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Quartz Composer

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:11 pm
by Matt Starr
I've recently begun using Quartz Composer and was wondering if it's possible through syphon to control a quartz composition in Modul8?

Also, is the only way to sync up Modul8 and Quartz is by importing a Quartz composition into Modul8?

Lastly, if anyone has ANY tips/tricks for Quartz beginners, I'd be greatly appreciative.

Thanks for any information you guys may have.

Matt Starr

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:05 pm
by The Midi Thief
You can run some QC comps in Modul8 but you will not get any interactivity what so ever. My solutions was to do as you say, run Quartz through Syphon. You need to install QC Rehab to get Syphon input at the moment. QC Rehab seems to take a little toll on the performance unfortunately.

I just ran QC through Syphon in a show last Saturday to get some effects I couldn't obtain in M8 (http://themidithief.com/2011/06/volt-20 ... rt-report/).

I had a better idea which was making an effect unit in QC and pipe the M8 output through it via Syphon. But since we're using 16:9 footage and the screen we were outputting to was 4:3 it didn't work this time. It wouldn't add up with my partners footage coming straight out of M8. I wish Advanced Output applied to the Syphon output as well. I imagine that would have helped me this time.

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:27 pm
by Matt Starr
Thanks for the help. Let me know if you come up with anything in the future.

Matt Starr

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 12:48 am
by orion
Is it possible to control the quartz file in quartz while it is loaded into M8? I fell like i had this down but i'm having issues here.
Screen shot 2012-05-23 at 5.33.18 PM.png
Quartz Screen Shot
Screen shot 2012-05-23 at 5.33.18 PM.png (135.34 KiB) Viewed 52204 times


I'm trying to control a folder of animated gifs with either the arrow keys or midi. scrolling through the animated gifs works fine. I've tried dropping the file directly into quartz and sending it through syphon to another quartz file with a server to no avail. Anyone know what's going wrong here?

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 8:14 am
by The Midi Thief
Hi Orion!

I've been looking at animated GIFs a lot the last month. Did you read the CoGe post about animated GIFs in Quicktime? http://www.cogevj.hu/blog/2012/animated ... -composer/. It might be of some help.

You don't have much control over a quartz file when it's loaded in to Modul8 unfortunately. As far as I've tried the QC comp can't listen to MIDI or OSC. The only thing that worked was listening to XML (or any text) file. But it's pretty inconvenient and slow to do what you want to do with an XML file as middle hand. What should work is picking/controlling the GIF animations in QC and sending them to Modul8 over Syphon.

And for GIF animations in QC; you can't load a file into QC, you need to specify a path to the movie.

I hope it helps and let me know how it goes.

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 8:48 pm
by orion
thanks again midi thief! I as well rehashed this idea after I say that COGE video (that's how I knew to use the movie importer as opposed to the image importer) and this one with Resolume and Quartz working very nicely together (http://vimeo.com/11047601).

So basically I have the above quartz file working great in quartz, I can use the keyboard or Midi Notes Receiver to change between gifs (not sure if im going to keep that image resizer in there or not). I think I just forgot how to use syphon going from a quartz file to modul8. Do I need 2 quartz files? one controlling the gifs with a syphon server and another quartz file receiving the syphon signal (which is then loaded into modul8)?

I have QC Rehab and syphon.plugin installed and I thought all i needed to do was add a syphon server at the end of the chain instead of the billboard and drop that file into m8 but that's not working. do you have any ideas on or suggestions on what i might be doing incorrectly?

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 8:01 pm
by cvanhoose
Greetings Orion,
I believe you will need to drop the "Syphon Client QC.qtz" file into modul8 instead of your contracted qtz file...... quartz compose will be running in the background, but not hidden. Hope this helps.
On another topic, I saw a twitter feed with you using Tweejay! I have been looking for an updated file, I am using the beta, which no longer works with the adobe update. The developers site is down, do you have a link?
thanks

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 9:16 pm
by orion
I'm going to play around with that today, I'm thinking also Mix Emergency or Serato could run that quartz file I'm trying to get working. I WILL GET IT TO WORK! :)

Cvanhoose I am also using the tweejay beta, what adobe update are you talking about so I don't update on accident? I uploaded the version I have just in case anyways http://bit.ly/LvCFvm. That thing needs an update, of all the twitter options i like the concept of tweejay the best, if only i could get my hands on the .fla file.

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 4:05 pm
by cvanhoose
Thanks Orion,
I had the same version, I can not seem to find anymore info on the project from the developer, website is in a couple years of no updates. I too would love the .fla file to be able to adjust.
Mix Emergency runs Quartz files lovely. Im just not happy with the frame rate with the QCrehab trick. HOPEFULLY, we will see the update for native Syphon input sometime soon!!!! The developers seem to think they are giving away too much information on the future releases, ALTHOUGH they are losing the game. You would think the next update is going to be mind blowing since they are keeping us in the dark for so long. I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed.
Maybe they are hiring?!

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:08 pm
by Vibber
Just a note for this old thread. .qtz files perform quite poorly when dragged into Modul8. But a trick that works is taking your Syphon .qtz file and open it in Quicktime and save it as a .mov. Then you put the .mov into Modul8 and the performance becomes as good as it should be. Please note that the real resolution (the dimensions in pixels) will be the size it was in Quicktime so if for instance you need 1280*720 you have to adjust drag the window in quicktime to that size before saving. I wrote about it on my blog ages ago and it still seems to hold true:

http://www.udart.dk/2009/10/28/quartz-c ... in-modul8/

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 10:49 pm
by orion
anybody use this kineme safe mode patch to get certain quartz files to work in m8? http://kineme.net/wiki/SafeMode

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 9:43 am
by Vibber
I haven't had any effect of the safe mode disabling in the KinemeCore plugin. But I have had some success using the Kineme plugin called QCrehab. But still some things such as keyboard input just don't work in Modul8 no matter what.
And all in all despite my earlier comments Modul8 is just not a good application for Quartz comps - too many workarounds and caveats.

But here is the plugin anyway:
http://kineme.net/release/OfficialAPISubpatchSupport/03

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 8:22 pm
by The Midi Thief
Kineme Core crashes my Quartz Composer on Lion. I might have the wrong version, I don't know but I kicked it out.

Re: Quartz Composer

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:47 am
by koyeha1
i needed to do was add a syphon server at the end of the chain instead of the billboard and drop that file into m8 but that's not working. do you have any ideas on or suggestions on what i might be doing incorrectly?????