by gmint » Thu Mar 01, 2012 11:08 pm
First and foremost, I want to say that I don't necessarily agree with either the content or manner in which many things have been said in this thread, however I do (at least in part) agree with some of the sentiment. Personally, while I think Modul8 is a great program with which I continue to find new and creative uses, I have been using it in a new installation lately which has caused me to run up against a couple of areas where I do think that Modul8 is starting to show its age. While I certainly understand that no company wants to inform their competitors of their future plans, I am also concerned that MadMapper is kind of receiving all of the attention right now.
That said, I just wanted to offer a couple of (hopefully) constructive criticisms that have crossed my mind lately:
Soft Edge Blending - I know this one is a biggie for a lot of people and I recently found myself in this camp. I can imagine that it's tough, but I do hope it's something we'll see sooner rather than later.
More interaction with external programs (e.g. Quartz Composer, Syphon Input, etc.) - I've been wanting to do a live twitter feed in Modul8 for some time. I have a QTZ file that does what I want, but without a lot of hacks (which I'm afraid could stop working, if I can get them working) it's not at all easy to do. I had thought about doing this directly in a module only to find out that the module system is stuck on Python 2.3. I can't do it directly with the QTZ file because it accesses the internet. That leaves the hacked syphon input as the only way.
I mention the foregoing primarily to illustrate the point that I think parts of Modul8 are starting to get just a bit outdated, thus making it more difficult than it should be to achieve certain things. While I don't consider these to be major flaws, it's just one of those things where the tools seem to be getting in the way of executing ideas, and that's not very fun.
Modules Don't get me wrong, the module system is great. Unfortunately, I've been having some problems lately that prevent me from using modules reliable in an installation setting. While the flexibility is nice, I am beginning to think that maybe some of the more basic functionality (e.g. the layerset sequencer, etc.) might be better off being built directly into the program so that they're a bit more reliable. Also, like I said before, it would also be nice if the module system could be updated to reference a more recent version of python.
Performance I could be way off base here, but for some reason, it seems to me that Modul8 just doesn't perform the way it used to. Maybe I'm just doing more with it than I was before, but I used to feel like Modul8 was just blazingly fast. Now, even with faster, more capable hardware, it just doesn't seem to have the same kick that it used to. Again, that's my totally subjective opinion, but I have to wonder if there couldn't be some "under the hood" changes that could get everything up to date with the latest OS X technologies and really make Modul8 scream again.
So, those are a few of the things that have been on my mind lately. I hope at least some of this will be helpful as Modul8 progresses...