Philip Rust and Ben Field.
You can find our work online at http://www.rebeloverlay.com, http://www.vimeo.com/rebeloverlay and http://www.facebook.com/reblovrla
How did you start VJ'ing?
Rebel Overlay started back in around 2005 while I was studying Film Production at the Bournemouth Screen Academy, UK. I needed more of a creative outlet for my ideas and video experimentations. Back then the VJ scene in the UK was building up some momentum, and the emphasis on experimenting with visualizing audio was a popular medium I had a lot of interest in. My first real love of visuals came when I would be glued to the television at 3am on the weekends watching a TV series on terrestrial television produced by Addictive TV, titled ‘Mixmasters’. It was a late night music show that featured audio-visual and DJ:VJ mixes produced by hundreds of different music labels and visual artists worldwide.
I wasn’t able to translate the audio and visual relationship too much in to my studies, and so I formed good relationships with event programmers and began doing projection and television displays at my friends events. Since then I moved to the city and the demand for visuals was enough that I could continue to grow the company and we’ve been working in the field ever since.
Can you tell us a bit more about your setup at Hydra?
In the video we’re using 70x RGB pixel battens, a 12mm LED screen, 24x green point lasers and 4x RGB sweeper beam moving head lights. Everything runs from inside the new Resolume Arena 5 software. We’re running the LED screen straight on DVI, while all the other fixtures are controlled using a Showjockey 16way Art-Net to DMX box on 16 lumiverses.
We create animation sequences, for e.g simple flashing boxes, and they are used to control the lighting fixtures. DMX works in values of 0 – 255. So, to translate that in to video, black is 0 and full brightness is 255, and that’s how we work with the ranges of each lighting fixture. The moving heads sweep beam lights only have one axis but split in to two sections per light, which is fairly simple to control in theory but was quite difficult to find a working solution without using more layers. For this, we used a gradient source so we have control of the brightness on 2 sides of a solid layer. We mapped the DMX value for the lights tilting to either side of this gradient, which meant we can use Resolume’s automation controls to sync in the movement, or map the movement to a fader on our midi controllers.
The lasers work on a matrix that any value over 250 switches them on, and the pixel battens act like a low resolution video screen so we can extend the content from the LED screen out over the heads of the audience.
What's Hydra? Does the name have any significance?
The Hydra is an expertly curated series of parties in London, running primarily throughout autumn each year. Created in 2012 from the brainchild of former head of programming at The End Club, Ajay Jayaram, and off-location event pioneer Dolan Bergin, The Hydra has built up an inimitable reputation in the UK and further afield. Hence the name from Greek Mythology, meaning a “beast with many heads”. The Hydra also rears its head at other events across the year in London and overseas.
The Hydra’s uncompromising mission is to collaborate with the finest artists, record labels and collectives from around the world, representing them against a backdrop of superlative sound and production and bringing the very best underground music to London’s doorstep.
How does Resolume fit into all this?
I began using Resolume software around the launch of Avenue, I was drawn to the simplicity of it all and the linear layout where I could have the option of loading all my usable media in to a single composition. The ability to add effects and manipulate a clip, then duplicate it and add more manipulation and still be able to call that content up when required was an extremely valuable asset for us.
The latest Resolume 5.0 release is the backbone of the production we do for The Hydra. We’ve invested a lot in equipment, displays and lighting fixtures over the last year with the idea that we can control most elements of a show live, with all the lighting and video elements working together in synchronicity, in perfect time with Resolume’s BPM tracker and all running from a single laptop. It’s a fairly new and unique approach to controlling fixtures, using an animated composition as the triggers. We simply design our show layouts in 3D, and export image masks to work from and animate on top of. In Resolume we then map all our fixtures in the advanced output of Arena, sending our DMX over Art-Net and the video via DVI.
It’s the scenography element that most interests us today, we want to design shows that aren’t just focused on the screens and visual / VJ element, but how everything else from lasers to moving heads is incorporated in to the design.
Why did you choose Res over a regular lighting desk? Don't you like endless rows of faders and illegible touchscreens?
