Insight VR

Interestingly enough, Apple has posted Manifesto on their Official Downloads page. I wonder if they tried it out before throwing it up there…

First things first. Here’s the download.

So what’s new? It creates shapes in 3D based on your music. You can still get the two previous modes as well. Toggle modes with the 1, 2, and 3 keys:
1 – Shapes
2 – Particles
3 – 3D Worms

See the included readme file for other keyboard controls.

As usual, many thanks to my brother Matt, who had many of the best ideas for making this cool.

Here’s an example of what it does:

Manfesto Demo: Improved 3D from InsightVR on Vimeo.

I came across an interesting video on YouTube made by Dima Vj:

(continue reading…)

Here’s some more experimentation with painting. This makes more of an attempt to simulate brush strokes, though it does things that a physical brush wouldn’t tend to do, such as twisting a large amount. I’m not sure that it has to be a perfect simulation of a brush in order to be interesting or produce something worth seeing. I’ll readily admit that the colors aren’t that appealing and I need to figure out a way to address that. Suggestions (as always) are welcome.

Click through to Vimeo to see it in HD.

Manifesto Painting: Radiohead’s Bodysnatchers from InsightVR on Vimeo.

There is a newer version of Manifesto here.

Version 0.2.5 of the pluggin is still available for download, but I suggest getting the new one. It defaults to particle mode but the shape mode is there as well and just a keystroke (technically the ’1′ key) away. Make sure to read the readme file to get all the instructions.

Here’s a sample of what it does:

Manifesto Demo: Nearly Done with 2D Particles from InsightVR on Vimeo.

Feedback is, as always, welcome. Currently I’m thinking of leaving the two working modes as is and starting on some new modes, involving either 3D or fractals.

In an effort to replicate the frequently seen “plasma” effect I’ve come up with the following:

Manifesto Demo: Black Sabotage from InsightVR on Vimeo.

In other news I’ve made progress on being able to render either the shape based visualizer or the particle one in a single executable.  In fact, you can show them both at once if you so desire.  I’ll want to make some progress on randomizing the settings and then I’ll package up a new binary and post it.

While doing some visualizer development I’ve occasionally had revisions of the program that have given me headaches or have made me dizzy. I’m concerned that the color changes and occasional flashes that the Manifesto plug-in generates might make it inappropriate for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

I have no idea how to test for this and certainly different music will generate different effects. For now I’m going to put a warning in the readme file included in the download. If anyone has any information on how to determine if a particular program is harmful (hopefully for free) I’m all ears.

Ok, if you’re lucky enough to have a Mac, here it is: Manifesto, my iTunes visualizer that almost meets all my criteria for a visualizer. It violates criteria #5 in that it does not reproduce exactly the same patterns when the same song is played twice, but it will have the same “feel”.

Download it, unzip it, and throw it in your Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins directory. Then relaunch iTunes and select it from the menu with View -> Visualizers -> VizKit. Then command-T to see it and command-F to go full screen.

What are the system requirements? I have little idea. I believe that you need iTunes 7 or greater. I’m running it on Tiger on a MacBook Pro. It seems to be pretty smooth on my setup.

The code is based on VizKit, and open-source visualizer framework. It is nice in that it lets you get going with OpenGL based visualizations quickly, but honestly, someone has overdosed on the gang of four book. There are roughly 120 files for a “basic visualizer”. Ha! As far as I can tell only about three of them are needed for what I’m doing, but the thing is a rat’s nest to figure out.

Feedback is welcome. I hope to add features and options at some point.

Cross posted at Kulturblog.