Actually the whole point of QLab is to line up a sequence of audio, video files or other types of events and being able to trigger them with a simple ‘Go’ button at the exact right time during the show.
QLab was originally developed with audio in mind and has later been extended with video features so it does not have many features as VJ applications when it comes to live manipulations of images and video. But for those of us who sometimes wish for a timeline in our favorite VJ application, QLab may be an option if you set it up to run alongside your VJ app.
For our shows we typically use Modul8 and I found two ways to achieve this.

1. Capturing the video output of QLab and using it as input in Modul8. This is done with two computers – one with a video capture card such as the Blackmagic Intensity hardware or the Matrox MXO2 mini and the other computer running QLab. With this method you run some images or videos using QLab and you are then able to manipulate them live in Modul8 as you would do with any other source.

2. Setting up QLab to send midi and mapping the buttons in Modul8 so that they respond to the midi commands. This can be done using one computer running both apps or using two computers and a midi connection between them. In this scenario QLab is merely the ‘conductor’ telling Modul8 what to do. Modul8 holds all the images or videos used.

The advantage of these two methods is that you have some way of combining improvised VJing with a sequence of planned cues. For instance – as we did recently you can use the first method to trigger a series of slides containing the lyrics of a song and then use Modul8 to distort and manipulate them. Furthermore as this setup involves two computers two people are able to share this task – one person triggering the lyrics at the right time and one person adding effects. This could be done using any VJ application that is compatible with the video capture card not just Modul8.

Concrete Forest – an art project that turned into a party from Obscura on Vimeo.

The video shows the result of a fun little project we did in collaboration with artist Louise Bech Pedersen. We cut out these animal figures of a special acrylic rear projection material and used them for mapping using Modul8 and MadMapper.
Doing the mapping was trivial using these tools – it was the acrylic material itself that proved to be a bit of a challenge. The light projection properties of the material were terrific, a clear and bright image from all angles. For people like us who are used to projecting onto fabric or walls it was a joy to see the brightness of this professional screen material.
However the material was a quite brittle and cracks appeared a few places even when using a saw made for use with acrylics. And the deer lost the tip of the antlers when one of the party goers tried to bring it down with an empty vodka bottle!

The music was composed as a piece in the Max/MSP software and this was linked to Modul8 (the visuals) through midi. The music software was sending midi on every beat and another midi signal whenever the music entered a new section of the piece.

To achieve the result I wanted I had to program two small modules for Modul8. These modules were in charge of turning layers on and off, applying effects and switching between images.

Excerpt from percussion concert 7 April 2010 from Udart (Vibeke Bertelsen) on Vimeo.

I found another solution in the Terminal command for creating ‘hard links’. A hard link works a bit like an alias except it appears to be an actual file and it works in Modul8. In reality there is only one copy of the movie taking up space. And even if you rename, move or delete the original file the new file will continue to work.
EDIT: One caveat I found is that if you use Time Machine and need to restore from a backup your hard links will be gone. This is the same for a number of backup applications.

What you do is this:

1. Start up the Terminal app
2. Write the command ln followed by the full path to the source file followed by the full path to the destination file (the link). Like this: ln /Users/Udart/Movies/originalmovie.mov /Users/Udart/Movies/NewProject/newmovie.mov
3. Hit enter and the file is created and looks and acts as a normal movie file.

Tip: Write ln and then drag the source file in to the terminal window instead of typing. Similarly drag the destination folder to the Terminal and manually type a slash (/) plus the new filename. Remember a space between the command and the file path.

For those who stumble upon this article and are not familiar with the term, projection mapping is the technique of beaming video (with a standard video projector) onto three dimensional objects and adjusting and masking the image so that it seems to follow the shape of the target object instead of spilling out onto walls etc. The result can be surprisingly effective and eye catching as the video is no longer a flat square on the wall but becomes an object in space – an animated sculpture if you will.

However besides this definition it might be difficult to explain to clients and others outside visualist circles exactly what is the big deal and what is the value of projection mapping and so we need to be able to point to good examples. I’ve tried to collect a few of my favourites.