Being solely from a video background, DMX is still very new to us and we started with absolutely no experience with DMX at all so it was quite a learning curve to get our head around. Lighting desks confuse the life out of me, I don’t really know where to start. On many international events I would work closely with an incredibly good lighting designer named Ross Chapple, (who now works with the likes of Eric Prydz) and he gave some invaluable assistance in the DMX world.
Lighting desks and operators will obviously be the right way to do things, and we’re not trying to over look their use, it’s just for what we are doing on the smaller scale, it makes a lot of sense to keep everything self contained, which is kind of the same thing we’re seeing in opposite with lighting desks now incorporating more elements of video. Only, that our preferred approach to things is from a video background and using the Arena servers to push the pixels.
You're one of the first to push the DMX integration this far. How is it being an early adopter?
The DMX integration has really stepped up our game, having just one software application running keeps the processing down and means a single machine can handle what we’re throwing at it. It’s been a fairly simple process getting to grips with the advanced pixel mapping features, being used to video and pixel mapping with previous versions of Arena, the addition of DMX follows the same principles in the advanced output and that’s made the transition an easy one. The latest release of 5.0.2 is almost there with all the features we will ever need, we’re regularly running a full 16 universes alongside up to five DVI outputs on dual and triplehead2go’s on a single machine, and Arena is handling things very well!
How was the lead-up / tech setup? Smooth sailing or does it still give you nightmares?
The tech setup for the Hydra was initially a difficult process, the animation, layout and processing of things is fairly straightforward with the main difficulty coming from creating a show that can be setup in a short amount of time and be taken down the next morning. The Hydra venue is a photography studio by day and event space by night and that’s where things have become more time consuming, building a system that can be installed and taken down quickly and efficiently. This also limits our creativity, as we have so many ideas to make large scale impressive setups but the budgets and time constraints mean we have to work in a more realistic manner.
Anything else?
The next Hydra show happens on April 29th and will see the Dutch heavyweight festival Dekmantel come to London and showcase the likes of Joy Orbison, Kyle Hall and Marcellus Pittman.
New Footage Releases: Worth the Wait
This month we have some long awaited goodies for you.
Laak finally gets to drop his phenomenal Botik:
Get Botik by Laak *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
Chromosoom is back with FlatFundamentals:
Get FlatFundamentals by Chromosoom *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
And resident psychonaut Catmac is doing some LucidDreaming:
Get LucidDream by Catmac from Resolume Footage.
Laak finally gets to drop his phenomenal Botik:
Get Botik by Laak *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
Chromosoom is back with FlatFundamentals:
Get FlatFundamentals by Chromosoom *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
And resident psychonaut Catmac is doing some LucidDreaming:
Get LucidDream by Catmac from Resolume Footage.
Resolume Arena 5.0.2 & Avenue 4.5.2 Released
Here we have another maintenance release for you. Arena 5.0.2 and Avenue 4.5.2 contains quite a few bug fixes, some small workflow improvements and 3 new effects. Highly recommended this one, hit that download.
NEW
- New effects: ParticleSystem, PolarKaleido and Sparkles (Thanks to Joris & Edwin)
- Chinese interface translation by Antonio Sou (Thank you Ant!)
- German interface translation by Walter Riemenschneider (Thank you Walt!)
- Copy/Cut/Paste Slices & Fixtures (Thank you Spencer!)
- Activate advanced output Pan Tool with middle mouse click (Thanks Elgarf!)
- BPM ticker is highlighted on every 16th beat, starting with the 1st (Thanks Joris!)
- OSC input can take doubles as well as floats (Thanks VUO!)
FIXED
- Inserting any USB device can cause Resolume to hang for a few seconds
- Crash with USB display device on OSX
- Enttec USB device support for OSX El Capitan
- Edge blending applies wrong blending when slices get stretched out
- Advanced Output defaults to nearest neighbor scaling
- When in Output Transform tab, click through shouldn't select slices from other screens
- Flash colors shown incorrect on El Capitan
- User is prevented from entering same port for OSC input and output on the same IP.
