Kineme: Quartz Composer Stuff

kineme.net is a community surrounding the development of primarily-opensource Quartz Composer custom patches, plugins, and other hacks.

Please read the installation guide and check out the FAQ.

Register for an account to gain access to Beta Releases and email notifications of new content, post in forums and get to know other Quartz Composer users, and help steer the future of Kineme by voting in polls.

Post a Feature Request, or, if you have a tighter deadline, consider commissioning.

Release: GL Tools, v1.2

Release Type: Production
Version: 1.2
Release Notes

This version of GLTools adds numerous enhancements, fixes, and improvements.

  • Alpha blend ports got a significant performance improvement -- also some bug fixes from the alphas that caused problems outside of QC.

  • A new Depth Sort environment patch (with sample composition)

  • The Spline Corruption bug was fixed (finally)

  • There's a new Cube Structure patch, for rendering axis-aligned cubes at several locations simultaneously -- this works just like the Point Structure patch.

  • The point-structure and line-structure patches received some optimizations and tweaks. Also, the demo compositions show "indexed" mode, which typically performs better than keyed mode.

  • There's a new Inverse Rotation patch, which allows you to align objects to the screen (kinda like billboards) -- handy for sprite-powered particle systems (the depth sort demo demonstrates this patch as well).

  • Other assorted memory leak fixes and performance tweaks.

The zip contains the plugin, as well as sample compositions.

Release: File Tools, v0.3

Release Type: Production
Version: 0.3
Release Notes

This update to FileTools addresses some Composition-Relative-Addressing bugs, fixes some memory leaks, and fixes some race conditions in the QuickLook generator.

Release: Freeboard Patch, v0.1

Release Type: Production
Version: 0.1
Release Notes

The Freeboard patch simplifies keyboard input by providing a string of characters/character codes, rather than a boolean for every key.

QuartzBuilder 1.0

QuartzBuilder

QuartzBuilder allows you to easily create applications from your Quartz Composer creations, without having to muck about in Xcode.

Your compositions are encrypted, and Official API plugins, Unofficial API plugins, and simple resources are automatically bundled with the generated application.

Cocoa NSApplication and NSWindow events and properties are exposed to the composition, allowing unprecedented control over the rendering environment — for example, the window can be made full-screen on launch.

Download the trial below, or buy a license now.

When unregistered, output apps are limited to 55 patches.

$25.00
$25.00

QuartzCrystal 1.4

QuartzCrystal Logo

QuartzCrystal is an application for rendering Quartz Compositions to QuickTime Movies and Image Sequences.

It supports 3rd Party plugins --- both Official and Unofficial API --- as well as unsafe patches. It also supports up to 64x Spatial Supersampling (Antialiasing) and up to 1024x Temporal Supersampling (Motion Blur) per frame.

Download the 7-day trial below, or buy a license now.

$18.00
$18.00
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Notacon and NAB2009

Smokris and I have just wrapped up some performances and presentations at NC2009 in Cleveland last week, and are now heading out to Las Vegas for NAB2009 -- look for us there, or drop us a line and we can try to meet up with you there :)

[we're currently about 20-30 minutes away from boarding the plane]

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Environmental Protection

8
points

Many of the crash logs we're getting (and many of the problems we're hunting down recently) are caused in part because people have duplicate plugins installed, sometimes with different versions. Additionally, a bunch of console logs indicate plugins placed in the wrong folders (some official-api ones in Patches, some unofficial-api ones in PlugIns, etc).

How would y'all feel about a tool that scanned the QC environment (like Composition Tool), and tidied up stuff (moved incorrectly placed plugins, removed/disabled duplicates, provided information on what it would change, etc)?

PerformanceInspector 1.0

PerformanceInspector Logo

PerformanceInspector is an advanced profiling tool for Quartz Composer. Unlike the built-in profiling tools, PerformanceInspector performs a patch-by-patch analysis of the performance of your compositions while they're running, providing you with detailed information on which patches, exactly, are slowing your composition down.

Download the 7-day trial below, or buy a license now.

$25.00
$25.00

Release: KinemeCore, v0.3

Release Type: Production
Version: 0.3
Release Notes

This update to KinemeCore provides numerous enhancements and bug fixes. This update is recommended for all users of KinemeCore 0.2 to fix a potentially critical bug that could prevent QC from launching.

  • We've fixed the error in KinemeCore 0.2
  • SafetyNet -- intercepts Quartz Composer crashes, and attempts to save your open compositions to the desktop.
  • CrashReporter -- automatically finds QC-related crashes, and allows you to submit them (with notes) when you start up QC.
  • Sleep prevention -- menu item to prevent system sleep (useful if you're using QC editor as a visualizer)
  • Fixed infinite recursion crash with some display setups
  • Fixed full screen editor "don't display again" check box
  • Fixed editor windows sometimes getting resized to 0x0 when toggling full screen editor

KinemeCore 0.2 had a bug with modified scroll bars. Either through error or accident, a portion of one of the functions that performed this was erased, without triggering any errors while compiling. This was discovered (with the help of a few submitted crash reports, rather coincidentally) and subsequently corrected in this version. Deepest apologies to those affected.

Release: Particle Tools, v0.3

Release Type: Production
Version: 0.3
Release Notes
  • New Colliders:
    • Added "Collider: Kineme3D Object" patch — collides against the surface of a Kineme3D mesh
    • Added "Collider: Quad" patch — collides against a single quad; easier to use than the "Collider: Triangle Structure" patch
  • New Renderers:
    • Added "Render: Structure" patch — outputs a structure suitable for GLTools
    • Added "Render: Kineme3D Objects" patch — renders a Kineme3D Object at every particle
    • Added "Render: Textured" patch — simple renderer which adds support for a single texture
    • Added "Render: VBO" patch — renders points, lines, triangles, or quads
  • New Objects:
    • Added "Object: Boid" patch — implements the Craig W. Reynolds boid algorithm
    • Added "Object: Gravitate" patch — implements particle-to-particle inverse-square gravitation
  • Added "Backface Culling" option for all colliders
  • Some performance optimizations
  • Fixed compatibility with PerformanceInspector
  • Fixed "Motion: Shear" setting when using "Render: Standard"
  • Fixed ports to allow publishing and use with "Input Splitter" and "(De)Multiplexer" as a Virtual Port
  • Fixed crash related to updating Settings panels while the composition is stopped
  • Fixed crash related to removing a live object from the Scene or an Emitter
  • Fixed crash related to removing a live object from an Emitter of Emitters
  • Fixed rendering of collision meshes when using "Render: Standard"
  • Improved force rendering — more forces now honor the Color property
  • Renamed most patches to be more intuitive and to take up less space in the composition editor

Help guide the future of ParticleTools by participating in our usability poll.