The first one I have included because it clearly demonstrates the technique applied to a commercial context perfect for a store interior or a window display. This mapping display was developed for the MINI Cooper store in Paris:

Mapping video MINI from VisionSonore on Vimeo.

The technique used is simple and affordable for a trained visualist. In the above example the software Modul8, three computers and three video projectors were used.

The technique of projection mapping can be taken much further and the above example does not really show the full potential. Giant outdoor video projections onto buildings using advanced 3d animations creates a stunning faux 3d effect. The example in the video below is not the first work of this kind, it has been technically possible for some years now to deliver projections on this scale, but this new years show is a humourous and well made example:

3D Projection Mapping from anema on Vimeo.

Finally another fun application of the technique onto a tennis court. Actually no advanced 3d here, just some simple 2d graphics. But I like the innovative idea of using the shape of the court. The creators also did use the opportunity to project the classic video game ‘Pong’ onto the playing field.

TETRA.Tennis from 1024 on Vimeo.

No 1. Performance. I have done tests and often there is a severe drop in framerate for qtz files in Modul8 compared to the framerate in the Quartz Composer editor.

No 2. You cannot decide the rendering size of .qtz files in Modul8 (in version 2.5). They are always rendered as 640×480. In Modul8 v2.6 you can set the size in Preferences but there may be many situations where you’d like to set the size for the individual files.

No 3. You cannot set the duration of .qtz files in Modul8. Duration will always be 30 sec.

I find that these problems can be solved by following the steps below and converting the .qtz file to a .mov before importing it into Modul8.

If you have Quicktime Pro (as you should – it’s sort of a vj’s swiss army knife) just

1 – open your qtz file with Quicktime pro. Then
2 – resize the viewer window to your desired size. You can hit cmd+I to view the current size in the inspector.
3 – Save the file as a .mov using ‘Save as’ where you have the option to set another duration eg. 60 sec.

Now you can open the mov file in Modul8 and it will have the size and duration you want plus in many cases the framerate will improve. Note that even though the file is called .mov it is still a Quartz composition. It’s just been wrapped in a Quicktime packaging.

Also note that if the size is too big you won’t gain better performance even if you scale it down inside Modul8. You’ll have to scale down the mov file in Quicktime until you find a size that works.

Hope this works for you

I don’t know the reason for this so I don’t know if it’s a general problem or something that is limited to my OS/hardware combination. I’m running Snow Leopard on a 2.4 GHz duo core Macbook Pro.

So if you’re curious here are the files that I’ve tested with. I get approx. 14 fps with the .qtz but 57 fps with the .mov in Modul8. In Quartz Composer editor I also get around 57 fps.

particleleaves 6 (mov)

particleleaves 6 (qtz)

http://www.arkaos.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6828

So now I have the beta and since I am a seasoned Modul8 user I thought I’d try and do a Modul8 versus GrandVJ feature comparison. Keep in mind that I have a total of 5 hours of experience with GrandVJ versus 3 or 4 years with M8, but I will try to be fair and balanced.

General impressions of GrandVJ

The basic idea of GrandVJ is not that foreign when coming from Modul8. A lot of the features are pretty much the same in both apps and I don’t cover those here. For instance the midi mapping and key mapping seems to work in a similar way, and adjusting the size, speed, transparency of a movie is also basically the same. That said I will go on to describe the only the main differences between the two apps.

Modules?

In GrandVJ: No. So that’s perhaps the biggest difference of them all. But as far as I read you can write custom effects and so called generators – that may solve a lot of the same tasks as the modules in Modul8.

The interface and the clip banks

GrandVJ has way more space for clips than Modul8. The default clip bank is organized in 16 tabs of 16 clips and is customizable to hold as many as you like which is a vast improvement over the 8×16 limit of Modul8. Furthermore you can import and export banks of clips – something that is really lacking in M8. Also the interface of GrandVJ is more flexible than Modul8. Windows can be floating or grouped in tabs as you prefer.