- Give some more info when trying to load an 4 screen setup preset in 5
- Immediate deselect for warped slices
- Advanced output UI does not like non-latin characters
- Selection of Screen is heavy and causes output to stop for a moment
- Remove 'Lumiverse 1' from the DMX input name
- AV fader doesn't pick up A and V slider when controlled via dmx/osc/midi
- Match Shape on multiple polygon slices
- Improve copy naming behaviour
- SMPTE offset for clip has wrong calculation when set to 29.97
- Fixture editor doesn't function with non-latin characters in user name
- Output masks are not re-rendered when reordered in the treeview
- Scrambled Japanese characters in output setup.
- Input mask outputs black on non-masking area instead of transparent
- Only draw fixture contents if its Lumiverse is selected
- Fixture Path is constructed from FileName, but our paths should only contain ASCII characters
- Remove match output shape for DMX Fixtures
- OSX Slice Copy/Cut/Pasting is intercepted by Mac Menu
- Warping header is only visible when it has anything to show
NEW
- New effects: ParticleSystem, PolarKaleido and Sparkles (Thanks to Joris & Edwin)
- Chinese interface translation by Antonio Sou (Thank you Ant!)
- German interface translation by Walter Riemenschneider (Thank you Walt!)
- Copy/Cut/Paste Slices & Fixtures (Thank you Spencer!)
- Activate advanced output Pan Tool with middle mouse click (Thanks Elgarf!)
- BPM ticker is highlighted on every 16th beat, starting with the 1st (Thanks Joris!)
- OSC input can take doubles as well as floats (Thanks VUO!)
FIXED
- Inserting any USB device can cause Resolume to hang for a few seconds
- Crash with USB display device on OSX
- Enttec USB device support for OSX El Capitan
- Edge blending applies wrong blending when slices get stretched out
- Advanced Output defaults to nearest neighbor scaling
- When in Output Transform tab, click through shouldn't select slices from other screens
- Flash colors shown incorrect on El Capitan
- User is prevented from entering same port for OSC input and output on the same IP.
- Give some more info when trying to load an 4 screen setup preset in 5
- Immediate deselect for warped slices
- Advanced output UI does not like non-latin characters
- Selection of Screen is heavy and causes output to stop for a moment
- Remove 'Lumiverse 1' from the DMX input name
- AV fader doesn't pick up A and V slider when controlled via dmx/osc/midi
- Match Shape on multiple polygon slices
- Improve copy naming behaviour
- SMPTE offset for clip has wrong calculation when set to 29.97
- Fixture editor doesn't function with non-latin characters in user name
- Output masks are not re-rendered when reordered in the treeview
- Scrambled Japanese characters in output setup.
- Input mask outputs black on non-masking area instead of transparent
- Only draw fixture contents if its Lumiverse is selected
- Fixture Path is constructed from FileName, but our paths should only contain ASCII characters
- Remove match output shape for DMX Fixtures
- OSX Slice Copy/Cut/Pasting is intercepted by Mac Menu
- Warping header is only visible when it has anything to show
New Footage Releases: Blockbusters
March is blockbuster month at Resolume Footage
Ican Agoesdjam busts the block with no less than 150 loops in Prime.
Get Prime by Ican Agoesdjam *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
Artificially Awake takes blockbuster literally with the follow up to his hugely popular Displace.
Get Displace 2 by Artifically Awake from Resolume Footage.
And Ghosteam delivers the editing goodness with JumpCut.
Get JumpCut by Ghosteam *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
Ican Agoesdjam busts the block with no less than 150 loops in Prime.
Get Prime by Ican Agoesdjam *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
Artificially Awake takes blockbuster literally with the follow up to his hugely popular Displace.
Get Displace 2 by Artifically Awake from Resolume Footage.
And Ghosteam delivers the editing goodness with JumpCut.
Get JumpCut by Ghosteam *exclusively* from Resolume Footage.
New Footage Releases: Pixel Stories
The first catch of 2016, and it's a good one!
Luminator rocks that wicked Sin City look in his new pack LuSin:
Get LuSin by Luminator from Resolume Footage
STV in Motion is also on the story telling tip:
Get Cyborgasm by STV in Motion from Resolume Footage
And Laak takes you on a journey. Every design comes with several overlay variations, making this pack ideal for versatile mixing.
