Super Effects Backgrounderator

[Novabrain]

Now that HWA is in progress, an idea like this seems to be more feasible than ever.

Maybe some of you have seen the more recent screensavers that use 3D acceleration and seem to come up with an almost endless variety of patterns, types, shapes, etc., all based on the music playing.

While music sync would be nice, (and could be plugged-in) I am thinking that something like this would be a great visual project to consider in the future, just as an effects generator.

It would be a background graphic generating object that had a flexible way of using algorithms, (scripted or via settings) to create an extremely wide range of dynamic backgrounds that could be used in games or multimedia.

The settings could be quite extensive. You would have generated shapes or could use chosen graphics, or both. Things could "flow" in various directions for given periods or randomly. Transparency would also be variable so that your background could be subtle, (for a title, for instance) or bold.

Of course, an example is the only way to get this across:

http://www.soundspectrum.com/

Check-out the G-force version. I have that one in Media Player and it is not only fascinating, it comes up with new stuff all the time since the demo is in random mode. It is beautiful and so varied I don't see the same thing twice.

Now, we may not be duplicating something that elaborate, but something along those lines would make for incredible and easy to use background effects. This would be a new kind of background object, so to speak. If the settings and such were flexible enough, then users could create vast libraries for it from basic and useful movement/pattern/color/style to multi-faceted, sweeping random chaos.

As an example, let's say that I am doing a media work on honey. I want my title screen to have flowing hexagons with variations on yellow/brown colors. After creating a flowing honeycomb effect with varying background panels, I could tweak it to flow in various directions over time, and/or shift suddenly to and fro, (kind of like the closing credits in Bee Movie).

As I said, there could be a host of settings that you could control AND a way to use scripts that are modular, i.e., synergistic in that you can add them together and build them up as units.

Maybe there is some open source out there that is along these lines?

[Random]

There is a winamp plugin called "Milkdrop" that works this way. You have access to the code of the various visualizations. Although without the engine they aren't a lot of use, other than inspecting the way they do things.

From how I saw it, they use some sort of grid (you can set how dense it is) on which they map their formulas. So every dot in the grid has multiple functions how to treat "color" that passes it (one for each color channel and more). Then the grid points are able to "push" their color content to adjacent points (also by formula). This way the colors can shift and blend and swirl, etc.
The engine is even capable of gradually blending between formulas by substituting the formula elements over time or multiplying the formulas in and out.
I can't quite imagine a purpose for an extension like this for myself (except maybe for a menu background, but that could be prerendered and tiled for better performance) though.

[ChrisB]

The source code for Milkdrop is now available, incidentally. (No idea about the license)
ProjectM is a reimplementation of Milkdrop under LGPL, probably a better starting point.

With both of these there's no need to make the visualisations respond to music, but there definitely should be an option (our users would demand it!). It would definitely be a nice idea as long as it's accessible enough for people to make the effects. It should retain the spirit of MMF.

[Novabrain]

Thanks for the support on the idea there, Chris.

I always like to throw out new ones that might add some excitement to the product.

[TwiTerror]

I would be happy to provide an interface to connect with Onu, if desired, as all the information Milkdrop needs to create visualizations around music is provided in the extension already. (:

Besides -- Novabrain -- Didn't you know Onu can already make visualizations? How did people miss this?

The source code for Milkdrop is now available, incidentally. (No idea about the license)
ProjectM is a reimplementation of Milkdrop under LGPL, probably a better starting point.

With both of these there's no need to make the visualisations respond to music, but there definitely should be an option (our users would demand it!). It would definitely be a nice idea as long as it's accessible enough for people to make the effects. It should retain the spirit of MMF.

[Novabrain]

Oh, I didn't realize that. I thought of visualizations as simple graphics.

Sounds good. I'd like to see it happen.

[Popcorn]

This is fun. I made an example that uses Onu and A LOT of actives to make a visualization. It's quite basic. Is this what you meant, Nova?

Run it in HWA mode.

TwiTerror, what an exellent extension Onu is!!!

[Novabrain]

Nice job there. Looks great. For me, I could not get that slider up very much farther without lag and I have a 3.2 gig dual core and a GeForce 7300. So, HWA is not really making a big difference there. Might be about more optimization or the graphic size multiplier? I don't know.

That is along the lines of what I was talking about, especially the way the elaborate effects are working and in sync with the music

Onu provides the frequency information for your MMF actives and calcs and that is something we always needed. So it is extremely useful.

Onu has three visualization plug-ins right now. I am wondering about various ways to approach that to get more out of the potential for users to create all kinds of sound-based, visual effects.

Here are some ideas, in different directions:

A calculating approach that uses scripted presets for simply setting objects to, (think in the way fractal generators use math).

A 2D, overlay-like visualization that is highly flexible and could draw from a library of pre-scripted, customizable effects. HWA may or may not make enough difference in this case to make that practical.

A 3D environment that would allow both 2D and 3D visualizations along the same lines as above.

Now, remember, I am not just thinking in terms of music players. I went into detail above, but the uses span, potentially, from title and other background uses to game backgrounds/effects, etc.

I may be dreaming, but something that could do anything from snow/rain/tv noise patterns to particles and flowing lines, shapes, with infinite geometric possibilities, (both static and random) would be the ultimate goal.

If Sphax reads this: Have you tried hooking up your Vetorial stuff to ONU frequencies? That might be very cool and you are such a Wizard with the vectors. I bet we might see some mind-blowing stuff. However, remember that I am considering users who don't have the math skills or level of complexity to whip these kinds of things up themselves. They might just want to set it up and use/modify something already available.

This might be premature anyway because I think anything involved with this needs fully optimized HWA and extensions that are ported to it.