Handling effects

GrandVJ handles effects as clips that you drag and put onto your media whereafter you can tweak the parameters of the effect. This is quite different from the Modul8 paradigm where effects are mostly handled by dedicated knobs and sliders in the interface or in the modules. One strength in GrandVJ is that you can assign an effect directly onto your ‘library items’ in the clip banks. For instance in your clip bank you have a clip of a dog with a yellow tint effect and another instance of the same clip of the dog with a red tint. In Modul8 the color or any other effect is always tied to the layer.
One major limitation in GrandVJ however: You can only have one effect at a time on any one clip. So to spell it out: In GrandVJ you don’t get a red dog with a blur unless you have it as a clip.

A and B group and layersets

GrandVJ doesn’t have layer sets. So if you need to switch between collections of layers Modul8 is the winner. However GrandVJ does have an A and B group and you can move layers to the other group by the click of a button. Also GrandVJ doesn’t allow dragging layers to change their order. However you can quite easily copy the contents of one layer to another.

Synth mode versus mixer mode

GrandVJ has two modes and you can switch between those as you wish. The Mixer mode has layers similarly to Modul8 whereas the synth mode is created for easier clip triggering. If you choose mixer mode GrandVJ functions very much like Modul8. You put your clips into layers and tweak some parameters of those layers. You have an A and a B group and you can fade between hose two groups.

In synth mode each clip you trigger is stacked on top of the others. You can however retain some control of the order of your clips by labelling them to go into the background, middle or top. All clips can be triggered with the keyboard of a midi controller and you have an onscreen label of what key is assigned to the clip.

As I see it this is a strong feature in GrandVJ – the ability to switch freely between these two modes within the same application – at any time during your performance.

Quartz Composer support

As I mentioned in the beginning a new feature of the 1.2 beta of GrandVJ is support for Quartz Composer files. Simply drag a file into your clip bank. There’s nothing much to say, it’s an improvement over Modul8 as Modul8 handles QC files only through a Safe Mode which disables a lot of the features of Quartz Composer. On the other hand you don’t get direct access to tweak parameters of your QC file as you can do in VDMX. This is however a feature that the development team of GrandVJ has in mind for a future release, whereas Modul8 team has stated that they don’t see any further development of QC support in Modul8 in the foreseeable future.

Where is the animation?

One major feature that is lacking in GrandVJ when coming from the Modul8 world is animation. Where is ‘auto move’, ‘auto scale’, ‘auto rotate’? And where is the sequencer module that I use all the time in M8? All the animation features of Modul8 makes it easy to create movement using still images with transparent backgrounds. In GrandVJ it seems that all movement must come from the clips or from manually triggering and tweaking parameters. I suppose with an external midi sequencer a lot of the sequencing and animation can be achieved in GrandVJ but I know my style of working is very dependent on those basic features.

Conclusion

Overall GrandVj seems to be designed for the club VJ whereas Modul8 is brilliant for all kinds of performances with a more strict choreography and scenography. GrandVJ makes it easier to browse and trigger a large number of media whereas Modul8 lets you preproduce mulitple sets of layers with custom settings.

In general though – for my needs GrandVJ has potential but there is still a long way before I would consider it as a general alternative to Modul8. When that is said I wish Modul8 would be inspired and solve some of the basic limitations of their software. Mainly import/export of clip banks and generally allowing for more items in the banks.

Also despite the new version 2.6 of Modul8 development seems to be stagnating, so if GrandVJ keeps evolving, who knows what the score looks like in a year.

Add your comments

Let me know what you think. Have you tried both apps? Have I missed some major features? Add your comments below…

Here’s the recipe:

1. On the iPod Touch / iPhone go to app store and download OSCemote. You can try the free version first just to try it out
2. On the mac download OSCulator from here:http://www.osculator.net/wiki/Main/Download
3. Install Osculator and look in the folders for the OSCemote file. Launch the Osculator by opening this file
4. Open OSCemote on the iphone and fill out the IP address and port of your Mac. Make sure the port is the same as configured in OSCulator. You should see a ‘connected’ message.
5. Try some of the buttons and see how the lamps in OSCulator light up yellow to indicate there is a signal

Now you can try some of the buttons in OSCemote and hook them up to MIDI in OSCulator. Afterwards you hook up the midi signals in Modul8 and voila you are controlling Modul8 with your iPhone