Get Ethnik by Laak from Resolume Footage
Luminator rocks that wicked Sin City look in his new pack LuSin:
Get LuSin by Luminator from Resolume Footage
STV in Motion is also on the story telling tip:
Get Cyborgasm by STV in Motion from Resolume Footage
And Laak takes you on a journey. Every design comes with several overlay variations, making this pack ideal for versatile mixing.
Get Ethnik by Laak from Resolume Footage
New Promo for 2016
So, over the past years we've seen Resolume being used on some amazing shows, stages and performances. It always fills our heart with pride and excitement to be a part of these wonderful projects.
Walking into an empty venue and seeing the stage come alive piece by piece is an amazing experience. With this promo, we hope to share a bit of that wonderful feeling with you.
See you in a dark hall with blinky light bits somewhere!
[fold][/fold]
With many thanks to the following VJ teams for graciously providing footage:
Comix
Chromagarden
Eyesupply
Urban Projections
Lucan Visuals
And of course to the mighty KBK Visuals for letting us film at their shows and drink their beer.
Walking into an empty venue and seeing the stage come alive piece by piece is an amazing experience. With this promo, we hope to share a bit of that wonderful feeling with you.
See you in a dark hall with blinky light bits somewhere!
[fold][/fold]
With many thanks to the following VJ teams for graciously providing footage:
Comix
Chromagarden
Eyesupply
Urban Projections
Lucan Visuals
And of course to the mighty KBK Visuals for letting us film at their shows and drink their beer.
Merry Christmas Everybody! Free Sparkles Plugin
We would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year!
Because this is the season of giving we've made a Sparkles plugin for you. This plugin looks for edges in your footage and then shimmers some glittering sparkles around those edges. It's fun and very Christmassy :-)
Download the Sparkles plugin for Mac and PC.
We hope you'll have a quiet Christmas with your entire family in good health, we'll see you next year.
Cheers!
Team Resolume
Edwin Bart Tim Joris Menno Reinier Bonne
Footage Releases: Going Out With a Bang
And just like that, we've arrived at the last footage releases of 2015.
Ablaze Visuals lets you stock up on 4K fireworks content with UltraBursts.
Get UltraBursts *exclusively* from Resolume Footage
Audio by Diego Palacios
Muzencab is back with more cube mapping goodness.
Get Cuboid 2 *exclusively* from Resolume Footage
And Ghosteam shatters his neon tubes. Much shatter, great success.
Get Cuboid 2 *exclusively* from Resolume Footage
Audio by Elad Magdasi
Ablaze Visuals lets you stock up on 4K fireworks content with UltraBursts.
Get UltraBursts *exclusively* from Resolume Footage
Audio by Diego Palacios
Muzencab is back with more cube mapping goodness.
Get Cuboid 2 *exclusively* from Resolume Footage
And Ghosteam shatters his neon tubes. Much shatter, great success.
Get Cuboid 2 *exclusively* from Resolume Footage
Audio by Elad Magdasi
Thank You & Black Friday Sale 2015
It's been another fantastic year here at Resolume HQ. We feel truly blessed to be working on our baby every day and seeing it grow up.
This year was the first time in 4 years that we released a new major version, Arena 5 and it went very smooth. We took a lot of time to rigorously field-test and made sure Arena 5 already had a lot of show hours under it's belt on release day. This made sure it was as stable as possible.
We're starting to grow up as a company and with this comes great responsibility. We see your shows becoming bigger and bigger. The stages are larger and more complex and the audiences that come to party are also bigger than ever. Good times!
Coming year we hope to grow our team further so we can kick into higher gear and bring you many new updates. Thanks to your feedback we have a lot of ideas for small improvements as well as big new features.
Time will tell what 2016 will bring and we're looking forward to another fantastic year.
Cheers!
Team Resolume
Edwin Bart Tim Joris Menno Reinier Bonne
[s]Yes, the Black Friday 50% discount is now ON! It's here only once a year and it's only a few days so be quick. Log in to your account to upgrade to Arena 5, upgrade your footage (to a higher resolution) or upgrade to multiple computers, it's time to shop ;-)[/s]
Update: This party is now over, see y'all next year!